‘The story of a Friar'

‘Life is an ocean for us to sail on the yacht of experiences.' These words meant so little to me until recently I met a man of such promise and hope that I have learnt to appreciate life more than I ever did. This man in his late forties has a way of going about the challenges he had to face solely based on his deep understanding of life. He said, “I didn’t know that I had a mother whom I was addressing as sister and a father who was, for me, my brother. Only after I realized the truth in my seventh standard that I understood, I was treating my brothers and sisters indifferently.” Life doesn’t get weirder than this I guess.

Born to poor Christian family in Ujire, a small town close to the religious place of Dharmasthala, Fr. William Pinto was the seventh son of Late. Charles Pinto and Fluorine Pinto, who had already seen the death of their first three children due to various illnesses. Unable to see the pain , sorrow and suffering of the family, Fluorine’s father offered to raise the new born as his own child. The Pintos reluctantly agreed, thus, starting a strange chain of events where he remained unfamiliar to his own family for a long time. William's grandfather, a middle class man, with good intentions and a huge heart, took good care of him, providing him with education and all the facilities for growth until his sad demise when William had just stepped into high school. Another serious blow was dealt mentally to William as his constant companion, his aunt, with whom he had built a very strong bond, left to start a new life after her wedding the same year. “That was a very hard time for me. Lots of confusions, but the loss was very hard to recover from…” said William with his voice trailing towards the end.

Then came a new twist in William's life, a twist that he considers his true calling, a twist for which he has stood true to, a call he never regrets making. He joined the ‘Society of Jesus’ in Mangalore in his tenth standard. At the tender age of sixteen, his role in this huge ocean of life was being determined and the good news for him was that, he was the one deciding it. The next couple of years showed him what it actually meant to dedicate his life to the service of society. Inspired by the lives of the great saints of the past who had faced tremendous resistance and showed immense courage in walking the right path and rebuilding the society righteously, he chose to be a missionary transforming the life of the needy and poor. After completing his PUC from St. Aloysius college, Mangalore and his Degree from a college in Dharwad, he found a deep desire to work towards the upliftment of the tribal classes. With bachelors in Theology, Philosophy and Kannada literature, he felt that it was time that he walks in the path of the missionaries he had been idolizing all this while.

“I requested to go to the Northeast” he said. “I knew that I can do a lot of good work there and I was the only one who had asked for a shift to the northeastern province. I had a choice, either to pursue my higher education in some prestigious university or take up this endeavor of service. I chose the latter.”

It’s said that fortune always favors the brave and Fr. William is a living example. He was transferred to the Northeastern province and was sent to Arunachal Pradesh for acclimatization. There, he had to study the local languages, cultures and traditions of the locals and also learn to blend in well with them. On the second day of his arrival, he was to go to Bomdilla district headquarters to collect his Inner line Permit(ILP) when the vehicle he was travelling in met with a terrible accident thus hospitalizing him for two months. Though the accident shook him initially, he displayed great courage to scale up almost one hundred and twenty feet to be finally noticed by an old truck driver. He directed the old Sardarji towards his injured co-passengers, who had been seriously hurt during the accident. This act of selflessness and intrepidity defines Fr. William to the fullest. 

Another incident he vividly remembers seems like a story right out of a Bollywood movie. A sudden demise of a student of his boarding, after going home on vacation, created so much of unrest and chaos that he had to be rescued from the boy's parents by the police officials. 

 “A long sword was hanging by my neck when the police first saw me. I tried my best to convince the family of the boy that it was not our fault that he passed away due to an illness and we had provided him with the required medical attention during his stay at the hostel. Alas, all in vain.

 I was asked by the police to leave the place immediately. The commanding officer said that if I do not leave town, then it would seem like I’m violating his orders and he wouldn’t like that. But, the villagers stood by our side. They knew the hardwork we had put in to develop the place and the pains we would take to safeguard our students…” he says.

Being a Principal of a school in the naxal and other rebel infested area toughens a person up and forces him into looking at life with a much different perspective than any other normal person does. Fr. William Pinto will always be remembered for standing his ground in the face of all odds and combating all hardships by addressing the problems head on. He never compromised in spite of starring down the barrel of a loaded gun and it is this approach that sets him apart from the rest.

A student of MA English at St. Joseph’s college today, Fr. William Pinto is an inspiration in the quest of knowledge. Even though he is on the wrong side of 40s, his zeal and hunger for knowledge is unparalleled. The effort he takes to make it in time to all the classes, concentrate and work hard to excel in a subject he has little background in is something to strive for.

“I am actually very lucky that I was taken in by my grandparents. My sister never went to school and my brother had to drop out of school in search of work, to look after the family. I never faced these kinds of problems. So, I have to make the most of it I feel…” he says packing his bags to set out on a new venture of life.