The promise
One day, after another of Tony's polite reminders, my mother said to him: "If you leave us and go to the Jesuits, who will look after us when we grow old?" Tony replied: "Mum, I am going to pray to God that he will give you another son to look after you, and if my prayers are answered, will you allow me to join the Jesuits?"

My mother, then 40 plus, readily agreed, knowing that her chances of getting pregnant were remote. I believe it was a mother's desperate way of hanging on to her son for as long as she could. Well... some months later, she fell pregnant! And from what I am told, Tony never brought up the subject of joining the Jesuits till he saw newborn me. In fact he did not enquire about my mother's or my condition when he barged into the maternity room. His first words were: "My prayers have been answered. God has given you a boy, so now I can become a Jesuit priest!"

The promise redeemed
Time passed, and the subject of his wanting to join the Society of Jesus was occasionally raised, but my parents still did not give it very serious consideration. Then, in 1947, some months into his final year at school, Tony attended a careers counselling course. He came home and wanted to discuss his future seriously with our parents. That dreaded subject about the Jesuits was revisited and this time they knew he was very serious indeed. So my mother said she would be happy for him to join the church, but not the Jesuits. She had heard, quite correctly, that novices were not allowed home for the first three years and that family visits to the seminary were restricted to three per year. She could not come to terms with such restrictions, so she suggested he enter the seminary of the secular order instead of the Jesuits. He replied that if that was her wish, he would rather join my father in the Indian Railways as a trainee, but that he would be terribly unhappy with this choice of career.