Former nun Sister Jesme talks to Aastha Atray Banan about her controversial autobiography Amen, in which she speaks out about sexual abuse in a convent

Sister Jesme, the author of Amen: The Autobiography of a Nun, insists the Church asked for trouble through their repeated efforts to have her declared insane.
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Jesme, who started her religious training in June 1974 taught at two Catholic colleges in Thrissur she was vice-principal at one and principal at another, for three years each.

She left the Congregation of Mother of Carmel in August 2008, after applying for voluntary retirement from service in the college.
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This book, which she says she chose to write as "people around me have the right to know what happens inside the prison-like enclosures in their very midst", was first published in Malayalam, but Jesme wanted it to be u00a0released in English.
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Although foreign and Indian TV news channels and papers chased her for the story, she chose to pen u00a0her autobiography.
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The book, which is a shocking expose of what goes on behind the four walls of a convent, talks of nuns who come from underprivileged backgrounds being treated as menial labourers, of the church trying to keep the SC/ST seats for anyone who can afford to pay for them, and of rampant same sex and opposite sex relations between nuns and priests.

The author, who alleges that she was molested by a fellow nun, now lives a "life of peace" in a hamlet three hours from Calicut as a "law-abiding" citizen. "This book had to be written not only to prove that I was sane, but it's also a plea for the reformation of the church," she says in an interview over the phone.

You had been noticing the goings-on of the Church since the time you joined the convent. How did you keep the faith?
I am different from other nuns I am not being boastful, but I was born with many talents, so I rose above all of it. Also, suffering made me a better person. I have suffered so much that now I have a doctorate in it (chuckles). I can stand up against anything.