Everywhere you look there is enough to irritate, to provoke, to flip one's internal switches to red.
But doing something, and that too something constructive is usually a different story. Most of us are too distracted by the flotsam and jetsam of our lives, and the constant stream of entertainment that we muffle ourselves with...
There is however, a fiesty German lady who lives up in the Himalaya - who marches to the beat of a different drummer.
We are, of course, talking about our own Christa Eicher (nee Fischer).
Many years ago, as a young follower of Jesus Christ, she plunged into a life of Christian service with a then obscure group of Jesus-freaks (before the term took root) that became known as Operation Moblisation. Here is a flier telling folks about the 1962 outreach in Europe and high-lighting the fact that this was a movement of people from many nationalities who all were united in Christ.
Our dear mother's photo is in the upper left hand corner, announcing that she was from Germany.
In the middle of the lower row is a photo our bro Hoise Birks - the first African-american to join Send the Light (which later morphed into "OM"). Hoise eventually came out to India and served here for some years, and then was a pastor and missions-mobiliser in the US. His book 'A New Man' is well-worth the read. This week we heard that Hoise was called to meet Jesus face-to-face. Another one of the saints who have run their race well.
On this side of the world, by God's grace, a sprightly 79 year old is still kicking up a storm.
Mum has been saddened by the garbage littering the Landour Christian Cemetery. It She wrote a few letters - and then has jumped in to doing some thing. Doing the right thing. And getting others involved.
Mum, along with our faithful Vikram, recruited 6 teenagers to the cause. Their combined ages may just top Mum's almost 4 score years - but all pitched in and picked up. Including our lady from "Allemagne,"
At the end of the morning they hauled up 59 kgs of rubbish. All from the graveyard. Stuff that has certainly not fallen from the sky.
The merry team was met at the road by Sundeep and a colleague who had been asked to come and cart the trash away for recycling.
You can get tired just thinking of what Mum does. But in the issue of trash - we are fully with her. It's very true that a basic human deterioration is the way that public space inevitable seems to look shabby and dirty. Part of it is the strange phenomena - that if there is already some trash on the ground - more gets added.
The following pieces were picked up by me in the period of a 3 min walk between 'Bethel Villa' (our home on the HBM campus) and my office.
Picking up and putting in the trash helps seed a landscape that is clean, rather than what we so ofthn have in our dear nation of Bharat - a sea of plastic bags - being blown around willy-nilly.
So we salute the Lady on the mountain and her 7 helpers!
Going back to last weekend's 'sharm-dhan' up in Mussoorie....With a good day's work done under their belts, the happy 8-some wandered back to Shanti Kunj.
There an Enid-Blyton-worthy lunch awaited them.
Needless to say, we are super proud and thankful for our wonderful mother.
We only wished we all were not living so far from each other!
'Mum' Christa Eicher did a great job mobilizing this clean-up. The take was 27 kgs of glass, some broken some whole beer and liquor bottles, plus 32 kgs of plastic and paper and other waste. The glass will be recycled. The problems of waste in the cemetery will be repeated: in fact, I have been told that names of at least three of the miscreants are known by some on the cemetery committee.
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