Steam

Come summer and the magic of the train would take over. The long journeys which ended up in the improbable cool of the hill-station of Kodaikanal - where my father went to school as a boy - were longingly looked forward to during the term.

Finally the day would arrive and off we would go to Victoria Terminus to get the Madras-bound train. The bustle - the clatter - but most of all - the sheer majestic splendour of a huge black steam engine...

What the journey was for our parents I now can only shudder at - but to us kids it was pure bliss. To look out the window and see the wide expanses of country side - little villages flitting by - the occasional boy waving at the train in which we were travelling - the crazy flickering of light from the coach windows at night - now near and now far as the train furrowed through the night.

For me - especially when I was a bit older - the real pleasure was sticking my head out the door of the moving train and seeing if I could see the engine while the cool air pressed into my face. With the air usually came something else. Soot. I used to be pretty caked in it by the end of a journey. The first bathroom I was washed in after the trip being well soiled with the carbon deposits washed off our my little body.

As Sheba will testify - I still love the train trips - still love getting off at almost any station and walking along the platform - seeing if I can find a somewhat current newspaper and a cup of watery chai.

Do I miss the steam? Only the romance of seeing a majestic coil of smoke billowing out of a steam engine in the distance. I am happy for the carbon deposits to remain safely in their coal beds.

A small child with AIDS

The shrivelled little boy looks like the stock image burned in our mind of an AIDS-afflicted child from Africa.

Except that he is admitted at our Jeevan Sahara Kendra centre.

Little Satish is skin and bones. And lots of diarrhoea. His father - Mr. Langru - died 2 months ago. His mother has HIV as well and is a rag picker. They are living on a pavement in a shack. Satish has HIV too. He is severly dehydrated and malnourished. But it is the diarrhoea that is doing the job of killing him now. And the lack of family.

We have admitted the little boy with the hope he will revive. Do say a prayer for him. His mother and two other siblings will be at the centre for a week. He doesn't know how to use a commode and so defecates on the floor of the bathroom. Repeatedly - since he has diarrhoea.

Our hope is that he will be rehydrated with the oral rehydration solution we have for him - and that he will start gaining a bit of weight soon.

We also hope that we will be able to get his mother off the streets. She harbours dreams that a man who works as a trucker will come and marry her and look after her and the kids. Unlikely as he already has his own family. Talk is cheap - but in situations of misery the cheapest words can be latched onto like a leech.

Mrs. Langru does have relatives. Her sister says that she has asked Mrs. Langru to stay with her. Mrs. Langru seems to say otherwise. What is the sum of miseries which have gone on over the years to have reduced the family to such destitution?

Remember little Satish for a moment. And his mother and siblings too. And our JSK staff who are lovingly looking after them. And believing in a miracle.

Balloon man

As kids we would see them on the roads. The balloon men. Holding an improbable number of balloons - some in the most amazing shapes - like monkeys and flowers. The cost was always the barrier - but it didn't stop us from looking - and looking pleadingly at our parents.

They still walk the streets - but we seem to see less of them (are we less on the streets?). The man above is walking a lonely road in Afghanistan - far from the hustle and bustle of Mumbai / Thane.

At the end of the day - what do the balloon men do? When 11 PM comes and no one is on the streets anymore. Do they deflate their wares? Do they count the increments of 3 and 5 rupees they have received over the evening? Do they eat some street food or trudge to their little holes-in-the-wall for their plate of rice and dal? Do they buy a packet of country hooch in a plastic bag?

There is a lot of colour and a lot of drudgery in this fallen world of ours.

Learning

Question and answers around the dining room table tonight:

Who is your most important teacher?

Answer from Asha and Enoch: "God, then our parents, then the uncles and aunties at church who teach us how to love, then our teachers at school."

Oh that we would keep this in mind throughout life.

So much of the time we spend muddling along on our own - when our great teacher - the wonderful counselor is there to help us.

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Its been a great day - I was in town to meet with church leaders - we are preparing for a one-day meeting with Philip Yancey at the end of the year. Sheba took the kids out for a play in the play ground. Saroj - the lady who helps us at home - gave us the good news that her son had been admitted into junior college and her 3rd son had shifted schools. Asha and Enoch napped before Asha had her violin lesson in the afternoon. Hrishav, Urvashi and Jason came over - and their mothers joined Sheba for a ladies fellowship at Doris Jayakar's place. Yours trully played pictionary with the kids. Ryan, Reneta and Thomas came over for a time of prayer about the youth work - and having just visited the home of a family with HIV. We discussed and prayed and I had a prayer with one of the lads. We then went over to Lok Hospital to see little Joshua Thomas who was admitted earlier today with wheezing. He is getting better and we were able to talk and pray with his Dad. Then back home (10 PM by now) and a late supper and washing up and now it is past 12. Though we are tired, we really want to thank God for so many wonderful opportunities to experience Him today. He is a wonderful counsellor!

A vision

CORINTH. A network of Christian Faith-based organisations and churches who have a passion to work with people with HIV in the greater Mumbai area.

We met yesterday to think, pray, listen, discuss. It was good to be together. Good to meet old friends and colleagues. Good to meet some new faces. Good to think about how we can move forward. Good to listen to a good God.

In our small break-out group we were 5. Three of us knew each other from ages. The other 2 were new - a man and a woman. The woman is a volunteer with a local church. She shared her joy in meeting a lady with HIV from her church - and praying for her at home. The man did not seem to have much to say. We asked him what he was doing - and he said 'nothing.' We asked about what work he did with HIV, and he looked confused.

After a time of prayer - we asked if anyone had any pictures that came to their mind. Our group had three such pictures.

1. A sceptre - which one of the members saw and felt reminded us of God's favour on His children doing work in His name.
2. The second image was how the people built up the wall closest to their homes - during Nehemiah's time. The sister whose mind this came to talked about each one of us working faithfully at the place where were planted - and thus seeing the full wall built as a result of many small local actions.
3. The final image was of a jug of water being poured out - and many glasses being filled. It struck us how apt this way for the work of the different members of the CORINTH network - many needs being met - many thirsty lives being blessed.

The last image was shared by the man.

At the end of the programme, I was having tea with Ravindranath - a gem of a man who is part of the a church prison ministry. We were talking about the lives that were changed by visiting prisoners in jail.

Ravi mentioned that he had brought one of his friends with him who was just out of jail. A man who had come to know Jesus while behind bars - and who lived nearby the venue for the day's meeting.

It was the man who had shared about the vision of the jug of water - and the filling of the glasses.

How wonderful to be refreshed by this dear man. How God can take a life - any life - and turn it into a blessing.

Bread

We have been in the Mumbai area since late 2001 now. Among the many culture shocks I had when coming here as an adult (and that too straight from Jharkhand) was seeing my East Indian neighbours squeezing packets of bread to choose the softest ones (leaving the slightly harder and well squeezed rejects for the next customer). Today I squeeze away too.

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When we got here the price of a loaf of bread was 7 rupees. Yesterday the latest increase brought that up to Rs. 13. Almost 100% inflation over 7 years according to the Eicher bread index.

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We don't even see 25 paisa coins any more. As I rediscover my childhood hobby of coin collecting (in the guise of 'Asha's hobby') - it is sobering to think that there just don't seem to be any coins left. Even 50 paisa coins are rare with most products now priced only in rupees. It is said that the metal in the 1 rupee coins is now worth more than the value of the rupee - and that in eastern India folks are hoarding them and smuggling them to Bangladesh where they are made into shaving blades!

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An article I read recently compared the lives of a family living in an appartment - with that of their maid living in the slum next door. We fit roughly into the category of the former. The line that really knocked me out was that the appartment dwellers income had increased 5 fold in the past 8 years. That is way, way ahead of inflation. At the same time, though the article did not say so, the wages of the maid will hardly have done so.

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With our burgeoning middle and upper classes creating an almost insatiable demand for goods and services - we forget the poor and not so well off. The sad looking watchmen at our appartment building - for example - who are rotated regularly by their employment agencies. Contract employees they officially get Rs. 2000 per month for 7 days of 12 hour shifts.

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A Rs. 1 increase for us in bread is not such a big loss. It adds about Rs. 20 - 25 to the monthly food bill. For our friends who work as watchmen it is huge. We will grimace a bit and carry on. What will they do as the cost of rice continues to rise? Will they borrow from others (sometimes at 10% monthly interest!) - or try and cut costs even more - or have a drink and try to forget everything?

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We have had 13 solid consecutive years of a 'normal monsoon' - most of the monsoonal rains meeting most of India. We just need one poor monsoon to see many, many people who are on the edge of survival going over the edge. Though our local monsoon started with a bang - it seems to be on the whimper side of things now. I talked with Jagdish Solanki from Kedgaon yesterday and he said that they have not had any rain...

There be giants

Rahul, one of our JSK staff, shared in the morning devotions about the nation of Israel at the threshhold of the promised land.

They sent in spies to see what was there - the majority report was: fruitful but fearful. There were giants there - in whose eyes we seemed like grass-hoppers.

Rahul shared that he had experienced this last week. Sheba had referred Rajiv to Sion hospital for treatment. Rahul was asked to go along. The discharge from the private hospital in Thane took a long time. When it was time to go, Rahul saw the vehicle - a big one - that the family brought. He noted that these were people of wealth. Their size itself was huge. They insisted that Rahul sit in the front seat. He felt very small and scared. What will these people think of me? he thought and prayed hard all the time the vehicle was moving to the city and Sion hospital.

But when he got to the casualty department everything changed. As if in a dream, Rahul found himself able to guide the whole admission process smoothly. "The hospital treated me as if I was one of their staff" - doors were opened to him - while the portly and wealthy relatives were told to wait. Rahul was able to meet a doctor immediately who gave a sympathetic hearing and immediately started the admission process. God's hand was very much at work - and Rahul shared that he had seen his own personal giants of fear and feeling small and worthless defeated by the power of God himself.