growing old

Growing old is a part of life. But a part we usually try to hide - or bury often rather brutally (cf. a certain young man who died at 50 after a failed quest to remain a boy forever).

In working with people with HIV we deal largely with people in their mid-30s. People like the young man who found out that he had HIV today. He had been sick - and his brother-in-law had know about his diagnosis for 6 months already - but the man himself had not been told the truth till this morning - and then we were called in to help explain what it means.

But spare a thought for those who are not looking after small children anymore. Those who don't have living parents - because they themselves are aged.

This evening we had a heart-breaking call from S. India. A couple we know well have left the city and settled in a small town where they felt they would be looked after more than in the anonymity of their flat in urban Mumbai.

Their children are abroad. Married. Settled. With kids of their own.

The parents are living through their HIV here. They have visited their children several times - but the cold of their adopted countries is too much for them.

Recently one of their children transferred back for some months and called the parents to be with her in one of the booming metropolises that dot the South.

But now she has returned to her family and further career. Her mother and father are alone.

We asked "how are you". The voice on the phone was crying.

Auntie has been under psychiatric care for years - with good results. But her husband is now the one that she is caring for rather than he for her.

She is frightened and alone. "I have lost my mind" she said. The medications they are taking for HIV are being paid by their children abroad - but they do not have the on-going care and follow-up they need.

The contrast to our own life is so stark. Here we were holding our mobile in our hands - while Asha did her home-work, and Enoch brought various lego toys for inspection and advice. The comfort and love that we are surrounded with is phenomenal. The options that are at our disposal seem positively God-like.

How to comfort across the kilometers, across the crackly monsoonal airwaves?

We did as best we could. Feeble sounding words, but heart-feltly meant. A prayer for Auntie and Uncle - spoken to God but transmitted via the mobile to Auntie's ear. Telling them that we had prayed for them as a couple last week in our JSK team prayers. Words of comfort and encouragement. Then later this evening, prayers with the children before they slept.

In the dark of the night, as I get ready to lie down myself - the house is totally quiet other than the whirr of the fans and the croak of frogs outside and the occasional car. At this time I think about what it means to be old and without the love and support of our own.

So many with HIV live in the double bind. They are too afraid of telling the wider community (even their wider family) about their condition because of the horror and revulsion HIV elicits. At the same time they are at a point where even if they are not suffering from active HIV disease (which a lot are as well) the normal wear-and-tear of getting old is kicking in - and they need the help which the elderly with HIV are not getting.

A friend of ours came by about 2 years ago and did a focus group on elderly care givers of people with HIV. Spare a thought for those who are growing old and have the additional challenge of living with HIV.

Mobile calls

The mobile phone is an amazing device.

(Almost) wherever you are - people can get in touch with you.

Today two young men called up. Different men. Same topic. They had had a sexual exposure and wanted to talk about it.

The first call came in the morning while we were worshipping in our house fellowship. I called back later since the phone was on silent. The second was in the evening and came during the annual general meeting of our housing society. I left the room - talked to the man - and came back.

Both men want to be tested. Both men were grateful to talk. I feel humbled to know through the combination of the simple website we have for JSK (www.JeevanSahara.wordpress.com) and our contact number: 9323712065, that we were able to play a small part in helping bring real change. What a blessing to serve as a link for people to call up and find out - and gain peace of mind - as well as come in contact with people who can help them change their behaviours - from the inside out.

Chains

Man was created to be free - yet everywhere he is in chains.

How many of the chains are self-imposed? How many are ones that we have become so used to that we don't even think of them as impediments anymore?

Talking to those who had decided to follow him, Jesus said that "you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

Are we brave enough to take a good look at where we actually are? What are my priorities - what things do I value - will they last?

With 1/2 of 2009 already having slipped away - its good to take stock.

This weekend we met two families who were going through deep waters. Though we didn't know it - they actually live quite close to each other on the other side of Mumbai town. We spent time listening and talking to them. Both are from the same linguistic back ground. Both have young people who have faced serious and unexpected setbacks in their educational careers. Both have shed many tears.

But the difference is this: one family is trying to do things on their own - working it out - saying that everything is alright - while at the same time finger-pointing at each other. The other is sorrowful but trusting God. The latter family needs comfort and guidance just as much as the former - but there is a huge difference in their outlook and hope. Knowing God does not mean smooth sailing - but it does mean that in the rough waters they know someone is with them.

Chains? Unseen and unacknowledged in the former family. Being recognised and worked through in the latter - with help from loving Father.

Come unto me, all you who are weak and heavy-laden - and I will give you rest.

Looking down, looking across

Spy satellites are funny things. They show you lots of houses from the top - but do they really show you what's going on at the ground level?

We live in an age of google maps. We now have information at our fingertips that puts our childhood spy shenanigans to shame. Stuff that we would read about in awe as kids now is dated. It seems almost quaint to think of the Russians and the Yanks battling each other for supremacy by sending sophisticated aircraft like the U2 over each others countries and proxies - or even better - by launching crude satellites - when far more than that is now available thanks to high resolution earth pics from space - and photo merging programmes that allow us to zoom around at will on the landscape. The pics may be a year or two old - and taken on different days to ensure that the landscape is all well lit - but our landscape does not change so quickly anyway.

There have already been plenty of voices suggesting that our national security may be at risk. Others have different views of course. But it does seem that the terrible attacks on Mumbai last year were meticulously planned using google earth and gps finders.

What I saw today, however, was something of the other side. The BBC website has overlaid some of the clips of the current protests in Tehran, allowing you to 'see' where the protests are being held. Take a look here

Its somewhat bizarre to juxtapose the hustle and bustle of a protest on top of the largely silent streets that the satellite photos show us. There are of course images of buses and cars if you zoom up to the highest power - but these are stationary, fuzzy blobs. Google earth stops you in mid-air, above a silent and sunlit - and basically sleeping world. The genius of the BBC map is that you can click onto the places where people have shot footage of what is taking place on the ground.

I must say that I found the combination on the BBC map irresistible - to be able to see live action from where the action takes place was wonderful. I guess I was born just a few years too early. Looking at the Epi2000 programme I just downloaded, with its primitive GIS mapping programme I wish I could have had a class at university that brought the two together in a simple way. I know I can probably teach myself, but where to find the time?

Anyone out there who would like to help us map out our work - please do stop by Thane! It would be so powerful to see information vital to our 200 plus HIV positive friends play itself out across Thane. With a simple GPS reading from near their homes - and only using code numbers to maintain confidentiality- we could see how the different aspects of our positive friends lives: look at where people are taking what kinds of ART, map out treatment compliance, find out ways that access to services are being taken up, check out the locations of widows and orphans....

But with all of this, the basic fact remains: we know what people are going through. Beyond maps - we need loving hands and gentle hearts and strong and clear minds to meet and help our friends living with HIV. Mapping has its place. But the real work is actually going and listening. Taking a hot meal over and encouraging. Accompanying someone to the govt. ART centre to start on treatment.

Monsoon - come soon

Its been raining today. Off and on.

Raining enough to get me a bit wet. Enough to have me put the raincoat in the dickey of our family Honda (scooter that is - not 'four-wheeler) - and to have to retrieve it mid-journey twice.

The monsoon is due to officially open this years deluge in Mumbai / Thane today or tomorrow. We can expect tons of water. Literally. Falling from the sky.

Alas, most of our nation - esp. the northern states are still parched. The monsoon is only 10 days late according to our weather pundits - but 10 days can seem like years.

And there is no saying how much it will 'yield' this year.

We have had something like 13 years in a row of 'normal' monsoons. That has translated into 13 years of by and large good crops across the countries. There have of course been shortages here and there - but the bulk of the country has been pretty well-watered.

Until now. The government has just announced that this monsoon is likely to be 'below normal'.

Pray for rain. Without water our plants (both green and steel) wither. And the knock-down effect always hits the poor harder.

Here in Thane we are enjoying the coolness of air and the splashiness of water. Would that it would continue - and would that the rest of our parched land also get its share of monsoon joy.

We live in very different worlds.

On one hand our involvement at Jeevan Sahara Kendra allows us a ring side view of some of the most wrenching and wretching parts of people's lives.

On the other hand we inhabit an upper-middle-class world where things are very aspirational.

Sheba attended the 'orientation' for parents of this year's standard 1 students (of which Enoch is a proud member) this afternoon. The headmistress sagely coaxed the parents 'not to use the words exam for every test that the school holds".

At the end of the session there was a sea of demands from our fellow parents:
"tell the teachers to make sure our children eat all their tiffin"
"my son says they ate food without washing hands after doing their clay modelling"
"my son said the teacher told that 'girls are better than boys' - what will this do to him?"
"please have the children rotate in how they sit in class"
etc.

All this after just a single week of the new school year. Aspirations run high in our neck of the woods - and these aspirations breathe down the necks of the kids. And there are plenty of kids - a whopping 7500 attend this school. The classes are staggered so that maximum students are taught in the sprawling buildings - and even then more and more parents what their charges to be nurtured in this Jain Trust run institution.

Just next to JSK is another organisation which has been reaching out to women in prostitution. One of them had come with her son - leaving 'the trade' and hoping for a new life. Being HIV positive may have led the madame to let her go. I don't have the whole story, but we could tell that she was very happy to be out of the situation she was in. Her son, all of 3 was a tremendous joy to all - and to his mother as well.

About three months ago, this lady said that she wanted to go to her village. Though the request caused a vague unease in the heart of the folks looking after the home, they concurred and bought the rail tickets for the woman and accompanied her to the train.

No news after she left. None, that is, till a govt. social worker called on our neighbours and asked why the woman was back in prostitution in a nearby town. She had got on the train - and then got off and the first station and had taken her son with her back into the brothel life. Shocked and hurt, our neighbours could only pray - and that is what we did too. The lady communicated that she wanted to continue with the trade and did not want to come back.

Last week she returned. With her son. Prayers are being answered.

Now the hard part - to see this dear sister live out each God-given day as she develops into the person she was made to be - ditto for her little boy!


Last week this little family came back.

Kavi

How many of you would like to lift an Oscar?

Well Gregg Helvey - a fellow traveller who was in Mumbai last year to shoot a 17 minute short film on modern day slavery called Kavi has done just that.

Gregg not only lifted the prop of Oscar that was part of the decoration of the 2009 Student Oscars - his film actually won the gold medal!

For a look at the trailer of Kavi at the film's website

Now a deep breath and lets see how far the film will go in the main Oscars.

In the meantime, we have so many young boys who are condemned to a life-time of labour all around us. Slaves to others. Slaves to themselves. Slaves to habits. Slaves to the fear of change - and the crippling worldview of anger and street smarts that continues to hold people into stupid poverty - rather than moving them into the potential that God has made them to be.

Our Lord said:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Luke 4.18-19