Rabid dogs

I have somehow overlooked my drivers license expiring. 20 years is a long time - and I recently found out that it had expired in May! That too the dear document was a shabby paper jobbie from Dehra Dun when it was still part of Uttar Pradesh. It will take some time to get a brand new smart-card style license made here. So till I get my new one I am doing a lot of walking these days.

The other day I saw something I had never seen. A thin, mangy dog with foamy saliva dripping from his mouth. It was the thinnest dog imaginable - and seemed oddly detached - circling round itself in the middle of the shady street near our office. But it had the menace of that dreaded disease of rabies all over it.

While getting a ride back from a late-night church leaders meeting - my friend told me that one of the reasons we have so many dogs roaming around was because of Menaka Gandhi's animal welfare activism while she was in power. "Prior to her the dog squad would come and take the animals and drop them in the jungle - where they became food for wild animals. Now they are sterilised and returned back to where they are picked up."

Dog sterilisation doesn't seem to be working - there are plenty of mongrels of all shapes and sizes - and some of the most equisitely horrible suppurating wounds all over their backs - living wrecks.

But back to rabies. Every now and then our friends will bring a child in and say that a dog bit it. Off to the government hospital for the rabies vaccine!

Sadly - a decade ago - a little boy in Mussoorie did not get the vaccine in time. His parents had come to India from the US and were living in Mussoorie - and their son was a friend of the animals. It seems that the little boy was never bitten - but often licked by the stray dogs he befriended. Much later the parents found out to their sadness that the strange disease their son had was rabies. He was shifted to a hospital in Delhi but of no avail. He died.

Amazingly, it is now possible to survive rabies. A young woman lives in the US today as testimony to it. Joanna Giese has now survived for 5 years after she was found to have rabies - and given an induced coma by physicians who then administered anti-virals to knock out the rabies in her - before bringing her back to consciousness.

The heart of any good public health practitioner is always warmed with miracle survivor stories, is made happy to see people get prompt treatment after early detection, but really rejoices when the root cause of the disease is removed. The time has come - and is long overdue - for our dear wandering mongrels to be promoted to the happy hunting grounds - and only those hounds who have human care-givers looking directly after them to be allowed to roam the streets of Mumbai town. Alas, to do such a thing would incur the wrath of sundry citizens. In the mean-time more rabid dogs stagger the streets.

Services no longer required

Sheba met a young woman last week. Young in years. Terribly old in experience.

Sunita - as we will call her - was married off early. Nothing unusual in that. Things fell apart. She and her husband divorced. She was home again.

Her parents married her off again. Her new husband had a very sick mother. Sunita also got sick. She was caring for her mother-in-law. It got so bad that Sunita could not look after her mother-in-law and went to stay with her parents to recuperate. In the mean time she found out that she was HIV positive.

After recovering her health some-what, Sunita went back to her husband. Shortly afterwards her mother-in-law died. She told her husband that she was HIV positive and urged him to get tested. He refused. He also told her that she was no longer wanted. He had married her only to look after his mother. He sent her home. Shamed. Soiled goods.

Sunita's parents are livid with her. They accuse her of being a prostitute. She is back with them.

A few weeks ago, Sunita started going to a prayer meeting in the slum she lives in. The lady who runs the meeting put her in touch with a couple who have been reaching out to people with HIV in their area. They brought Sunita to meet Sheba.

Life is really rotten for Sunita. But she still breathes. She still wants to live. She still is precious.

Behind the glamour and glitz of money-fast-bucks-success driven Mumbai - are thousands of Sunitas. Lives crumpled and crushed in the cruelty of the get-ahead-use-people-as-trash culture that we see around us.

We are grateful for simple people who are reaching out in love to Sunita and others like her. They do not have magic solutions, but they care. They are loving and praying with her. They are seeking some form of reconciliation with her parents. They are holding out hope - to people whose services are no longer required.

Caste in stone?

I went to Enoch's school today to sign a register confirming his admission into First Standard.

It will only take 10 minutes - the circular said - and it only took that long. The line of parents quickly formed and we trundled into the school and dutifully checked up in the register whether the name had been written correctly as well as the other details.

In the over-sized register, with its neat annotations in blue ink, one interesting column stood out from the rest.

It said "caste".

I looked up and down the column. Most children had had the word "Hindu" written there.

Enoch had the word "Christian" next to his name.

The man ahead of me was a Jain. Next to his son's name was "Hindu."

The school is run by a Jain trust - so could hardly be faulted for not knowing who Jains are.

But the question remains. Why are so still so obsessed about classifying people into groups? What value is there for the school to put this designation on a child?

And what is our real identity? Is my son a Christian because his parents have put that word in the 'religion' box on his admission form? We certainly did not write 'Christian' at anytime where a question of 'caste' was asked. In fact I don't even recall the word appearing in any of the admission forms. If there was a question we must have left it blank.

The reason I had to come and give my signature is because the details of Enoch Anand Graceson Eicher (all the names we have genorously endowed our son with *were* spelled correctly - thank you!) will now become part of Enoch's official identity. His school certificate will be used later at various times. But with the names I have given, we also see Enoch being put into a certain box.

Mind you, I did not have much time to ruminate on all of this at the time. The circular said it would take 10 minutes to do. I had budgeted about that much time to get the job done. I signed and left.

And so my darling boy gets his first bit of branding. Its a bit of a cruel world isn't it? Not that we have to buy into it - not that we have to kow-tow to everything around us - but the fact is that the folks who set the categories (or purpose or otherwise) usually come up trumps. As Enoch grows up, we will have lots of opportunities to talk about these things - but strong structures are in place - to keep people in their places.

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Just one more little potshot and then I'll sign off. When I meet folks the inevitable question comes up: where are you from? 4 decades of answering the question - and I still on occasion find that it gets my goat (o.k. - change that to 'often gets my goat' - or bakri!).

I usually bring out the potted family history - but most of the time my interrogator is not actually listening. He is waiting for a cue. Once I say that my great-grandfather was born in Canada, then there is a smile on his face, a relaxation - a little bit of internal silent dialogue goes on in the dear man's head: "Ah! Now we know where you are from. You are Canadian!"

The fact that we have 105 years of history in apna Bharat. The fact that my dear G-Granddad was a mennonite-french-descended-switzerland-emigrated chappie who himself went to the US of A doesn't matter. A box has been ticked. A label has been found. He's a foreigner. A Canadian. That's who he his.

And we are like this only. We love to classify and categorize. Our restless minds unsettled by the mish-mash, by the uncertain. We need order. Who is who. Where are you from. What box do you fit into. No wonder the Brits did so well here for so long...

Living art

We eat beauty. We drink it by the clear cold glass-full of water.

This evening we consumed it by the bite-sized dosa-and-peanut-n-coconut-chutney mouthfulls - with soft hot idlis as chasers. Very stuffed we were at the end. And then some 44% cocoa dark chocolate while we read Character Sketches as a family - reclining in a big bed. How amazing this life that we have to live. How precious the moments of it.

And all around us a blaze of colour blesses our eyes. And waits to be transcribed, transposed and illuminated.

Earlier in the evening Enoch finished this study in colour and abstract form. "Send it to Stefan uncle by email" he chortled. I decided to go one up and put it up this way.

It is just one of the colourful studies Enoch has done in his note-book - along with his school studies. As a conscientious 1st standard student he is no stranger to home-work. But what a joy to see the colourful pictures punctuating the pages of pencil-writing that Enoch has already worked through this year.

Speaking of our amazingly artistic - and art-promoting brother, Stefan and Neeru (and Ashish and baby Anjali) are about to go to the US for a development tour - they will be meeting with current and potential partners for their Art for Change foundation.

One of the highlights of the upcoming tour is a series of lectures and interactions with students and donors at our alma mater of Taylor University. Another event is the Limner Society's 9th annual art gathering - this time in Orlando, Florida. Finally - Stefan and Neeru and kids will have the joy of being with Mum and Dad at our brother Upendra's wedding to Sathya in New York on October 24th.

Do write to seicher@fh.org if you would like to meet up with them.

The final frontier

I am a sucker for space.

Maybe it was being born in the last year of the 60's. Perhaps it was reading those stacks of old Popular Science magazines from the late 50s and early 60s in the Alliance library in Akola. Maybe it was the sheer romance of leaving the planet behind and soaring into worlds unknown.

The release of the image above - taken recently by the refurbished Hubble space telescope - rekindles the old fire. Why does everything have to be so totally, achingly beautiful? To think of the vast immensity of the structures captured by the camera - and to see so much luminous beauty just boggles the mind. On another level, it seems to me that the photo looks suspiciously like a comical pointing elephant too.

On one hand the awesome wonders of inter-stellar creation. On the other the amazing delight of recognising beauty - taking place within the mysteries of my head.

No wonder space will remain - has to remain - something to be awed about. How quickly we delve into the mundane and humdrum - to drown out the call of beauty.

The poet wrote so many years ago: I see the night-sky, the works of your fingers, the moon and stars suspended in space - oh what is man that you are mindful of him?

Disclosure

By God's grace we see people with HIV living longer, and living better than ever before.

Thanks to access to life-extending medications, many are living well beyond what we would have expected even as little as 5 years ago.

Since we have started a testing and counselling centre, we are also seeing a different set of people as well. Till now Jeevan Sahara Kendra was working primarily with the very ill - and with their survivors. Now we are coming into contact with people who are earlier in their HIV disease. The sick welcomed home-visits. Those who recently found out about their HIV - and are not very sick - often do not want to be met at home. There is too much at stake for them. Loss of face can mean loss of everything if others find out they have HIV.

Most put off sharing about their HIV status with others for another day. Coping by denying / procrastination.

Despite the medical advances - we still see the deep roots of fear and loathing around HIV.

How to over come this? Our media has had campaigns - our film stars have showed up at 'AIDS Prevention concerts'. Everyone seems to know at least a little about HIV. But at the same time the deep fear and visceral hostility and apathy continue.

A recent contact who sadly succumbed to a TB infection last month is a case in point. After his untimely death almost none of the relatives came to his funeral. Some came wearing masks (this was prior to the main swine-flu scare in Mumbai). The family as so grateful when our team visited the day after the death and spent time talking and listening to the remaining members.

With so much fear - is it even possible to share one's HIV status - especially if it is HIV positive?

We were challenged last month by Bobby Zachariah - who recently moved on after having served with the Salvation Army's AIDS programmes for the past 12 years. His point was that true community-based care will only happen when we start including the neighbours in care. And this only happens with disclosure. When people with HIV tell others about their status.

Our dear friend John Forbes challenged us on this at a retreat that he lead for Positive Friends of Faith. Quoting Psalm 51.6, he reminded us that God desires truth in the inner parts. As a person living with HIV - and thriving - John helped us see that understanding our status and coming to terms with the reality of it is essential for any real change and transformation to take place.

Its just so hard.

So many whom we are meeting these days want treatment. They just don't want others to know. Be it fear. Be it guilt. Men are not telling their wives that they are HIV positive. Women are not telling their partners that they have HIV. How to move forward? How to help our friends take a humble but active role in confronting their own HIV status?

And can we even move a step further?

Could we see disclosure as not a thing to fear, but a tool to empower? A way of stating clearly and participating fully in the community - even if there seems precious little community around? Could we expect God to help individuals own up to their loved ones? Can we see relatives and friends to support and forgive and encourage so that people with HIV can take the next step and live lives in the open instead of in hiding?

Its strange that though we have been involved with these issues so long, that we are still working on the essentials, the basics.

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I am due to lead a JSK staff counselling study on the topic of Disclosure on Friday. Prayers and suggestions most appreciated.

picture from the www - not known persons to us - for illustration only

Dinner in honour of Yashmeet

Yashmeet - the wonderful wife of Sheba's brother Peter celebrated her birthday on the 2nd of Sept.

We would have loved to get on a Kenya Airways or Air India flight and make the hop over the Arabian Sea to meet them in Nairobi.

Since we could not do that, we celebrated with a small supper - chappatis and channa - salad and dip - and a banana cake! A happy birthday song and the candles burning here reminded us of our loved ones scattered so far. We prayed for Yashmeet and Peter and their lovely daughter Anmol on this special day.

Blest be the ties that bind...