Kids' rhymes

You can learn a lot by listening to children.

Yesterday I heard Asha and Enoch do a school-yard chant I had not heard before:

Hero Honda
Police ka danda
Kaise maare?
Aise....

They were in another room, playing by themselves. Intrigued, I asked them to do the chant in front of me. They did - doing it the classic school yard clapping of hands. The last line started with one finger - and with each round another was added - till the final bit - a small 'playful' slap on the face.

So lets 'deconstruct'.

This rhyme was certainly not around when I was in school.

For one "Hero Honda" wasn't even a glimpse on the horizon. This company is now "the world's single largest two-wheeler motorcycle company".

So we have someone with a motor cycle.

Then enter the police. Not just a normal policeman, but the 'Police ka Danda' the infamous 'lathi' - a bamboo pole used with considerable force in various situations.

A recent photo gives an example. In this case - Police vs. Lawyers in Kashmir. The lawyers seem to be giving it back just as good as they are getting it.

So the question "Kaise maare" - is how does the policeman hit?

Aise - like this!

Believe me, policemen in our blessed land do not tap as lightly as my children did in their game. A friend of ours recently spent a night in custody at a police station and told about hearing the cries of a man being beaten up at 4 AM. The 'police ka danda' is used, usually quite viciously.

There is a real fear of the policeman. This fear is used by many men in khaki to have their way - bullying others - taking things without paying for them etc. I understand that there are even clear bribes given when someone is taken into custody so that they will not be beaten by the dreaded 'danda.'

What I found amazing was how this fear has been brought out in a children's rhyme. Who came up with it? Was it a child? Was it a mother whose husband had been in a lock-up? Who put the 'Hero Honda' bit together with the 'Police ka danda'? Someone who had been booked for not having a license (rare - most give a small bribe and keep driving)?

Tiffin

One of the joys of being a Dad is packing the tiffin for Asha and Enoch each day. Most days its pretty simple - a sandwich or two - some biscuits perhaps - the odd banana - maybe a pancake left over from breakfast.

But today I had the joy of putting in two hot idlis and some fresh coconut + peanut chutney. Thanks to Sheba's hard work the kids had a royal treat. I added a chocolate each that their Uncle Peter had sent from Kenya.


There is so much joy in small things. In being able to be part of our children's lives as they grow and develop. In the pleasure of food and books and word games. In reading the Bible together and discussing what it means. In the games and shows that they put on for us.

The sad part is how the 'grown-up' flaws of worry and irritability seep in at times. We mess up - and then fess up. God is very very good at forgiving us.

One of the greatest blessings we have as a family is to be so close to our workplace - and to be able to be so flexible with how we structure the work - and to have children who so lovingly participate in their own ways with what Mummy and Daddy are doing.

With the kids having afternoon school - I am at the office by 8 AM and come back by 11 AM. Sheba is in the clinic from 11 AM to 3 PM. I am with the kids till they get their bus at 12.30 PM before rejoining the office. Then we come back at 6 PM and are there when the school bus brings Asha and Enoch back at 6.30. An amazing blessing - for one of us parents to be with our children the whole time outside their school hours!

And so the joys of making 'tiffins' - of ironing school uniforms - of seeing Asha do her violin practice and Enoch his keyboard exercises - of eating lunch together and washing up quickly before the bus comes down stairs. Of polishing shoes and praying and seeing them in the bus and off to their school day.

Having been a person who has never fantasized about what the future will hold - esp. about how my family will be - I can only say that it is a voyage of wonder to be with our two. Sheba and I are deeply grateful for these days. Long may they last!

Pictures of Hope

I just said in the last post that many have never had their stories told. Well, we do have a small group of artists called "Creative Conscience" who meet each year to explore a theme of social value together - and make art out of the experience.


After covering challenging topics like "religious violence, female foeticide, and economic disparity" the good folks at CC are exploring celebrating the reality of ‘hope’ through their art this year.

I am proud to say that our dear brother Stefan is one of the folks behind this movement, and that they are hosting the "Hope" Exhibition - now - at Reflection Art Gallery & Studios, New Delhi.

Gentle readers living in Delhi are cordially invited on 19th March, 6pm onwards for the opening ceremony at Reflection Art Gallery & Studios, 40A Shahpur Jat (near Asiad Village), New Delhi 110049. The rest of us will have to see it vicarously over the net at: www.reflectionart.com

Exhibition Dates: 19th March- 3rd April
Gallery Hours: 11 am - 7 pm Monday-Saturday
Need help? Call 011-26495088 or 9711104374.

How to get to Reflection Art:

Sand painting

Is it possible to express grief and hope through sand?

Here is an example of a woman who has 'performed' a set of pictures placed to popular and patriotic music of Ukraine. Please disregard the setting (one of those "India's Got Talent" style TV tamashas) and look at how she is able to express the pain of war - namely the World War II invasion of Ukraine (part of Soviet Union at the time) by the Germans.

The words at the end say: "you are always in my heart."

Apparently the words to one of the songs goes:
"Sometimes it seems to me, that soldiers who didn't return home, do not lie in beds-of-honor, they turned into white cranes"

How much art can touch lives. Would that we would see more stories told. Sixty years on the images still haunt - because they are part of the deepest experiences that people go through in war - loss, confusion, hope, memories...

How many others have never had their story told, have never had a song written about them.

Garish garland

I opened the Indian Express this morning and idly glanced at the front page picture. A political leader was being felicitated with a huge garland. But, there was something funny about the garland. It was not made of flowers. It was simply gigantic. Elephantine. A motley crew of politicos was draping it around their leader.

For some reason I thought it was made of sandal wood.

The garland was made of wood - pulped into paper - and stamped by the Reserve Bank of India in 1000 rupee denominations. Could this be the most expensive garland ever? The Indian Express estimated it at Rs. 21,00,000/- various other websites have it between Rs. 2,00,00,000 and Rs. 5,00,00,000/-.

Why does this all matter?

Only because the person being garlanded is the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh - which would be the 6th largest country in the world if its 100 million plus inhabitants were an independent country. Only because the lady in the middle claims the mantle of leading the Dalit millions of our country forward. Only because you don't get 21 lakhs rupees for nothing.

Politics in our country in 2010 is simple. There is no free lunch. Money comes - but it always demands a price.

How totally crass, totally ludicrous, totally sham this looks is clearly irrelevant to all the actors in this picture (and many many more off camera).

Its a show of power. A declaration that the party in question - the Bahujan Samaj Party - plans to be a major player in the years to come.

Its a show of the same grinding sycophancy that all our dear parties exhibit. Great public spectacles of loyalty towards our 'netas' (leaders). Anyone who dares criticise is immediately in the dog-house.

Its a show of total unblinking corruption. Look at the folks around the lady. No prizes for guessing where many of these men have spent time. Tough. Shades. A glint of menace. Its no surprise that so many of our politicians are wanted by the police for everything from rioting to rape to murder.

Flash back to 1989.

I had joined Vishal Mangalwadi for his attempt to enter our national parliament. The Lok Sabha elections were on. Vishal chose to contest from his native Chhatarpur in Madhya Pradesh. His opponents were a lady scion of a Congress political family - and another lady who later became known as the fiery sadhvi - Uma Bharati.

The party Vishal chose was a totally unknown unit called the Bahujan Samaj Party. Based on a prior set of political mobilisation of scheduled caste and tribe government officials knows as the DS4 - the BSP was making its fledgling steps onto the national scene.

They won only two seats - and even that was considered a break through. Vishal lost his deposit.

But what struck me from the 2 weeks I spent observing the campaign was the passion of the people. The BSP at that point could hardly even hire a half dozen jeeps to canvass. They faced formidable odds to start anything. But they had cadres who were mobilising. Who were holding meetings.

One dusty evening I saw a young girl stand up and address a crowd. It was the end of the day. The power was off. She was speaking using a small battery powered mike. She must have been all of 15. Her slight frame barely stood out in the gloom. A maroon salwar-kameez. She talked. People listened. She had a mesmerizing effect - a young firebrand.

Where is that girl today? Did she use her skills and piggy back the caste-based parties move to power like Mayawati did? Did she get married off and is now living a domestic life in some small town of Madhya Pradesh? Did she suddenly die in an 'accident' (stranger things have happened). Is she still holding forth to a small crowd somewhere?

How sad to see our political process so denatured. So horribly wrong. Every Rs. 1000 note in that garland is at least half a months salary for most of our population. One website estimated it was made of 50,000 such notes.

So much for social justice and uplifting the Dalit. Mayawati has showed what we have known all along - that politics is the art of doing what it takes to stay in power. Just as others have used various pulls and currents to push themselves forward - so this canny lady has allowed the aspirations of the many down-trodden to push her and her clique into the same space of those whom she accuses of being the oppressors.

The Good Book says that we are to pray for all in positions of authority. I shall be praying for Mayawati and the BSP. I have on and off been praying for our friends in the BJP. I need to be more serious and consistent in doing so for our Prime Minister and other folks. We have a long, long way to go in our blessed land. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

Public health heroes

Today is the Ides of March.

Besides the day when Julius Ceasar was murdered in AD 44 - its also the day when John Snow was born in 1813.

Who is John Snow you ask? Well - many call him the father of Public Health. He certainly set the field of epidemiology in motion through a brilliant set of deductions that found that most of the cholera cases in a slum suburb of London could be traced to a single contaminated pump. By shutting the hand-pump down he helped stop the cholera outbreak. And thus was born epidemiology - the art and science of understanding how diseases spread through populations - and making interventions based on data.

Interestingly, it was with the help of Rev. Henry Whitehead, a local clergyman and amateur scientist (professionals did not exist then...) that Snow was able to do much of the footwork which helped prove that the cholera was not from 'miasma' (impure airs) but rather by germs - and that too through water polluted by human faeces. Their partnership is just one of many often unsung collaborations between what has in some minds become an intractable 'conflict' between 'faith' and 'science.'

So why does all this come to mind today?

Well I got an email from Uganda - where one of my brilliant school friends Dr. Sundeep Gupta is living out an amazing life as working with the Centres for Disease Control in Entebbe.

Sundeep informed us that a legend in community health has passed away. Dr. Carl Taylor died had died at 93 - like it was said of Abraham - "old and full of years". Sundeep tells us that Dr. Taylor spent his 90th and 91st years in Afghanistan, helping set up community-based primary health care programs with local women's groups there.

Dr. Taylor was born in Landour, Mussoorie and went to Woodstock School, graduating in 1932 and going on to study medicine at Harvard. Returning in the late 1940s as a missionary doctor - he was saddened by the many preventable deaths that he was trying to treat and decided to take public health training - again at Harvard. He came back to India in the early 1950s and set into action a set of community health initiatives which changed the world. It was Dr. Taylor and others who showed the village health workers could be trained in basic maternal and child care in their own rural environments. Dr. Taylor's further career included being one of the founders of the International Health programme at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (still arguably the best in the world) - and many posts with the UN and WHO including being the head of UNICEF in China. Probably the biggest impact Dr. Taylor had was to be a key figure in helping get the Alma Ata Declaration where 134 countries pledged to make Primary Health Care a basic right.


Another of our classmates - Suzanne Hurley - is Dr. Taylor's niece. She remembers her Uncle Carl:"He truly was a remarkable man--such an incredible heart for people." But in a strange way I feel that it is through Sundeep whom I share my albeit distant link with Dr. Taylor. Sundeep counts the legend as a mentor and a friend. He worked together with Dr. Taylor and has authored an amazing study which evaluates the evidence for community health programmes being effective around the world.

I have been blessed with some amazing friends - and Sundeep ranks up there among the most remarkable of them. Looking over his career so far I can only say that I am deeply challenged by Sundeep. A clinical doctor and public health specialist Sundeep has over the years combined his intellectual brilliance with a deeply humane vision of service and care. He has worked with the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in multiple settings around the world. At one point he was considering working in Maharashtra - but finally decided to work in Uganda for the past few years along with his amazing wife Fatima (from El Salvador) and their two lovely daughters.

Sundeep finished off his email by saying: Although, as stated in the [New York Times] obituary, his ground-breaking professional achievements have already become a permanent part of the history books, it was his caring and inspiring personal nature that will be remembered by those around him.

So there we have them - a few of my public health heroes - Dr. John Snow, Dr. Carl Taylor - and my latest one - the one whose story is still unravelling, still unfolding - my very own friend Dr. Sundeep Gupta!

Tears on a sunny day

Hot sun
Post noon funeral
Small crowd gathered in quietness
Fans whir in the shed while we wait
Two wooden horses - small - black
Five plastic chairs up front
Await a small coffin

We had arrived minutes earlier
To a small knot of well known faces
A few hand-shakes and then to our chairs
Now others have flowed in
The quietness deep
A tear is starting to form

And now the family has come
A small dignified knot of love
And grief, borne stilly
The heartbreak of a light white coffin
Flowers arranged with a little face
Peeking out
Asleep

They carry you - sweet prince
No breath comes out anymore
But did you ever breathe freely my child?
Your valiant fight
Enmeshed in tubes and ventilator
Is over
For now
For ever

Arrayed in tiny majesty
Sweet child of promise
We sang and wept
Words of hope mingle
With seeds of sadness
Because He lives
I can face tomorrow
Hope wins out on tear-stained faces

I listened as a brother spoke
Recalling his own loss
Of a little one
How his wife and he asked why God gave
Only to take away

I listened as the old good Book
Spoke truths
And tear-smeared, faith-tested realities
Our todays will be swallowed up
By His tomorrow
By His sorrows
Are we healed

Your parents loved you child
And gave you the name
Adhar
It belongs to you
And your memory belongs to them

Then all too soon we walked round
To see you close, my child
Your tiny face
Eyes closed, silent amidst flowers
My children came and saw
I felt my son's warm hand in mine
He did not cry then
Just like your three elder sisters
In their childlike oblivion
But he cried later
Outside in hot sun
And at home this evening
When will his small reservoir of sorrow
Run dry?

Moments later
We were walking over bleached grass and dust
To the distant corner
Where a hole opened up into hard earth

So many faces
So many prayers were said - and thought
We were joined in a community of grief
And comfort
So many things we wanted to tell
But this was a time for silence
Punctuated by hymns

A final psalm
A final prayer
A goodbye - parents kissing the little face
And then the coffin put down
Into the hole

As dust was thrown in
I took a handfull
And added to the covering
Of a small body

One life on earth is over
One life in heaven carries on
Waiting for blessed reunion

As we left
Our small breathing family of four
We saw two of little buried Adhar's sisters
Playing among graves

We will continue to cry
For young Adhar
For others who have left
Before their time
Until the hope of our hearts
Becomes the tear-less reality



----------------------------------------------
in memory of
Adhar George
Born 'before time'
Died on 14.3.2010
Safe in the arms of Jesus