Welcome Shofar!

There are a lot of horns out there! Living in the city - though in a mercifully 'green' part of Thane - our lives have a constant back-ground din of various car horns going off - partly in heed to the ubiquitous "Horn, OK, Please" which adorns the back of almost every truck in India!

We love to drive with our horns. Its a way of telling people "I am here - move out" and in general announcing our existance!

A few hours away from us by flight, thousands of happy football fans are blowing the dreaded vuvuzela to celebrate their teams exploits in the ongoing World Cup 2010. Since the games have been rather low on goals so far - most commentators spend plenty of time talking about the racous buzz that thousands of these fine plastic trumpets cause (you can click on each of these pictures for a sample of the sound).

But yesterday history was made for the Eichers - another cousin joined the ranks - this time in far-away Arizona! The 16th of June 2010 saw the birth of 'Shofar' - born to Sheba's older sister Daisy and Ramesh and to the delight of proud sister Frankie (10 yrs)!

The shofar is of course the ram's horn that is blown by the people of the Book! We trust that this little boy (born 3.5 kgs - at 1 PM) will be a trumpet of truth and love!

Enoch is overjoyed to have another boy cousin.

Score so far:

Girls: 5 Frankie, Asha, Joanna, Anmol and Anjali

Boys: 3 Enoch, Ashish and Shofar

Of the three families with 2 kids - all have a boy and a girl apeice now!

First day, first show

The books are bought. The pencils sharpened. New ID cards (temporary) made. Shoes polished. Bags packed. The big day has come.

Actually it came on Monday. The rains came too. Water poured down from heaven and the kids (with their parents in tow) poured into the school.

Our two stepped into 4th standard (Asha) and 2nd (Enoch).

They were supposed to be wearing their new uniforms - but the cloth merchants who are the monopoly suppliers for the school (you can just imagine the sums passed under the table to be able to outfit 7200 students) messed up so royally and so the school allowed the old ones to be worn for another few days.

January 14th thus saw them decked out in the blue and whites from last year (we had bundled them up to be given away - and brought them out for their last hurrah).

But this morning they were clad in their new uniforms:

There is one big advantage to wearing uniforms - it cuts out the constant one-up-childship of preteen mini-fashionistas. The choices for dressing up are simple - normal uniform or physical education uniform (white t-shirt with white shorts).

The first 3 days of school have been gratifyingly good. The kids do love school and have been reading all summer. Now we have a stream of information about their new teachers, friends, what they heard today, what they will do tomorrow. For us as parents it is a joy to step into the halls of learning again - through our miniature selves in Asha and Enoch.

A big breath. A prayer. And they are off into the adventure of learning that this year has for them. Hooray for school!

Identity games

Germany played a triumphant game of football last night. They ran rings around the Socceroos. Ripped delicious passes to each other. And scored more goals that any of the games in the World Cup so far. Four goals to nil was the damage at the end of the night. It could have been much worse.

This from the youngest team in the tournament (avg. age 25.3). The youngest in German history since the 1934 world cup. A team that the pundits had written off as far too inexperienced. Far too lame (the captain's name is 'Lahm'). Far too second-rate and bereft of their highly paid EPL talismans.

In this game at least, this team both sparkled individually as well as played together superbly.

What intrigued me is how different this team has been to the previous ones. Germans usually play with white shirts. At least in my memory, the vast majority of players have been as white as their home strip. Take a look at this recreation from a film about the 1954 world cup triumph in Bern:

Caucasians all around.

Now take a look at the names of the players for yesterdays match:

Playing 11 - Neuer, Friedrich, Badstuber, Lahm, Mertesacker, Khedira, Schweinsteiger, Ozil, Podolski, Klose, Muller
Subs: Wiese, Butt, Jansen, Tasci, Boateng, Aogo, Trochowski, Kroos, Marin, Kiessling, Cacau, Gomez

A full 11 German players could be playing for other countries ranging from Poland (Klose, Podolski, Trochowski), to Tunisia (Khedira), Turkey (Tasci, Ozil - who was sparkling), Bosnia (Marin), Spain (Gomez), Nigeria (Aogo), Ghana (Boateng - his brother who grew up with him in Berlin chose to play for Ghana and they are due to meet on opposite sides in the last group match), and finally Brazil (Cacau who scored a goal the first time he touched the ball in the game). As I understand it, other than Cacau (who emigrated from Brazil a few years ago) - most of them were born or brought up in Germany - and consider themselves absolutely German. But with twists. Ozil doesn't sing the national anthem at the beginning of games. He speaks words from the Koran. Klose and Podolski never sing. And never will. But all seem to identify themselves as Germans - though not perhaps as the Germans of other generations.

It seems to me that the national football team offers a glimpse into the Germany of today - which is far more multi-stranded as most of us outsiders think. Many cities have 20-30% of their population made up of folks who are not teutonic (if there ever was such a thing in the first place - given the wide variety of people movements over history).

Ozil and Cacau celebrate Cacau's goal

Now lets shift the scene a little bit. OK, a lot.

Besides the issue of why we can't get a football team together that can take on the world (when Slovenia and Slovakia can). Others have commented enough on this - and usually bring out the fact that India did qualify in 1950 but were not allowed by FIFA because they wanted to play barefoot (!).

Lets look at our dear country of India with its billion plus people. Hundreds of languages. Vast teeming crowds. Multiple cuisines. Ancient histories. Modern acquisitions. Wealth being generated. Aspirations risin'. Who are we actually?

We don't even allow the poor Amitraj family (bless their dear US-citizen hearts) to represent India in tennis. Let alone see folks who may be from other places take on the tricolour as their own.

I am often asked whether I am a foreigner.

"Why?" I reply (knowing full well what the answer will be, of course).

'Because you look like a foreigner'

"So do you" I reply

'Me? No, I am Indian' says my inquisitor - sometimes with a slight shock in his voice

"Oh" I reply "You look just like a Pakistani to me"

End of conversation. I usually point out that my national identity is not in my skin - but in the choices that I make.

How do we get beyond the tribal substrate that binds us? How to build a national identity that is inclusive - when so many of our folks don't even feel Indian to begin with? Almost the entire North East for example. And the rest that do feel 'Indian' inevitably are more concerned about their own language, tribe, community, caste than something as abstract as a national identity.

I think we have quite a bit to learn from the current generation of Germans when it comes to nation-building. All this from watching the beautiful game being played beautifully. By the Germans of all people!

Memory Game

One of my childhood relics which we still use is a small but delightful game which we call the 'memory game.' It consists of a small army of square cards - with 59 pairs of brightly coloured pictures. The cards are turned over to conceal their respective images and vigorously mixed around. The players then take turns to turn over two of the cards. If both cards have the same image they keep the pair. Otherwise they turn them over while the other players try hard to remember what is where.

I don't remember when we got our family set - but it was at least 30 years ago. The cards are clearly worn. Though many of the whimsical pictures continue to delight - this German set has a major advantage for us Eichers: the back of the cards - which is supposed to be a uniform pattern - is anything but. A number of the cards have clear wear and tear which over the years we have memorized (inadvertently of course! - I am shocked that you might think otherwise). On the occasions that we have played with guests we have sometimes purposely not taken cards because we knew what was beneath them.

It is clearly time for a new set of 'memory cards.'

My mind recently went back to a magical summer when I was 8 years old. Dad took me on a special trip. He was visiting friends in Sweden and Finland - and speaking at local churches. I was to go along with him as a special treat. Mum, Stefan and Premi stayed back in Germany - with my grandmother I think.

We drove up through Denmark and then took the ferry to Sweden. There we drove on to the Strom family. They had been in India with OM in the 'early days' and had a son called Stefan who was my age. We hit it off well. So well that I did not want to go on with my Dad to Finland. I wanted to stay with my friend. Dad allowed me to and I spent what must have been about a week or so with the Stroms.

It was a magical time. Full of cycling in the forests and picking blue berries, of eating and eating (more than kids in an Enid Blyton book), of practicing 'pole vault' in Stefan Strom's back yard, and of watching the Wimbledon finals on a black and white TV - a group of fanatical Swedes cheering on the victory of their favourite son Bjorn Borg - while one caucasian Indian quietly supported Jimmy Connors - not that I had ever seen a tennis match in my life before.

In the midst of all of this we visited the home of a lady nearby who spoke German. She had a home-made 'memory game' - made with trains from a German toy train catalogue - stuck on pieces of cardboard. I have always wanted to make my own set - and recently was spurred on by seeing a German photographer do so with pictures of World Cup footballs.

Then the thought came to me - how about doing it with photos. Crop them to squares - fit them in a word document table - and then just print it out - stick it on cardboard - cut them up and then we have our own game!

And so the deed was done. Two sheets of 30 pictures. 4 cm by 4 cm. Down to the local cyber-cafe for a colour printout. Glued onto cardboard. Cut up and played.

Here is one of the photo sheets (you can click it for a slightly larger view):


Family pics. So many to choose from. This sheet of 30 is mainly of pictures from our recent Mussoorie visit. The next sheet of 30 went back a bit in time - and included some baby pictures of Sheba and me as well - as well as almost all the members of our immediate family.

As we played the 'memory game' it took on a new flavour - we were also remembering the people and experiences that we had enjoyed together. Memory both at the level of trying hard to remember where the different pairs of the 120 cards were - as well as remembering precious times and people!

Morning Trek

Mumbai's "green lungs" are the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (which most of us still call 'Borivali National Park').

We are blessed to be living right on the border of this forest land. Yesterday we walked the mere 200 meters from our home to the forest gate - and found ourselves in another world.

Having loved ones visit you is a great blessing - it helps you to taste joys that are around us - but usually not tasted in the hustle-and-bustle of just keeping on!

Victor and Sarah and Joana have been with us for the past week - their first visit as a family to Thane for 5 years. We are deeply touched by their love and care for us.

The heat has been blunted a bit by the pre-monsoon rains that Tropical storm Phet brought our way. The rains which spattered over Thane for the last few days have brought a small carpet of green on the hillside.

We saw new flowers - both having just sprung up - and new to us.

Having started up at 6.30 AM, we were able to get to the top of the ridge with the mandatory rest stops on the way up.


And enjoyed a picnic breakfast at the top, before going back down for me and Victor to attend our JSK morning prayers at 9 AM. A whole days' joy before the working day got under way!

We are created for beauty. What a blessing to have a forest right at our doorstep.

The promise

Hurricane Phet went 'phut' for most of India. It seems to have wandered off towards Oman. But some scraps of clouds finally came scudding our way making for some pretty dramatic lighting (and a bit of lightning too).

We were blessed with rain - cooling rain falling on our steaming city. And since the clouds rolled in just as the sun was going down - we were treated to a most beautiful rainbow.


The picture doesn't justice to the beauty of what I saw (though you can click on it to see a larger panoramic version). Through the blessed greyness of the final clouds a full rainbow spanned our sky - with an outer rainbow faintly mirroring it.

A long time ago, after a terrible destructive flood God made a covenant not to destroy humankind through such a flood.

Standing on the rooftop and looking out over urban Thane - with its mushrooming high-rises - and seeing that beautiful arc reminded me of the power and love of our Maker.

A God of faithfulness, without injustice, good and upright is He...

Steps

One of our positive friends who is being helped by a local church has been calling and asking for money.

What to do?

The needs are real. She is a widow with two small children.

Things are expensive. Cash is never enough.

But there are also important areas of her life that still need to develop.

The church has been helping her financially for 2 years now.

There is still so much brokeness in her life, so much hardness in her attitudes and in the decisions she makes.

We wish there were some kind of secret button to press to make all things turn out right.

Instead we have the long road of relationship.

She brings brokeness. Her distrust. Her dreams. Her confusion and anger.

The church members who are trying to help bring their our own brokeness. Their own struggles. The fragmentary challenges of communicating.

No easy answers. But choices have to be made. Steps must be taken together.

Perhaps some retracing of steps taken already.

Oh Lord. Help.

We trust that He will. And use his faulty-but-being-moulded children to do so.