Tante Karin

Both my parents are single children. Relatives are few and far between. The cousins that they do have are many oceans away.

Mum had one very special cousin. Auntie Karin Meyer ("Tante" for us German speakers). She died on the 11th of August.

Of all of Mum's cousins - Karin was the only one who has come out to India to meet Mum.


They had a special bond.

When the allied bombs started falling steadily on German cities in WW2, many children were sent away to the relatively safer countryside. My mother was one of these children.

At the age of six she was sent to the Black Forest to be with her mother's sister in the tiny village of Arnbach - while her parents stayed on in Leipzig.

It was three long years before Mum saw her parents again. Years when the evening radio broadcasts were monitored for information on where the bombs were falling - and what the progress of the war was. Years where all the children were thin - and potato peelings carefully saved to make soup from.

During these years Mum bonded with her cousin Karin - and that bond lasted a life-time.

A month ago Mum heard that Karin was judged to have terminal cancer. She knew that Karin was suffering from cancer - but Karin did not let Mum in on what was going on in her life. When the news came Mum felt that she must go and see her.

Amazingly, a few days later, she was driven by her cousin Otto to the hospice where Karin was. Mum did not know what to expect. Would she be rejected? Would Karin be willing to talk?

It was a beautiful time.

Karin was alert and so grateful to see Mum.

They were able to talk deep. It was as if they had not been apart. At the same time - they were able to speak about Karin's death and readyness to meet Jesus.

Karin was at peace.

At their last meeting - when Mum said goodbye - she said that she would 'meet Karin again.'

Karin smiled and pointed upwards.

Last week Karin's remains were placed in a small urn and buried under a tree.

We await her resurrection.

Crossings

Subah

Riding my creaky steed – a slow-sputtering scooter – with my daughter clutching me from behind - I putter through a cross-road at 6.50 every morning.

In the grey monsoonal dawn, the two roads are dotted with clusters of people. Before shuttered shop fronts they stand. Here a milk vendor with his plastic rain-hat is adjusting bags of milk on his bicycle. There a group of men scan the morning headlines at the newspaper-wallah’s plastic-covered table. At the corner of the crossing fifteen-odd office goers – tightly-curled umbrellas and mobiles in hand – fidget and look for an autorickshaw to take them away.

As our scooter crosses the intersection, an autorickshaw appears. The people who were studiously ignoring each other now cluster desperately around the auto – shouting hopefully at the driver that they want a ride to the station.

We are through. The odd car honks its horn while grey pigeons flutter down to be fed by early risers. We ride ahead through a shady road, past freshly uniformed children walking towards the same destination, shepherded by the odd parent.

Shaam

Half an earth-spin later I return to the intersection. I am now coming out of the shady lane. It is almost 7 pm and my son in his hot rumpled uniform is sitting in front of me. We ride the same battered scooter. He wears his bright green school-bag in front. His little black helmet occasionally clatters with my red one as we are headed for home.

The small rickety shops at the crossing’s corner – which have sprung up after the latest demolition drive – are now overflowing with people. I don’t register the bicyle-repair-wallah who sits near the two banana carts, who in turn share space with two florists and a chicken shop. My eyes are focussed on the snarl of traffic just ahead of me.

The cross-roads are now a mass of metal. Bumper-to-bumper cars, and autorickshaws, with scooters and motorcycles trying to squeeze into any open space. The groans of a large bus mingle with a jangling chorus of horns. In the middle of this motorised mess a lone policeman tries to push the traffic around.

Into this crush we push. A small space opens up between a car and an auto and our black scooter darts in. To the deafening honking we add the bleet of our Honda Activa. A turn here, a twist there, and we are through. The intersection will continue to be a heaving flow of horn-blowing metal till some hour of the night, but we only have 30 meters of road ahead of us. A left turn and we are home.

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Written as an exercise at the just concluded EMFI writers workshop

Untouched

She met with Sheba on Friday.

We will call her Meena.

Meena found out that she has HIV 6 years ago.

She got help. Meena has been through various agencies in Mumbai and has been treated at the JJ Hospital and other hospitals. She is currently on Anti-Retroviral Therapy - the meds which have brought hope for so many by reducing viral loads.

She has been involved as an activist and volunteer with at least one HIV support group. Meena knows her HIV and is not taking it lying down.

But Meena came to meet Sheba.

Her meds are not working so well now.

Sheba examined her and talked with her.

Then the shock.

Meena told Sheba that to date Sheba was the very first doctor who had actually done a physical examination of her. The very first doctor who had touched her in the way all doctors are supposed to touch their patients. The very first doctor who had spent time finding out about who she was as a person.

Sheba's mind reeled.

25 years into the epidemic. In the big city of Mumbai with our International HIV Treatment Conferences held at the poshest of hotels. In the place where thousands of people with HIV are being treated with the Anti-Retroviral drugs - here is an HIV treatment veteran who has never been touched by a doctor.

Till now at least.

Hard to help

I remember when I first met him. His face was like a cloud. What goes on inside, behind the two white eyes and the inscrutable expression?

His thoughts were also hard to follow. He has HIV. He had come for help. The help that he wanted was a job. A place to stay.

He had grown up on the streets.

We will call him Harish (not his real name of course).

What his real story is only his Maker knows.

But this is what I gathered.

Harish has family. But they are terribly estranged. He has HIV. They know. They don’t want him.

Harish was working as a porter at the Churchgate railway station. Helping to load fish that came from the docks onto the trains. 7 days a week. And the additional duties too. When an accident took place, it was he and his fellow ‘hamals’ who were called to remove the dead bodies – sometimes even to pick up the pieces.

According to the pastor who sent Harish, the govt. doctor had told Harish to stop working at this job because the constant exposure to water meant he kept falling ill.

The pastor also told us that Harish was so broken by his rejection by his family that he was suicidal.

Among the stories Harish told was how he had been a petty thief and chain-snatcher before he had a change in his life. He also talked about his rejection and the hope that he had about joining his family who had gone to a village – but how bitter the parting was.

In the swirling stories he reminisced about growing up on the street and being helped by a school bus on wheels. He remembered the milk and biscuits he got from them.

Harish looked healthy. He did not seem to have any apparent weakness or sickness at this point. He said that he had not eaten much recently because he was unemployed. He said that he did not want to go back to his old ways.

We did not have a job for Harish. We talked with the pastor. We suggested another agency whose office was near where Harish was staying.

Later we found that Harish was staying in a totally different area to what we had understood him to say.

We also found out that Harish had been helped before in a residential programme – but that he did not stay put.

We had asked him to go to the other agency with a local church person. He went alone. The agency said they would try and get him a job. Everything seemed rosy.

I got a call from the pastor who had initially referred to us some weeks later. He was frustrated with the agency, saying they had promised and had not delivered. We had a long – and not entirely pleasant conversation about Harish and what should be done for him. The pastor suggested another HIV-focussed social service organisation. I didn’t think there was much hope for them looking after Harish, but I said “why not”.

This was all a number of months ago.

A fortnight ago I attended a meeting at this organization.

I was served tea by a young man dressed in a uniform with the name of the organization embroidered on it. He greeted me enthusiastically. I did not recognize him immediately – thinking he was perhaps a local trainee whom I had met sometime ago.

It was Harish.

“I wanted to come to meet you – and also meet pastor x” (he mentioned the pastor who had initially referred Harish to us).

I was thrilled to see Harish finally settled.

A few days later I called up the pastor and thanked him for what he had done for Harish.

Sadly, I just got this SMS on my mobile from the pastor. It was from the head of the organization Harish was with:

“Harish has left from here in very bad spirit again. I don’t think I will take him back again because he is always threatening to leave if things such as food and other things don’t match up to his expectations. Tried to help but he is spoiling the atmosphere here. All of us here in the organization and church are concerned for him and have tried our hardest…”

It’s hard to help.

There are a lot of romantic ideas that people have about social work. “Ooh, how noble” say some “it must be so satisfying to know that you are doing worthwhile work.” “People must be so grateful for your help” say others.

Its more often that we are faced with trying to help challenging people like Harish. The combined efforts of the pastor, us and at least two other excellent organizations have really worked to help Harish start life anew.

But the choices remain with Harish. And many like him.

Say a prayer for Harish will you? And say a prayer for the pastor, the other two organizations, and us (and who knows how many others) who are trying to help.

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Photo courtesy Christa Eicher

New Daughter

We have a new daughter.

Well, we have a new one for a few days at least.

She is all of 5 years old.

We call her ‘Nannu.’

Nannu’s widowed mother and her older sister are at a government hospital. Her sister ‘Apu’ was born with a cleft palate. Plastic surgery was done some years ago to mend her lip, but her palate was still cleft – which meant that we could hardly understand Apu’s speech.

After working through the system (with many delays and frustrations) prayers were answered and Apu’s surgery took place a week ago at GT hospital in Mumbai. The plastic surgeon did a good job. The ward was surprisingly clean. Apu has been taken off the IV line and is taking clear liquids and moving towards solid food. Over the last few days Apu has also been phoning regularly. “You speak so nicely” said Nannu to her sister on the phone. We are then treated to a detailed description by Nannu of how much better her sister is talking.

Its wonderful to have 3 kids in the home.

Nannu is a little sprite. She is a small enthusiastic ball of energy.

She has taken to playing with Enoch’s old duplo blocks with a vengeance. The kids have been so kind to her. Enoch patiently plays with her for long stretches in the morning – and then Asha takes over for part of the afternoon. Nannu bounces up and down when Enoch returns from school at just before 7 PM. At night Nannu cuddles up to Asha as they sleep in Asha’s bed. We are mighty proud of how gentle Asha and Enoch are to their little ‘sister.’

Nannu should be with us for a few more days. We expect Apu to be discharged in a day or two from the hospital. When her mother and Apu return to Thane, Nannu will rejoin her family.

Nannu’s mother has been worshipping with us for a few years now. She has seen many hard things in her life – and continues to work through challenges. But this last year has seen a big change in her outlook and understanding. In June she took baptism and has been growing in faith. This freshness in her faith has rooted her whole outlook on life – she just seems so much more positive and ‘alive’ these days.

The church has also been faithfully looking after Nannu's mother. Looking after her during her long bouts of depression as well as when she was up. And with Apu’s surgery, we have seen that her mother’s help has not only been from our small fellowship – we are humbled to see the love of ladies from a number of other congregations who have visited Nannu’s mother and sister in the hospital and helped out in many practical ways.

Nannu mirrors some of her family history. She is almost painfully thin – her little arms are doll-like in an unpleasant way. She can cry easily – though considering the very tough knocks she has been through so far – she spends very little time crying. In fact what struck me these days is how radiant her smile is most of the time.

Nannu’s mind is as sharp as a tack. Her animated face and the constant chatter are a delight to behold. She switches topics rapidly – remembers tons – and loves to talk. Where will this girl go? What will be her destiny? Within her slight body lie the seeds of a woman who can shake the world.

What a privilege it is for us to host this little “daughter” of ours for a few days.

Clean

There is a very special happy feeling linked with clean dishes. The shimmer of stainless steel. The wet happiness of a clean tabletop. The pleasant jumble of a pile drying pots and pans. The comely hanging of assorted kitchen instruments – spotlessly dangling from their assigned hooks….

Mind you, there once had been a minor kingdom of greasy stains in the sink – a small ugly city of maculate cups and spoons, a multi-layered squatters' settlement of grimy bowls and plates, with the odd black frying pan wedged in. That evil little empire existed for a short time after one of our meals – good Mummy-cooked-food which was happily consumed by us family-wallahs around our oval table. But Grime-town is history now. We have blessed, sparkling peace restored back in the kitchen.

In my growing-up days ‘washing dishes’ was a chore. Burdensome. Not-looked-forward-to-in-the-least. Us kids were supposed to ‘learn to help’ our mother. Sunday afternoons – after the big post-church lunch (which always had lots of dishes because of the spread and the inevitable guests) it was the ‘boy’s job’ to clean the dishes. A big plastic tub of soapy hot water in one sink – another tub of hot rinsing water in the other. Between the two of us brothers - we fought (gently of course) for the right to ‘rinse n dry’ instead of doing the scrubbing of the wash.

No more.

I see increasingly larger traces of my father in me the more I press into middle age and beyond. He loves cleaning things. Just loves to scrub. To say nothing of my mother. Spick-and-span is her middle name. Throughout most of my moderately-slovenly youth cleanliness was hardly my scene. Old genes however – or perhaps we should say old memes – show up unexpectedly. Just add a new gen of Eichers and the older gen seems to revert to type.

The cleaning bug is very much in me.

Having recently moved into a new flat – one which reduced a person a dearly love to tears because of its grimy kitchen – I have many opportunities to hone my craft. Little bits of time are sequestered away – to scrub a corner here – to de-grime a set of switches there – to get out the steel wool and give a real elbow-grease rubdown of the floor over there again…

There are still areas where skirmishes are still to take place – but the battle of Eicher vs. Grime is gradually tipping the way of the former name.

Amidst the on-going campaign to scrub up our home – here is a small daily experience of partnering pleasure in the home: the pleasant 'click' of switching off the light on a clean kitchen at the end of the day. Just knowing that all the dishes are happily drying on their racks (with a further clean-n-dry group having been scooted into their places to make way for the wetties) - and that your damp shirt and tired hands have made is possible - is a small but tangible daily pleasure for yours truly.

Over

Sheba walked in while we were singing.

I knew what that meant.

It was 9.10 AM. She would not have come with Enoch for any other reason.

The door next to us was closed.

Sheba walked in. A few moments later Sashmita - our nurse on duty came out - only to reenter the door with two bedsheets and some cotton.

I was pretty sure that Mrs. Tanya had died.

She did.

After 20 days of care at our centre. Twenty days of receiving love and support by her husband who is HIV negative. 20 days of love.

Mrs. Tanya was about to die over a year ago. She miraculously recovered and seemed pretty healthy till 3 weeks ago she suffered a sudden stroke and had a persitently high fever. It seems that she had a hidden TB which infected her brain - causing the stroke and paralysing her left side.

For the first 2 weeks she seemed to improve. A physiotherapist friend of ours came and Mrs. Tanya started to regain the use of her foot and partly her hand. She spoke a few words too.

Then 5 days ago she slipped away into semi-consciousness. We had her on oxygen and called the relatives and the church. Mrs. Tanya was a first generation believer - and the others in her prayer group rallied around her. They had hoped that she would walk out of our centre - healed. Instead - they came to her bed and spent time with her - knowing that she was most likely to wake up in heaven.

Which she did.

The funeral - on a monsoonal afternoon at the Mulund cemetary - was a testimony to God's goodness in the midst of sorrow. We don't have easy solutions - but we have a God who values each person.

Its not easy to pour yourself into a person and then have them slip away to death. But Mrs. Tanya was infinitely worth the love that was poured into her by the JSK team. Her husband - a man who tenderly looked after her throughout the ordeal - testified about how grateful he was for the care given to her.

We cannot but admit, however, that small bitter knot that death leaves us with. That yearning for something different. That gentle rage that it is not meant to be this way. And that is how it should be. Lets not have window-dressing and idle words when the cut and thrust of severance takes place.

But at the same time - we know for sure that Mrs. Tanya is with her Lord. And we know that a time will come when we meet again. No idle speculation this. No 'Pie-in-the-sky-in-the-sweet-by-and-by". The reality wrestled out on a lonely hill by a brutally beaten naked man who cried out 'my Lord, my Lord, why have you forsaken me?' before shouting 'it is finished!'