Nana Chowk - then and now...

Growing up in Bombay was a blast. 

And we never even dreamed that saying that would make you queasy so many years later.   Today we trully are living in a 'bomb'-bay - a time when you get an SMS from the police telling you 'don't believe the rumours' -- and you start asking 'what rumours? what's going on?'

But lets go back in time - to the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s when we had the privilege of growing up in the John Wilson Education Society Compound at Nana Chowk.  The whole compound had one number - it was 19 on the August Kranti Marg.  And our house was called 'Elim' - an ancient bungalow from yore which stuck out into the road and which we swore 'shuddered' when heavy traffic passed by outside.

First time visitors from abroad often hardly slept on their first few nights - and it wasn't the jet-lag - but rather the constant noise of traffic.

But for us it was a heaven - because we had a home that we stayed in from 1975 till 1987 (after having moved something like 11 times in my first 6 years of life).  And the compound itself was an oasis of greenery in the concrete jungle that Bombay was even then!

What is it like today?  How different do things look today to what Stefan, Premila and I grew up to?

Last year we were blessed with a precious trove of digitised slides - almost 800 of them - from Stirling and Karen Swan who were in India around 1980-81.  Since they had an office in the Elim building, a number of their slides captured that era.

Earlier this month I went down to Nana Chowk for a meeting at the 'Ursula' building.  I took some shots of what it looks like today. 

And so here we have - Nana Chowk, then and now!

The street sign that we could see from right outsitde the lower floor of Elim.  In the second shot this is the street sign's current avatar  with the windows to our old dining room and living room seen behind it

The best way to get to Nana Chowk is by train.

After some early morning judo with about 200 other men who were crammed into my section of the local on the central line from Thane to Dadar - and then another 130 odd fellow grapplers on the Western Line from Dadar to Grant road I emerged to see something fairly familiar.  The droopy block facade of the Grant Road railway station - pretty much like it had been in our childhood.

But if you turn your head to the left then everything changes.

Instead of a narrow road leading to the main Nana Chowk intersection - there is now the same narrow road and in the middle of it like some kind of Japanese uber-robot is a huge sky-walk.... 

.... which if you follow the shiny silver legs (at least the pods are currently shiny because it is still being constructed and is weathering its first Mumbai monsoon) and you end up in the heart of the intersection.

What was once a large open space where cars, busses and various trucks and other two wheeled vehicles carreered about flanked by the characteristically curving art-deco parsee buildings (Ness Baug being the most prominent one) which looked like this in about 1980....

 ... now has the same constant roar of traffic, but underneath the surreal circle of the sky walk (which I understand will go all the way out to chowpatti beach) and a huge central collumn that has to be about 12 stories high - and which holds up the circle with steel cables.   

Rather different from where what it was like when we grew up.

'Our house' is now hidden behind the steps going down - and presumably the folks walking down will be able to look into the second floor of  'Elim' - as well as the first floor where we lived.  That was certainly not something that we had to deal with in our growing up years!

You can still see the small "Fire House" of the local Fire Brigade unit that was to the left of 'Elim.'  The small original shed has been preserved as a heritage structure, while behind it a huge 6 story new fire building has come up.

As we come to the gate of the compound we see a familiar sight.  Its 9.30 AM and there is a wave of parents dropping of their children to the pre-school and primary school sections of the St. Columba girls school which is also on the compound.

The crowds outside and the lush greenery inside were all too familiar.

But what was not was on the other side.   Looking out of the gate, instead of the 4 storied tenement appartment called 'Hari Niwas' - there is now the colossus of a building called 'Shreepati Arcade'!

Shreepati Arcade is 45 floors high - and was for some time the tallest residential building in India.  All the flats are sold and rented out to vegetarians only!  Needless to say, its a rather different look to the down-at-heel building that used to occupy its space.

And so we finally venture into the heart of the compound - and to our own home of 12 odd years - 'Elim'

The greenery is the same - though the trees we climbed and built a tree-house in are now fallen down - and new trees have grown up in their stead.  It reminded me just the faintest bit of Narnia when the children return to Cair Paravel and find an apple orchard has sprung up.

But the grand old lady of a house is still there.  More or less - at least from the outside - what she used to be when we lived in 'Elim'.

Take a look at the 'then' and 'now'....

The two things that have changed...

The first is that everything seems to have shrunk.  Distances that were epic (especially when we were called home for supper on the long summer evenings) now are just a hop, and a skip.  Not even a jump.   And someone has definitely shrunk our beloved Elim.  It used to be the largest house in the world... now it seems so small...

Secondly, there are guards everywhere.  Two gents came out and asked me not to take pictures.  The steady stream of kids and parents on the main road under the leafy canopy was peppered with security people - seemingly every 10 meters or so.

We used to have one elderly man who was so weak and frail a cat would have probably got the better of him - and a mustachioed Nepali who would tell us about his village in the mountains.

Looking back I just am so grateful for having grown up in this green oasis in the middle of dirty grey Bombay.

The dirt would come in every monsoon when the low-lying drains would flood and the high tides - much to our delight since the whole area became a large brown swimming pool - and much to the horror of our dear mother as she was forced to see us splashing away in the muck!

Looking back at our parents - I think they definitely were on the side of letting us 'tough it out.'  I don't think that us antiseptic types would allows Asha and Enoch to muck about in a monsoonal floods like we did 35 odd years ago!

Then and now!

Schweine

Our kids love pigs.

It's a short-hand that they have among themselves.  A little secret joke that they have going.  A shared set of laughter that is strung over weeks.

Yesterday Enoch took over the whiteboard and gave a rendition of the various varieties of porcine faces.

Strangely enough (or maybe not so strangely) I used to draw pigs when I was a year or two older than he is today.

When I was in the German School in Bombay, we had quite a thing going for cartoon pigs.  'Schweine' were all the rage for us.  Possibly because they were easy to draw - and of course had the delicious attributes of being dirty and disgusting. 

But my memories are not all happy ones.  My circle of friends drew these pigs and then personalized them.  There was a boy in the class below us that we targeted.  His father was an honorary teacher - filling in since the school did not have a chemistry master - and we were merciless in our cartoons with the father and son repeatedly shown as pigs.

I was able to contact the boy in question many years later.  We linked up over the internet (he was a PhD candidate at that time in Germany) and I tried to apologise.  I don't remember his response, but to this day I regret my cowardly participation in a kind of bullying.

My hope is that the next generation of Eichers will learn from my errors.  Let pigs be drawn, but lets keep them de-linked from anyone we know.  And lets be very, very careful when it comes to making fun of others.

The real pigs were my friends and I.  Schweine.

Positive

Two weeks ago.  Saturday.  We were conducting a training for church members in HIV care.

This is a course that we have developed over the past decade.  Each year we change it a tiny bit, but the basics have been in place since 2006 at least.

She stood out among the other participants.  Her hand went up more often.  She spoke from the heart.  Her questions were insightful.

Lets give her a name.  We will call her Tanya.

Tanya came to our training with an elderly lady - a retired nurse who is a real prayer-warrior and who clearly is a mentor to Tanya.  They both are from a fairly far-away church well outside Mumbai.  We learned later that Tanya sells trinkets in the local trains to support herself and her daughters. 

It was our second session.  The one we talk about treating people with HIV.  Tanya and her mentor had attended the first session and were actively participating in this one.

Sheba took the talk on treating our Positive Friends when they fall sick.  She went through a series of common symptoms that people with HIV get when their immunity is lowered.  And then talked about what opportunistic infections cause these symptoms.  The next step is helping our participants discover what can be treated at home, and what needs to be referred for medical advice... and when do you need to bundle the person into the nearest autorickshaw and immediately take them to the hospital!

As she went through her presentation, Sheba came to 'Herpes Zoster.'  This is actually a recurrence of the chikenpox virus - and it happens occasionally with people who have low immunities - from a pregnancy - or some stress issues.  But for people who have HIV, it is often the first symptom that they might have HIV.

Herpes Zoster usually manifests as a line of painful blisterlike sacs, usually following the line of a nerve.  Locally it is called 'nagin' (snake).  People who get it are often afraid that if it manages to 'encircle' them, that they will die, because the 'snake' will kill them.

In reality, Herpes Zoster does no real damage.  It usually resolves in a few days - sometimes taking up to 2 weeks to do so.  But it can be quite painful. 

So Sheba asked the group.  "Do you know anyone who has had 'nagin'?"

Tanya's hand went up.

"I have had it" she told us all.

Sheba was surprised at the answer, but continued the conversation, and Tanya told how she had experienced Herpes Zoster some months previously.   I felt a slight catch in my chest when Tanya shared about

At lunch Sheba sat next to Tanya and asked her when she had been tested for HIV.  "Me?  I have not been tested."

Silence.  Sheba then gently probed about her family history.  Tanya's husband had left her for another woman 2 years previously.  She is currently a single working mother, who has found tremendous hope in Jesus through the local church she is part of.

Sheba broached the issue of getting tested.  "It's always better to know " Sheba said.  If you are negative, then that is great.  But if you are positive, then here is the place to get help, and now is the time to know.

Tanya agreed to be tested, and that evening, after the day of training, I saw Tanya and her dear mentor-friend go into our HIV testing and counselling room to talk with our counsellor and have Tanya's blood sample taken.  It had been a long fulfilling Saturday.  Here was another of our trainees who agreed to be tested.  We have always told folks that we train that it is good to get testing for HIV if you have any question in your mind.  Over the years we must have counselled and tested at least 50 trainees.  The reports of each one of these had been HIV negative.

Sheba and I talked later.  Would Tanya's report come positive?  We so much hoped it wouldn't.

On Monday we knew.

Tanya is HIV positive.   She came the next day with the stalwart friend and mentor of hers, and another lady from her church.  Sheba told Tanya the news.  It was hard to tell her, and Tanya was deeply shocked.  But this brave woman decided to face the truth - and trust that God will help her.  Her friends were a great help as well, being with Tanya through this ordeal, helping her have her children tested too.  Encouraging and praying with Tanya.

Yesterday Tanya and her mentor came for the third session of the Training.  Only Sheba, the counsellor and I know that over the past 2 weeks, Tanya's identity has changed from being a person who has come to learn to help people with HIV - to being a person living with HIV herself.

She is a remarkably brave woman, choosing to participate just as much as before.

We are now waiting to see how much the HIV has progressed in her.  I thought she would seek Sheba out with the reports from the CD4 test she did last week.  But she did not.  Along with her mentor, another lady who does not know about her new-found status came as well.  Tanya told Sheba that she would come back tomorrow for a further consultation.

At the beginning of this batch of training church members in HIV care, we would never have imagined that one of the trainees would end up as a person that we are directly helping to understand and live with their HIV.   But at the end of the day, what better place for Tanya to be than to be with people who have been able to help her take the first steps of addressing HIV in her life.  What a blessing that she has a wonderful prayerful mentor who is such a rock of support to her.  

What an honour for us to serve Tanya.  We have quite a road ahead, but she has taken some very courageous first steps.

An old friend

I met an old friend recently.

He looked quite different from when we first met many years ago when I was studying in university.  I still remember the first few times I first met him in the computer lab at the School of Public Health in 1995.

We have kept in touch since then, and I am pretty sure that I last saw him about 5 or 6 years ago, but this time he has really changed.

But hey, like any old real friend any strangeness you get when you see that he or she is different since our list meeting usually evaporates when you look beneath the surface.   And sure enough, beneath it all, my friend was still the same.  Once we got going, it was like old times.

My friend is not a flesh-and-blood-and-spirit kind of  guy - but an amazing piece of software.

Step forward 'EpiInfo'....

 

Early in the computer revolution.  In days when words like DOS were used and boot-up etc., the Centres for Disease Control in the US developed an amazing piece of software to help epidemiologists in the field quickly design surveys and do rapid data analysis to help understand disease spread and control.

From its humble start in 1985 as a set of floppy discs, the latest version has come a very long way.  Over a million downloads of this free programme have included at least 3 by my good-self.  The latest version - Epi Info 7 can be downloaded here.  It's a real mouth-watering treat and offers mapping capabilities.  Since we are now in an age of Google maps we can think of actually linking our data to real spatial data for our teams to work with. 

We at Jeevan Sahara Kendra have just done a census-survey of all our HIV Positive Friends who are getting active care through our home-based care teams - as well as a number of Positive Friends who are stable and not being followed up intensively by our teams.  233 surveys successfully completed, and over 60 possible questions to analyse.  In previous years we had set up an excel sheet to help us do this... but now I have Epi Info to the rescue!

Its lovely to have the ability to take any variable - and check how it relates to others... Want to find out how many women have reported headaches in the last month?  Epi Info can do it.  Do the women report more headaches than men?  Epi Info can do it - and tell you whether any difference seen is statistically significant or not.  And so on and so forth.

Its been so long since I have done this - I feel like a boy in a sweet shop.

But there is a serious side to all of this.  One of the agendas that we have at Jeevan Sahara Kendra is to become partners with the government in providing free Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) for people with HIV.  Currently, since the government is giving this free - and its our tax-payer money that is supporting this - we steer all our Positive Friends to the govt. ART centre in town.

But there are over 3000 registered there - and 2 doctors.  So the patients do not get the kind of care that we would like to give.  We would like to take on about 200 - 500 of these patients and provide them with care here at JSK.   We have requested politely, but no response so far.

So we are hoping that this set of data will show that our HBC Positive Friends are showing high levels of adherence to the ART - and therefore we should be included as players and partners in the government health care system.

We are already partners at one level with the government - in the area of doing HIV counselling and testing.  The Maharasthra State AIDS Control Society has trained our staff and provide us with the testing kits.  We conduct the pre-test counselling, take the blood, conduct the test, give the post-test counselling, and report to the government.  We cover the staff costs and overheads.

For our ART programme - all we want is the meds - and the recognition.  We are willing to fund our staff salaries and other overheads - but we want to be able to give govt. meds to people with HIV who need them - and be able to transfer them to another government centre if they need to leave Thane and move to a different location.

So here is where my old friend Epi Info comes in - I am hoping that with his help I will be able to show something meaty from our survey!

Here's hoping!  Here's praying!

Cats

We grew up with cats.

Lots of them.  The original pair - 'Tiger' and 'Snowy' begat more kittens.   And from those others were begotten.

So at any given moment in time there were usually at least 3 cats in the home.

Here is a picture from about 1981 or so - taken by Sterling Swan where the three of us kids are with what look like 3 generations of cats!

Growing up in 'Elim' in the leafy shady compound of the John Wilson Education Society at Nana Chowk, there was plenty of room for cats to roam (and strangely not too many stray dogs roaming around the compound).

Sadly, though Asha and Enoch have clamoured for cats (or dogs) many a time, we just can't have them here.   It just isn't fair for an animal to be indoors all day - which is really the only option if we were to get a cat.  We live in a 650 sq foot flat - too small for a cat! 

And what's worse, downstairs it seems that half of Thane's stray dogs have taken up there abode.  There are plenty of folks in our building society who take it on themselves to feed these curs with biscuits (never seen them giving food to humans) and so their numbers are many and the baying of the hounds does not just belong to a Sherlock Holmes story, but is a nightly chorus that mingles with the sound of traffic and filters up to our home (as if in confirmation - a number of stray barks has just started up - maybe they are reading about this through dog-telepathy).

Anyway, you can imagine the joy in the Eicher home when we heard that Oma and Opa have got a cat!

In keeping with Eicher tradition, this beast has been 'donated' by folks who have left.  This was the source of most of our menagerie when growing up.  It seems that a teacher who left Woodstock School handed the cat over to a local pastor - who called up desperate to find a home - and Mum and Dad welcomed another member to Shanti Kunj.

And so please meet the newest Eicher cat!

This beautiful feline (note how better fed it is than the strawny things that we used to have in our Bombay days) was called 'Anu' by her previous owner.

The verdict is not in yet on her new name - Oma calls her "Ginger" (obviously) while Opa calls her "Pushy."  She was brought over to Shanti Kunj in a back-pack with Opa speaking soothing words to her.

Not surprisingly, she has taken to Opa - and loves to lie on his lap.  At night she is put up in the warm attic and deals with any possible rodents.  A happy place for a cat to be.

The next gen Eichers can's wait to meet the new Shanti Kunj pet!

And so at the end of a lovely wet Saturday in Thane-town, its time to be like "Ginger / Pushy" and curl up to sleep.  Bon nuit!

Two young men in heaven

We have seen death at close quarters in the last few days.  A week ago - Ben Stephens - a bright  caring young man died at the Bethany Hospital after bravely living with a brain cancer for the last year. 

Then yesterday evening another young man - perhaps 10 years older to Ben - who we will call "Balaji" - died at the Jeevan Sahara Kendra.

We have known Ben for a decade, and have charted his growth from an adolescent to a young man.  His sweet spirit and love for God shone through many of the twists and turns of his short life.  Before we as a family went to Mussoorie we paid him a visit.

Ben was having problems remembering at that point - but when we met him he was beaming.  He had just been down to CMC Vellore for a consultation - a trip which had taken a lot out of him as he felt quite sick - and the doctors there had basically said that whatever was being done here was all that could be done.  But for Ben, his conversation with us focussed on just how grateful he was to God for who God was.  "I am glad that things are really clear right now" Ben told us.

We only knew Balaji for a week.  He had been admitted at the Govt. Hospital in Thane for 2 weeks but basically did not receive any care there.  They discharged him to die at home.  His brothers - who sell vegetables on the street in down-town Thane - heard about Jeevan Sahara and brought him to us.  He was semi-conscious when he arrived - and had lost motor control below the waist.  Balaji body was wasted - so pathetically thin you wanted to cry just looking at him.

Ben had been in and out of hospitals for the past year.  Surgery on the tumor.  Radiation therapy.  Chemo.  He had gone through it all.  Whenever I saw him his eyes were steady and there was something of a smile to be seen.  Not a silly, cover-up smile, but a real, if sometimes wistful trace of a smile.  The last two times I saw Ben alive were in the ICU at Bethany.   On the second-last time - his eyes were wide open but other than the faintest movement of his eye-brows, he could not respond to us.  The ventilator helped him breath and the beep the medical monitoring systems along with his breaths punctuated the silence.   We talked and prayed with him - telling Ben we loved him.   The day before Ben died I met him again.  The eyes were distant.  There was no reaction at all.  We said that we would see Ben again.  And we mean it still.  Death is not an end for those who die in the arms of Jesus.

I saw Balaji the morning of the day he died.  Yesterday that was.  His brothers were helping him pass stool when we first came to the ward.  After this was over, bro Simon and I spent a short time with him.  We touched his gaunt arms as he looked at us with wide eyes.  He had attended an evening prayer meeting two days earlier, but yesterday morning Balaji could not respond much.  Bro Simon prayed with him as I stroked his hair.

Later in the evening Sheba went back to the centre.  Balaji was gasping for air.  The nurses put on the oxygen.  We talked with his brothers and mother.  Just after supper Sheba got the call that Balaji had passed away.  She went out into the rainy night, over to the JSK Care Centre to examine and write the death certificate.  I put our children to bed.  And prayed for Balaji's family.

On her return, Sheba told me that Balaji's brothers were so grateful that his last days had been with us.  That their brother was loved and cared for with dignity.  "Jesus came and took him away" was what Balaji's brothers told Sheba. "We will never forget the care we got here."

I knew Balaji was very weak, and that the hopes of full recovery were slim.  But I never thought that thiwould be his day of departure.

But looking back on our short time of service to Balaji and his family - I am so very grateful for what Sheba and our nursing team of Agnes, Madhuri and Dipali have been able to do.  We do not know what Balaji's life was like before - but the last week at least was one where he received love, care, dignity, peace and eternal hope.

Ben loved to play the drums - Enoch attended an early band performance and told me that the music was "VERY LOUD."  At his funeral, which we attended on Friday afternoon as a family, the singing was beautiful - with very few dry eyes as we sang 'because He lives, I can face tomorrow, because He lives, all fear is gone."   Pastor Cecil Clements remembered how Ben would worship Jesus with total abandon.  It's no accident that much of the description of God's throne by the apostle John is of the adoration of Lord that continues in unceasing glory, wave upon beautiful wave.

We saw Ben's body put into that box and then under a grey monsoonal sky, I took a handfull of mud and dropped it onto the grave, along with so many others who had come to comfort Ben's dear mother and sister.  Ashes to ashes - dust to dust.  I did not see Balaji's body being taken away.  But here is the hope - and its real:  the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, and we shall be changed.

Who would have thought that this past week would include the deaths of these two young men.  Two very different lives whom it has been our joy to be part of in very different ways.  But I believe that both have gone ahead of us to be with our Lord. 

I looked over Jordan and what did I see? Coming forth to carry me home?  A bed of angels, coming after me. Coming forth to carry home.

Famous Five

My phone just buzzed. An SMS.  Its 22.08 and this is what it says:

Andi brother v reachd safely. Plz remem us n ur prayers

Jobel and Denny have arrived safely in Pune.   Our latest birds have flown out of the nest.  This year's crop of interns at JSK - 5 of them - have all returned to their seminaries.

Sandeep, Reshma, Denny, Jobel, and Jim

Sandeep and Reshma Gaidhare are our first married interns!  Both are studying at the Maharashtra Bible College in Bodward (near Bhusaval).  Amazingly, this college was started in 1907 by my great-grandfather Christian Eicher!  

And then there were the three musketeers from Union Biblical Seminary in Pune.   Denny Sam Jacob and Jobel E. Chacko both hail from Thiruvilla in Kerala - and their batch-mate Jim Reeves Magh from the very other part of the country - from Nagaland!  I was surprised to find out that Jim was married too - to Joyce who is ethnically Malayali.  Since she is working with a national newspaper in Pune she was not able to move with Jim here - and so we had Jim taking the bus up to Pune whenever he could!

It's our ninth year now having interns from UBS - and as I think in my minds eye over the different ones who have done their practical ministry at Jeevan Sahara I can only smile.  Each one so special.  So unique.  And each one having taken away with them insights into working with the poor in very challenging situations.  Each one of them a potential world-shaper - and by God's grace - we are already seeing how wonderfully a number of our 'alumni' are getting their hands dirty and building things that last!

Its a privilege to invest in the future.  We know that whatever we do is so limited.  So frustratingly small at times.  But here are people who have wings.  What a great joy it is to play a small part in all that they will be doing in the days to come!