Enoch's Fire Fighting Academy

Howdy folks!  Glad that you could come aboard to Enoch's fire-fighting academy.  My name is Fireman Bob and am I glad that you are with us today.

You see, we teach fire-fighters all about how to fight fires by actually having them learn from real fire-fighters in a completely functional fire-station.

We have a brand new fire truck that was donated by Uncle Ekhard from Japan and we are mighty proud of what it can do!

You will notice that we have a class room and computer lab on top, this is where the new recruits get their first lessons (and where they can watch movies for entertainment too).

The room in the back was supposed to have triple bunk-beds, but somehow the contractor (Enoch's Dad in this case) forgot about it and so it has been turned into a command centre and computer lab.  We will have to build a residential wing soon - but at present everyone is busy learning!

We are proud of our master trainers - like old Smokey Patel - and know that each recruit is just itching to get out and 'do something' - but class-room basics are vital for good fire-fighting.  Besides, if you can't pay attention in a class - how can you do so when there is a 30 story apartment building on fire in front of you eh?

It can occasionally be quite noisy if the command room gets a call and the big pumper is sent out!  But hey, that's why our recruits are here!  Old Smokey will always stop taking a sip from his coffee mug - and gaze into space for a while and tell the newbies that a fire-fighter has to be ready at all times!

 We know that fire fighting is a team effort - and are always glad to know that our fire chief is ready in his super fast chief-mobile.

Our chief vehicle designer Enoch has helped us build a small fleet of machines that quickly and efficiently get our team to where they need to get - as soon as possible - and with all the gear they need!

But I am not here just to yap away friends - let's take a look at the out-door training facilities!

The training starts with the very basics:  running and jumping.  Hey, it's not as easy as it sounds!  Many a gung-ho trainee has met the grass with his face over the years.  And as you can see this batch is no different!

 

 As a trainer I need to be able to help our future fire-fighters learn. 

You can be sure that today's action is well documented with my handy camera.

With the technology we have we can review every part of the training and help our recruits improve by showing today's bloopers on the big screen in the class room in the evening!

My do we ever get laughs at some of what goes on here.  And I have even found an industrious chap getting my shots and putting them up on his blog!

What these youngsters are up to these days is pretty beyond me... I am pretty happy that I can click with a digi-cam and don't know much about "what's up?" and other greetings that the recruits keep talking about.

Anyway, take a gander at our obstacle course.

We're pretty proud of the little hill that our candidates race up with their fire extinguishers in hand - and then see the next hurdle awaiting them - a lovely little swim!

 

You see if a fire-fighter is to get ahead - he or she can't be afraid of a bit of water...

And what better place to learn team-work than when you are trying to climb a slippery roof just after getting soaked yourself! 

Stands to reason that the young guns are pretty happy by the helping hand the guys above give them by tossing them ropes and encouraging them to come on up.

Speaking of up, there is some pretty scary stuff for the recruits at the next stage.

Our guys don't wear helmets for nothing you see.  We train them to climb.

And by golly do they ever do that!

You see it's not just going up a ladder.  Anyone can do that.

But at Enoch's fire academy, our master trainer Darab Ooparwalla gets all the recruits to go well beyond - the actually leave the ladder and keep climbing....

Just to reassure any mothers of our recruits who may be seeing these pictures - remember they are all well rigged up for safety - my camera angle doesn't seem to capture the safety harnesses and guide ropes - but ma'ams you can trust me that they are there.

Is Enoch's Fire Academy just a cross country endurance and rock climbing institution? 

No siree!  We are serious about fire - and about getting it out quickly and safely.

So what better way to learn and to fight things when they burn!

Under the supervision of Firemaster Aag Singh the trainees are taken to a lot where old houses are deliberately ignited - and they have to use what they have learned to put out the flames!

 It can be a tricky business of course - but you don't make omlettes without breaking eggs!

Young Vijay, for example, wearing the white helmet.

He has had to climb up with his extinguisher to get the flames under control.

His trainee colleague Martin with the black helmet is learning to operate a power saw used to get people out of accidents - but useful in this situation as well.

At least I think so.

Maybe Martin just likes cutting things.

But we will leave our charges to the watchful eye of Firemaster Aag Singh, and turn to the final test.

Yes, you may have heard about it, but it's the simple contest of man vs. fire:  the fire test.

At the end of the training at Enoch's Fire Academy, the trainees are brought face to face with their worst enemy - fire itself.

I must warn you that the next few images may not be for the faint of heart - but if you are willing to draw a deep breath and look - I am sure that you will see something worth telling the little ones on cold winter nights when you drink masala chai and munch on pakoras.

Yes, we are still under supervision - this time by Firemaster Jaywant Hamesha - but now its the question - can our just-about-to-graduate-trainee young master Anand E overcome his fear and face the flames on his own?

With the gruff voice of his teacher encouraging him on - young Anand plunges into the test.

The fire is hot. Very hot. 

But Anand is determined. 

He has his trusty fire extinguisher with him - and whoosh - on goes the button and out comes the fire-fighting chemicals.   Anand is determined to put into practice everything that he has learned at Enoch's Fire Fighting Academy - and he comes through with flying colours!

All that is left of the fierce place after Anand is finished with it... are some smoky embers (and even those are doused by a bucket of water by our intrepid chappy!)

What's next for Anand?  Well, if he gets hired (and Enoch tells us that all the graduates get jobs because they are so good in the training at his Academy), Anand by get to ride one of those big police motor bikes (after appropriate training of course)

In fact Enoch has designed a separate obstacle and training set up just for those fire-fighters who need to have good motor-bike skills.

I am not sure what a 'jump' has to do with fire-fighting, but we will leave that for another day, and another story for Enoch to elaborate on in his happy hours of playing with lego.

Thanks for coming along on the tour folks!  This is your host Fireman Bob signing off and hoping we will meet up again some day at Enoch's Fire Fighting Academy!

Celebrations

We love celebrating - and when it's Asha's birthday, then the celebrations start early and continue for a goodly length of time.

This year we had Oma and Opa with us over Christmas and New Year's.  Before they left we celebrated Agnes' birthday on the 4th of January ... 

 ... as well as an advance B-day with Asha and Enoch later that night.

On the big day when Asha turned 13 we had our early morning family celebration, as well as a surprise for her after her normal Thursday evening violin lesson.  Enoch and Sheba were waiting with 13 roses for us at a restaurant that Asha and I 'happened' to walk by (Asha said that she had her suspicions...).

The next day was Friday, and we hosted 2 excited sets of sisters for a sleep-over.   The not-so-secret-Seven of them played Pictionary, read, talked, ate and had a whale of a time.   Sleeping seems to have been low on the priorities with Nikita and Jasper as well as Kirti and Nitya making it quite the night of laughter. 

Enoch joined in for most of it but faded shortly after mid-night.  I was working on the cake and when I finally finished cleaning up it was past 1 AM and the girls were still going strong with gales of laughter.

The next morning was the party - and so the girls reluctantly did some sleeping...  A pancake breakfast got them up and energised to put up balloons and streamers.   The cake was brought out - this year's edition being a treasure chest to illustrate the over theme of each one of us being a precious treasure...

We did something new this year - a 10 AM party on a Saturday morning - and despite what some said, Asha's friends were soon trooping in.

Of course we had to play games...

Finding out your 'real name' using only questions that can be answered 'yes' and 'no' is a good one for different groups to get to know each other!

The animal clapping game was a new one for many in this year's group.

Eating chocolate after you roll a "six" and getting 'dressed up' and only using a knife and a fork... until the next "six" is rolled is an old favorite that Asha specifically wanted (and as a birthday girl actually ended up getting a good many pieces into her mouth!).

In keeping with the theme for this year, however, the 'biggest' game of the day was a treasure hunt - the first time we have done one here...

Thirteen clues had the group wandering far and wide, and exploring parts of the complex that are well off the beaten track.


It was a beautiful day to be outside, and we made sure that every nook and corner of the Lok Upvan Phase 1 society compound was well covered by the 14 youngsters being sent to different parts of the grounds by the clues they discovered.


 ... and finally ending up back in the flat with the 'treasure' being a box of animal chocolates that was hidden on top of the fridge.

We wound off with a time of sharing about just how precious a treasure from God that Asha is to us - and how each one of us is so very valuable - and how vital it is for us to guard the treasure we are. 

On the other hand, on the theme of 'treasure' we also explored how Jesus told a story of the man who found a treasure in a field - and the man was willing so sell everything he owned in order to buy the field.  There are times when we may do things that seem silly - but have real meaning - because we know that they have value far more than what seems so on the surface.


A short break had the girls oohing and aahing over the hamsters (down to only 2 - with Cinnamon and Garlic holding fort since we gave Nutmeg, Ginger and Jeera away to the Andy Bose family).

Sheba had to go over to JSK to see a patient, but on her return she prayed for Asha, we had the traditional song and blowing of candles.

Speaking of treasure, here is one that Asha has been blessed with since we moved to Mumbai 12 years ago - her dear friend Nikita who is only 4 months older to Asha.

This year Nikita brought along a most extra-ordinary card - a massive 3-D object decorated with some of Asha's baby photos and celebratory messages from all of us hanging down and a cutout figure of Asha reaching out for it.

This photo does poor homage to the card that has been put up in a corner of Asha and Enoch's room.

The party itself ended with hot 'wada-pao'  the ubiquitous 'Bombay-burger' which we all love so much.  Our dear Asha David had been with us since morning, cooking up a storm of these savory treats as well as a large vat of fried rice - both of which the Eichers have been feasting on since the party thanks to our large fridge!

Whew!  What a day!

But wait, the celebrations were not over.   Coming in just as the last of our young guests of moving out - a new friend Ekhard Hitzer proved to be another memorable part of Asha's special day...  Ekhard is the nephew of our dear friends Stefan and Maria Winkler.  He is a professor of theoretical physics at the International Christian University in Tokyo, is married to Eriko - a lovely Japanese lady, has two teen-aged boys Isaiah and Joshua and was passing through as he is presenting at a physics conference in Nagpur this week. 

Enoch was thrilled that Uncle Ekhard brought a new lego fire truck for him.  Enoch's Daddy was fascinated by what his son had made...   Look out for a long-overdue 'lego posting' on this blog soon...

And so our celebrations came to an end ... or shall we say a pause.   Enoch's birthday is exactly one month away...

13

My dear Asha

13 years have slipped silver-fish quick

Through our fingers since

You announced your arrival with the quietest

Of cries on a cold Jharkhand morning

Today I see a young woman

Quick-silver mind, voracious book-swallower

Looking back at who I was at your age

I catch-breath awe at your spick-span-neat school-books

Your easy joy in explaining a mathematical concept or

A set of grammatical terms

Especially when you have a pupil or two
As you work the white-board

From whence came such as this?

With bow in hand music flows

Your inner ear attuned

Discipline added

Multiplied in my sight as a miracle

You reading notes off a page and playing them 

First time

Like my eyes seeing pictures 

From small squiggles of black on white

Speak nothing of the deeper grace, the kindness of heart
Still developing, still questing forward

Dear daughter
Dear child of Christ
Drink deep and live full

Thirteen sun-spins are done
We step into the next today
Your mother and your brother and I
(and many others besides)
Are so very glad
For you

Olio rocks Manipur - many a year ago!

Many years ago there was a fellow called Chris Hale - a year ahead of me at Woodstock School - who loved music.  Western Classical. Hindusthani.  Rock.  You name it - he played it!

A number of years after we finished school Chris was back in India after having studied composition at the Berklee School of Music.   He and a number of young men put together a rock band called Olio - and ended up joining college rock competitions - ending up with radio time when one of their tracks Surulurulu was chosen as part of the Great Indian Rock album that an Indian rock magazine ran in those days.

When I started work with the SHALOM project in Manipur in 1996 we had a wild dream to get Olio to Manipur and play for our rock hungry young people.  The dream became a reality and the Olio band drove their band bus all the way from Lucknow and performed at a number of venues in Manipur.  The response was tremendous.  As an HIV prevention and care programme - we were hitting just the people who were our biggest target group - young people who were prone to or already into drugs...

Chris recently took some of the old video footage from 3 of the concerts that Olio played at on that tour and added it to their studio version of Surulurulu.   A noticeably younger, thinner and hairier version of myself shows up in the end of this video wearing a bright yellow Brazil football jersey and giving a talk about reaching out to people with HIV....

Enjoy!  Lets rock and roll!

A beautiful - and real - dream

There are some days that you just want to freeze into a time warp... and slowly unwind them at leisure.  Days that are a daze and a happy haze that you never want to end.  We have just come out of a week of delight where the Delhi Eichers were with us... and so were Mum and Dad as a huge bonus!

It all started - as it should - around a meal.  Mum and Dad had arrived a few days before - and we had celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary.  Then the next day - Christmas Eve - Stefan and Neeru and their pack of 3 - Ashish, Anjali and Anita arrived.

We got out a 'kids table' - just like we had when we were small - and the laughter and conversations began.  Later that night we sang and read about Jesus' birth and the joy He brings us, which was followed by a treasure hunt where the kids unearthed various gifts that we had for each other.

The next day we celebrated at church... and then had another meal - this time with all the folks who had attended the Christmas morning service.

We had plenty to do at home - there were hamsters to play with, puzzles to be done, football to be played downstairs.  What a treat for Asha and Enoch to have their cousins with them.

There are of course chappatis to be made...  

Asha became the heroine of two adoring cousins for a variety of fine reasons.

And there are lots of books... and some comics to be read.  Especially classics like Tintin, Asterix and Lucky Luke.

Plus, when we want the general volume to be a bit lower than it is, there is always the joy of watching a video on ye olde computor...

Since our loved ones had come from so far - and since Thane is not really bursting with family-friendly things to do - we decided to venture further a field.  An over-nighter in Alibaug for all of us!

We started our journey with the early morning State Transport bus taking us towards the Mantralaya.

Crisp, morning air as Mumbai started to groggily get up.  Cruised down and before we knew it were at Flora Fountain.  A quick decision and all 11 of us were out!

Almost immediately we ran into the late M.F. Hussain's iconic horses that he had painted on a wall of a cafe - and which still remain today for the urban art-lover to enjoy - even when everything is still shuttered up...

Our short walk took us past the Kala Ghoda area - with the Jehangir Art gallery tempting us a tiny bit (but being only 8.45 we didn't want to wait till 11 AM to go in)...

Once we got to the Gateway of India, we had to take a good tourist shot:

... and almost before you could say 'Jack Robinson' (or should that be 'Janak Rabinathan') were were on to a ferry plying through the morning murk, surrounded by seagulls.  

Magical.  Out of sight of land.  On the top deck eating (again - this was almost Enid-Blightonian) cheeze-onion-tomato sandwiches and tossing bits of buns to the gulls.

Definitely an experience where the journey itself is well worth the destination.  

And so we burbled across the bay, till the other shore loomed out of the haze and we were alighting at Mandua.  There a bus awaited us and took us to Alibaug - which was a 45 minute ride through rural hinterland - dotted with the play-palaces of the Mumbai elite - and increasingly large smatterings of tourist kitsch.

But in this case, the destination was well worth the journey.  An oasis of quiet.  Hammocks.  And view like this as you gently swing under the coconut and aracea nut palms...

Having your son with you in the hammock is not bad too!  

And add to this place for badminton, swings and a slide, and 3 large male turkeys strutting around doing their 'gobbling thing', a totally relaxed atmosphere is at hand.                             Greenwood Cottages is the name of the place.  At Angaon - another 30 minutes out of Alibaug - but well worth the trip.

With this visit, we saw a whole new person the youngest cousin of the lot - Anita who will be reaching the ripe old age of 2 this month!   

Throw in some ice-cream and we have a winner of a place!

And as delightful as games of badminton and pick up cricket are for the younger generation - as pleasing as eating poha and bread omlettes outside in our green cathedral is for the seniors ... there is something more to Alibag that hanging out at a resort.

We are after all here for the elemental pleasures of running on sand and diving into the murky brine...

Asha must be part mermaid.  She just loved the waves and kept pulling me to go back with her to get some more water time.  Having a jet ski pulling an inflated contraption got a chorus of 'please can I go on that' by our intrepid daughter.  That will have to wait for another day... in the mean-time we enjoyed the water as the sun travelled in its down-ward arc. 

 The sands mixed well - and each receding wave brought tapestries of colour to bear.

What a wonderful world - to be able to be with those we love in a beautiful place.

These were the dying days of 2013.

We look back on these days - and the whole slightly blurry year - with amazement and delight.

Having stepping into the new, we now have so much more to look forward to.

Thank you Stefan and Neeru and kids for the memorable visit.  We are already looking forward to the next time we can link up.  We missed our sister Premila of course - having her would have made the time complete... but a day will come we know.

Thank you Mum and Dad for coming to bless us - despite Mum still being in recovery from her hospitalisation in early December.   We are so grateful for this time.

 And thank you Sheba and Asha and Enoch for your amazing hospitality.

What a wonderful family we are blessed to be in.

May this year unroll more and more of these experiences.

Dreams do become reality!  We have just been through one of these wonderful times!

Bye bye 2013

Another year has just slipped by...


This last month was cut in half - with the first part a busy blur of activity ... and the second part a delicious set of blessings as family descended upon us... and how!

To have Stefan and Neeru and their lovely 3 kids Ashish, Anjali and Anita with us over Christmas was amazing.  And it was heightened by having Mum and Dad with us too!

Here is a shot of all of us at 'Shetty's' - the restaurant that we used to occasionally have a treat at when we lived in Nana Chowk:

In a few hours we will be stepping into 2014.  We are just about to go for our 'watch-night' service with our fellow Yeshu-bakhts where we will share what happened over this year and pray the new year in.

God is good.  May light shine this year!  Onwards!  Upwards!

Mum in Hospital

First post in December!

And its not about AIDS or any of the 'normal' things that we are whirling around like mad-people about during these 2 weeks (patience, friends, the posts will come... I promise)...

Its about Mum.

Just before the 'Redemption Concert' on World AIDS Day I saw a quick email from Dad addressed to Stefan, Premi and myself saying that Mum had been admitted at Landour Community Hospital with a bad case of pneumonia.

That night we talked to Dad and Mum in the hospital.  They were down in Hyderabad to be part of the 50th year celebrations of OM in India - and had soooooooo many old (and new) friends to meet.  Each meal was booked - breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Meetings were attended.  Late nights.  Travel.  Then a wedding attended in Dehra Dun with Mum wearing a sari and just a light shawl on a winter night.

Then 3 days of exhaustion at home with a fearsome cough, before she was brought to the hospital and was admitted for what was diagnosed as a pneumonia.

Big kick in the gut. No way.

When we talked to her on the phone her voice was so croaky - and we knew she was on an IV line for the antibiotics.  We felt so helpless being so far away.  But we prayed and got to word out among your local prayer-warriors.

The next morning she sounded the tiniest shade better.  Then last evening another small step.  This morning a further bit of improvement.

Then just as I was putting off the computer at work after another full day of meetings (John Forbes is in town), I saw an email from Dad with the title "Mum Home Again" - and here is the picture.

Worth a thousand words!  All is well.  The sun is shining. Dad is back to reading the Hindu newspaper.

God answers the prayers of simple saints.