UBS

Later today I am going to the Union Biblical Seminary in Pune.

I say later because it is 1 AM and I have been wrestling with a powerpoint presentation for the last 1.5 hours. It kept 'shutting down' when I try to edit it. Thank you Mr. Bill Gates and your multi-gazillion dollar company - which is still using the basic code from MS DOS. Bless your soul. I miss my Macbook (it conked out when the book deluge hit it a few weeks ago).

In 4 hours I shall open my eyes again - then off to the Thane railway station at 6 AM to get the 7 AM Intercity to Pune - arriving in the grand old city of Pune a shade after 10 AM.

UBS is a lovely place - full of friends - so it will be hard to cram all the meetings-up with faculty and students in the 2 hours and lunch before the main show of the day (for me at least).

After lunch withI shall be giving a "Current Concerns" talk on AIDS in India to the student body from 2.30-4.30 PM. Paokholun Haokip - one of our current UBS interns will also be with me and will share about how the UBS students are serving at JSK.

Then a quick jaunt back to the train station to catch the Intercity (5.55 PM) back to Thane. Should arrive at 8.20 PM - and hope to be home a shade after 9.

A long day ahead of me! Good night & good morning (prayers gratefully accepted for this tired head!)

Police

Policemen get AIDS too.

We fondly remember one policeman we looked after a few years ago. In his prime he was a champion boxer. By the time he came to us he was skin and bones. We were not able to extend his life by much - but he died in peace - and his brave wife continues to do an excellent job raising their two amazing children.

The husbands of policewomen - and the policewomen themselves - can also get infected with HIV. We have been working with one such couple for some years now. Sadly he keeps taking detours to the bottle. She keeps the family going by putting on her police uniform and putting up with him - largely for the sake of their pre-teen daughter. Little do her colleagues know that she is living with HIV.

Sheba saw a police officer today. She had met him a month ago. At that point it was clear that he had tuberculosis and was in a very poor state. He had told no one of his illness. Sheba told him to come for treatment. He did not.

Why not? Probably fear. Fear that others will find out. He had not even told his wife.

Today this man told one of his younger relatives about his condition. He brought the policeman to our centre. Sheba saw him. He can hardly walk now. His immunity is rock bottom. He still had not told his wife.

Sheba asked him to call her. The relative went to fetch her. The lady came and was told about her husband's condition.

It was a terrible shock for her.

She was also asked to be tested.

As part of the pre-test counselling, we ask the person how they will react if they are found to be HIV positive.

"But I won't be positive" said the policeman's wife. "OK, but imagine if you are... how do you think you will react?" asked Sheba.

"I won't be positive" was all the lady could muster.

Its very, very hard. The deep stigma and loathing that surrounds HIV continues. Faced with awkward truths - most of us try to hide and post-pone the moment of when we have to reveal - and be vulnerable. For so many who have HIV - this postponing and procrastination goes on for years. In this family the man has been exposing his wife to the virus for years now.

The lady talked to Sheba about how such 'big-big' people used to come to her house. Now no one does.

Its hard for the poor to get care. But for the rich and powerful - it is just as hard. This poor man lives in a posh appartment only a brisk walk away from our clinic. Because of fear of others finding out about his condition - he has now deteriorated to a state where he is too weak to walk.

Who will look after our law-enforcers? The virus has made deep in-roads into the force. We have been privileged to work in a small way with a few families - but there are so many others who are living in silence and fear - while wearing the uniform.

Discovery

Dinner conversation. Dad is safely back from Hyderabad - after being 'chronologically challenged' and seeing the Indigo flight leave without him yesterday.

We meander through different topics - especially rolling through the many old friends he has met over the weekend.

When we come to one name, Dad digresses. He tells how this person's older brother Harold Sutle had come to Akola when Dad was a 16 year old boy. Harold was arranging meetings for the evangelist bro Akbar Haqq. During these evangelistic meetings Dad had 'gone forward' for the first time and committed himself to Christ.

Now how is it that I never heard this story before? 41 years are over in my life - of which a good 35 or so I can remember - but we never crossed this path in our conversations. Dad is if anything always very open about his faith and I have heard many a tale of his spiritual growth. Yet this piece of the puzzle evaded me till now.

There is so much that I don't know about my own father.

What mysteries there are in each one of our stories. How strange that those who are the very closest to us are still terra incognita in so many ways.

Earlier this year I challenged Steve Satow to write a book about his amazing parents - Dr. Symon and Yvonne Satow. I told him that I would be working on one on my parents. Feb 15 2011 looms - and not a scratch has been done from my part. My initial attempt to borrow an mp3 recorder from an ethnographically-inclined friend came to naught when Mum and Dad heard about it. I was told by them that when we came to visit them this year 'on holiday' that I was to leave 'work' behind. The mp3 recorder was not borrowed.

'There will be plenty of other times' I heard Dad say.

Well. Maybe. But the years spin by. And they seem to be spinning quicker the longer we are aroound.

While Dad is here. This time. These few days before he heads North again on Sunday evening. We are going to push my discovery of him a little further into reality.

Will I end up with a book? I don't know and I don't really care. I want to know more about him.

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p.s.
Dad - thanks for reading this - you so faithfully do - you are among the gentlest of men. We are very very proud of you. (Numbers 12.3)

Freedom Firm

Two score years ago two families lived together in a communal set up. Young. Idealistic. Jesus-smitten. People-loving. Radical in praxis.

The crumbling flat they shared for a season in a seedy part of South Bombay saw its share of tears and hilarious laughter. Dave and Kathy Hicks - and Ray and Christa Eicher (my then early 30-year-old parents) built a friendship that has stood the wear and tear of 40 years. Their children's lives have intersected with ours at various levels

The little girl who I am told was one day discovered (along with yours truly) trying to give a kitten a bath has followed the restless ideals-bashed-into-reality path of her parents. She married a lawyer whose parents were also part of the same youth movement. Greg and Mala Malstead have thrown themselves into making a real difference in combatting the henious traffiking of young girls into sexual slavery.

Here is a moving glimpse into what Freedom Firm is doing. Hats off to these heroes - and their many coworkers who are doing some remarkable work.

Freedom Firm from Freedom Firm on Vimeo.

Dina and Mangal

She had a high fever. 104 degrees Farenheit (I'm basically a metric-wallah - but fevers don't sound right in centigrade).

Let's call her Dina. Dina was sick. She has HIV. So does her husband. So does her oldest child - a boy aged six.

Dina and Mangal have 3 more children. One is 4. One is 3. One is a babe in her arms at 7 months.

Except when Dina is sick - then Mangal tries to look after the 4 of them.

Dina is 24. She married at 16.

Sheba asked Dina where her husband worked - she said 'at the Naka'. At first Sheba didn't understand - then she did. Mangal is a day-labourer. He goes to a cross-roads in the morning and waits for people to come and choose him / and or others who are also sitting there - waiting to be hired for the day.

When Dina is sick, Mangal is at home. He tries let his brother look after the kids - but the brother is tired of it. They are all tired of it. No one wants to be sick.

Sheba had Dina admitted on Thursday. She had a very high fever. Probably malaria. It's never nice to have a very very sick person under your care.

On Friday afternoon we had a staff meeting - and I walked out into the JSK room to answer a call and saw Mangal lying on a mat on the floor with the 4 kids spread out around him. He looked up sheepishly - and I could not help but think of 4 small puppies snoozing in the sun.

On Saturday evening - after the training for Church members - a small group of JSK staff spent some time praying with Dina. Her husband and the older 3 kids were at home. She cradled the 7 month-old in her lap while she sat on her bed. We sat around her and prayed.

This morning I asked our nurse Sandhya how Dina was because I did not see her sitting with our staff at our morning prayers. Sandhya said that she had gone home the yesterday!

Its not like everything is hunky-dory. Dina and Mangal have asked us to place their oldest 2 kids in a 'hostel' - something we are loathe to do - because we believe so strongly in parents being with their children - even in hard times. Dina and Mangal are tired. Tired of being sick. Tired of changes. Tired of trying to get their family members to help them out.

And yet, in a small way we have been able to help out this dear, young and brave family.

Today is a new day.

Children

Sheba did an excellent job teaching church volunteers on Saturday. The main focus of the day was how to help children who are affected by HIV. As part of her presentations, Sheba brought out this quote:

We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the foundation of life.

Many of the things we need can wait.

The child cannot.

Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made and his senses are being developed.

To him we cannot answer "Tomorrow".

His name is "Today”

- Gabriela Mistral, 1948

People are not for dumping

Two days ago we got a comment on the JSK website. It was a request for help. A lady asked us for guidance about her auntie - who lives in Kalyan and whose husband died of HIV some years ago. I replied with telling her to bring her and we will talk. The lady called up a number of times afterwards to get directions.

Yesterday they came. They were a group of 7 people. The woman with HIV was with them. She has herpes zoster and has lost her vision in one eye. She was quite sick and needs admission.

"She is last stage" said the people who brought her.

We will dignify this lady with a name - we will call her "Malini."

"Who is her relative?" asked Sheba of the 6 people who brought her (including one man who was drunk). "None of us are" - "We are all just neighbours who are concerned for her" - "Please do something for her - she is very poor" - "We don't know where her relatives are"

Malini sat in the midst of these lies.

We know that at least the lady who called up before was Malini's neice. But when it comes down to really helping none of them wanted to come forward.

Sheba explained that this was not a "last stage" - that so much could be done with treatment. While HIV is serious and there is no "guarantee" that everything will 'turn out all right' - we need to have someone there who can help make decisions for Malini.

This group of 6 were total strangers to us from far away. Sheba asked them to talk about it and decide while she saw another patient who had come for admission with a high fever. She clearly told them that one of them would have to be here with Malini. She offered a referral to Sion hospital as an alternative. She clearly said that we would be happy to look after Malini, but that Malini could not be here alone.

People are not for 'dumping.' In our society, there is a belief that certain places will look after people for ever. We are of course in awe of the "mother Theresa's" of this world - who look after the desititute without any questions. But this is a case where Malini does have relatives. They were with her. She was too scared to speak up and identify them. They rejected her in front of us, hoping that it would cause us to take her on.

We said no.

Heartbreaking. No easy answer to this.

But we do not have the capacity to be an ashram for people who are abandonned by their own relatives. If Malini were from this area and we had some contacts who could help us understand who she actually is, we would have taken her on. But she was from far away. Taking on a person is not like installing a bookshelf.

They left - leaving Malini behind.

After a while the phone calls came again. Please keep her. We will send the man (who was drunk). We told them to come back. In the mean-time more patients came.

Malini was sitting quietly in the front room.

Then she dissappeared.

Did they come back?

Did she walk out?

We don't know.

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For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Rev. 7.17

Oh, hasten the day.