John

Summer of 1995 saw me plunge into a new world.  Manipur. 

I had visited Churachandpur once before - a flying visit with my father and brother in the winter of 1986 when Dad spoke at a revival convention in Mokokchung, Nagaland.  That being our first trip to the North East and with Dad knowing so many people - we took the opportunity to visit Meghalaya and Manipur as well.

But in 1995 it was me alone.  I was there to help SHALOM with ethnographic research on injecting drug use and HIV risk - the 2.5 months also being my fieldwork for my Masters of Public Health thesis.  

It was an amazing new world for me.  So totally unlike anything I had lived in before.

And one of my special guides was John Tusing.

The oldest son of Lalremthang Tusing - from a prominent family in the Hmar tribe - John had done his schooling at MCC in Chennai and was hired as a youth educator by the then fledgling SHALOM organisation.  

The John I knew then loved people.  He loved to talk and meet and mingle.  He was a restless bundle of energy - always wanting to do new things.

He would take me for drives in the Red Maruti Omni van of his fathers - down from the building that housed SHALOM on Rengkai road - out to one of the neighbouring villages. 

We talked long hours.  I was welcomed into the sprawling Tusing clan - and have never really left.

It was not surprising that when I joined SHALOM a year later - with my freshly minted degree as a public health professional - that I was hosted by John's parents - and shared a room with John.

John loved to laugh.  He would talk a mile-a-minute - and his large eyes in his big square head were alight in those days.

Many an evening was spent chewing the cud - or being generously fed by John's mother as the 7 months I worked with SHALOM sped by.

John, his parents and younger brother Diamond - when Mum visited me in Churchandpur with Team Kantata

The generosity that I received in this home was phenomenal.  They adopted me as one of their own.  I remember Auntie going to a local marwari to ask for parathas since the Tusing fare was rice at the first meal and rice at the evening meal too.  I remember being on the ground floor with the windows shut and the sound of gunfire from paramilitary troops going beserk in the town bazaar after scooter-borne insurgents had killed two their men.  I remember the cups of tea at 6 AM in the morning (the sun comes up at 4 AM) and the late night meetings at the local church.  I remember being honoured with a sheep on getting my degrees from university.  I had finished my studies in January of the year - but the blessed degrees only showed up in the post well past July or so.  The Tusings took the occasion to slaughter a sheep for me and call everyone (including I think at least 3 pastors to pray over me) to a feast!

I have never been back to Churachandpur - but the wonderful people that I got to know there will always be part of me.

Sadly, I lost track of John.  He quit SHALOM sometime after I left and dabbled with many things.  He got married and had kids and the next thing I knew he was in Bible School in Bangalore.   We exchanged the occasional email - and then things petered out.  

The last time I met John was in 2000.  Sheba and I were at Vellore - and we found out that he was there too.  John had come to be with his mother for her chemotherapy.  We met briefly in a lodge where they were staying.  Auntie looked tired but determined.  John had his big smile.  Auntie won her battle with cancer.  John's battles were on a different playing field.

John and family in 2008 - they were later blessed with another son

The news from the last few years was sketchy, second-hand and proved to be a muddled picture.  John always lived larger than life.  He refused to kowtow to the normal, the run of the mill.  I understood that he married and had three children.  I also heard that he made a string of questionable  decisions.  John's appetite for life was mirrored in his large physique.  His body reflected his soul.

This afternoon I got a call from Australia.  It was John's cousin Phillip with the shocking news that John had died half an hour before.

The circumstances are hazy but it seems John had suffered from various ailments - and that his body had just given out.

John was all of 36.  

By any standards his life was far too short.  By any standards the bitterness of potential unfulfilled is written all over John's time on this planet.

My heart goes out to Uncle and Auntie Remthang as they will be looking on the burial of their eldest son.  My heart aches for John's wife and children who face the rest of their days without him.  To his brothers and sister and the larger crowd of Tusings and Pudaites and other kinsfolk who now only have him as a memory. I know that our Lord has shed tears too over John's short life - and his arms of mercy are very large.  I also know that our Lord knows what it is like to lose a loved one into the arms of death - and that He himself entered that dark gate ... but that on the third day He smashed it once and for all!

----------------

Every death asks a questions of those left behind.  What about me?  

Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know,

For whom the bell tolls.

It tolls for thee.                                      - John Donne

One of the many memories of Churachandpur is the tolling of the bell when someone dies.  I remember it as people beating on a metal bar - with each stroke being tolling a year.  Older people had longer tolling.  This was before mobiles - and was often the first way people found out who had died.

I wonder if the bell tolled today for John.  As the all-night prayer meeting and singing time - the Lengkhawm is likely to be underway - I wish I could also be there singing the sad slow songs of loss - and hope in an eternal home.   I wish I could be with the family as John's body is laid to rest.  And I wish I could hear the words of the pastor preaching about the hope of the resurrection.

Since I cannot be there 'in the flesh' in Churachandpur - I am holding a small prayer vigil at this midnight hour here in Thane.

I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colours will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well, yes, I'm still running

You broke the bonds and you
Broke the bonds
Loosed the chains
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believe it
I believe it, I believe

JSK PF Camp

We just got back from an amazing weekend camp for our Positive Friends at the Bible Centre in Pune.

Amazed at God's goodness in letting us get together with 80 very special people.  People with HIV.  Their family members.  Church volunteers.  JSK staff.  What a blessing.  It all fell into place.

Very tired, but also very happy.

For unto us a child is born

Three hours ago a little girl was born.

She weighed 1.7 kgs at birth.  A month premature, but we ever happy to welcome this child into the air-breathing world. 

She is Carla's child - and the last 48 hours were a kind of living hell for Carla and all who were helping her.

When Carla started to have labour pains she was taken to the government hospital where Carla had been registered for her delivery.  And where our staff and Carla's mother had taken her a number of times for her antenatal work.

But the doctors at Chhatrapati Shivaji Hospital in Kalwa refused to take her.  They said she was premature and they did not have an incubator.  That Carla is HIV positive played a big role.  They told her to go to the Civil Hospital - the other main government hospital in Thane.   In the middle of the night, Carla's helpers took her there - only to be told that she could not deliver there because all her papers were from the Shivaji hospital.

Carla's helpers were in a fix.  They then did what we do in India.  Went to a local politician.  Woke him up.  He came to the Shivaji hospital.  Shouted at the doctors.  Got her 'admitted.'  

But not quite.  The whole next day the hospital took revenge.  They lodged a 'complaint' against Carla.  Told her to produce the father of the child.  Carla's mother had come from Mumbai to help her in this. But the hospital authorities demanded that the father come. 

Utter madness.

In the middle of all of this our staff and Carla's helpers were trying to see that the child will be delivered.  Carla's labour pains were intermittent (mercifully).  Somehow she was finally admitted.  All of yesterday this raged.

In the middle of this episode - when two of our social workers were with the authorities - arguing Carla's case we got a call from an organisation who works to free underage girls from prostitution.  They needed a male witness from Maharashtra.  The police and female witness were ready for the raid to begin to free 2 girls.  Did we have anyone.  It was with a terrible sinking heart that I said we did not - as the very two who could have gone were fighting with the hospital authorities to get Carla properly admitted - and we just did not know how long it would take.  By God's grace the organisation were able to get someone else.  When it rains it pours.

This morning Carla finally gave birth.  At 5.30 AM.  A 'normal delivery.' The news of the little girl's birth is such a joy for us.  Its been a long, long haul for Carla. 

And for this little girl.  So many times this girl was so close to being aborted.  So many self-destructive thoughts have gone through Carla's mind.  So much rejection of mother and child from Carla's widowed mother and the few who are 'in the know' about Carla.

Will Carla decide to face the future with her little girl.  Or will she as she has said so far - give the child up for adoption and 'go back' to her home? 

Huge questions.  We have been through so much with Carla so far - and will deal with one day at a time.

Right now the baby is with Carla in the hospital.  Soon Carla and daughter will be discharged.  We expect that they will come back to the Jeevan Sahara Kendra Care Centre for at least a few days before the next steps are taken.  Pray for our nursing staff who are currently looking after a very sick HIV positive man whose fever is just not abating - possibly because of multi-drug resistant fever.

Since the child is premature we need to work hard to keep her alive.  But we believe that this girl will thrive.  And it is our fervent hope that she will not have the HIV that her mother has.  We are giving the medication daily to the child - and had switched Carla to a second-line therapy because her initial medications were not working.

Do say a prayer for this little girl will you?  And for Carla.  And for all who are working to help her.  Thanks.

A glimpse of Bonhoeffer

I cried earlier this week.  At some ungodly hour of the morning.  And then later again.

There is much going around me to cry about.  The horrible injustice that so many of our friends with HIV face.  The grinding poverty that nudges its way into our middle-class lives - only to be pushed away.  The gut-wrenching kick of finding out another friend's marriage is on the rocks.  In fact there is too much to cry about when you stop to think about it.

But my tears were from reading.

Reading about a young German pastor who lived out a life of joy in Jesus.  And who was shot by the Nazis in the fag-end of WWII just days before the advancing allied troops overran the Flossenbuerg concentration camp he was in.

As the gestapo came to take him away to the final death camp, he told a group of fellow prisoners: "This is the end, For me the beginning of life."

There go my eyes.  Misting over.

I had long known about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  But not really known him.

Thanks to Eric Metaxas' colossal biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy I have plunged deep into a world that I thought I knew at least to some extent from my excellent lessons in modern German history from my dear Herr Walter Meister.  This book has shown me just how little I know of the terrible whirlpool which was Germany's descent into Nazism and the utter madness of the war.

Bonhoeffer comes off as a modern saint - a radiant man whose intellect and deep love for his country and his fellowmen drove him time and time again to take the uncomfortable and dangerous positions of speaking up and acting out the Gospel of God.  But instead of being a haggard grey-beard, the book shows him to be what seems a virtual vortex of joy.  His love for others and his thrill of music and conversation shines through - as does seeming paradox of being a hard-minded theologian with a -sharp mind who seems to step ever deeper into an experiential understanding of his Lord Jesus.

This does not mean that Bonhoeffer is some kind of 'perfect man' straight out of a hagiography of the blessed so-and-so who never wanted to play when they were a child but preferred to spend their time in deep prayer at altar of their village church.  Hardly.

The book shows his depressions.  The disappointments that Bonhoeffer had. His failures and gradual alienation from many as the resistance to Hitler seemed to keep faltering again and again - while Hitler and the forces with him seemed to go from strength to strength.

So what is so compelling about this book.  For one the almost unbelievable fact that Bonhoeffer seems to have taken on the job of a spy - of a military intelligence officer in the Abwehr (the military intelligence wing of the German army).  The book paints this as partly an elaborate and daring cover-up of his own desire to end the Nazi regime - where he and others of the old aristocratic parts of the army worked towards a coup d'etat to remove Hitler and his cronies.  The tragedy being how rabidly successful Hitler seemed to be for much of his regime and much of the first part of WWII.  The other side of his joining the Abwehr was to save himself from being put into prison by the Gestapo for his defiance of the Nazis through the confessing church - and his running of illegal seminaries and work to try and help those few courageous pastors who were being put in prison or sent to the front.

I have always been a sucker for spy stories.  But here is one where the good guys lose.  The plot to kill Hitler failed by a whisker.  And in revenge most of the people of that group were rounded up, tortured and killed.

But the book brought me to tears because of more than this.  I think one of the reasons is the unwillingness to give into evil - though all the odds were stacked against him - and all who stood out against Hitler.

I of course have to wonder about my German grandfather - whose small size and work as a coal merchant in Leipzig meant that he was not conscripted and sent to fight against the Russians.  My mother tells me that he was a good man, who treated the prisoners of war who were conscripted to help out in the coal work with kindness, and who listened to BBC on the radio to try and find out what was happening.  But what choices did Willie Fischer make when it came down to it?  When the Aryanisation of the country racheted up step by step.  Did he like Bonhoeffer speak up for the Jews?  Or did my grandfather, like the vast majority of his country men stifle his conscience and look away?

What brought tears to my eyes was not even Bonhoeffer's decision to come back to Germany after having just 'escaped' the New York and a comfortable life ahead of him.  Though this act of obedience and submission to God's will took my breath away.

Here is what Bonhoeffer talks about death:

That life only really begins when it ends on earth, that all that is here is only the prologue before the curtain goes up - that is for young and old alike to think about.  Why are we so afraid to think about death?...  

Death is only dreadful for those who live in fear and dread of it.  Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God's Word.  Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves.  Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in Him.  Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle; it beckons to us with heavenly power, if only we realise that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace.

Who doe we know that dying is so dreadful?  Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world?

Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.

The passage is from a sermon preached in London some years prior to his own death.  And from all accounts Bonhoeffer stepped forward God-filled to meet his executioners.

And then another poignancy - just before he was finally arrested - Bonhoeffer gets engaged to the love of his life.  Their relationship never ends in marriage.  Despite initial hopes that Bonhoeffer would be released soon - the months of his imprisonment turn into years - and Maria and Dietrich do not become wedded as man and wife.

The 542 pages of Metaxas' book were devoured, chewed on, cried over and wondered at by yours truly.  Definitely the best book that I have read this year.  By far.  By very far. (Bible excepted of course).  Get your copy now - or come and visit us and read, borrow - but don't steal our copy.

I ended the book in tears.  Knowing that in the tragedy of Bonhoeffer's life - and the few righteous gentiles in Germany who stood up for truth - is the seed of hope.  Bonhoeffer died.  But truth did not.  And since I believe in the glorious resurrection - Bonhoeffer's obedience to Jesus has eternal value.  Which gives hope to the often confusing contours of our lives too.  

A new life

Sheba went out into the dark and the rain earlier tonight.

We had finished our family prayers - currently reading through the Psalms - and I was awaiting the two men from church who normally come every Wednesday night for a 9.30-10.30 PM prayer slot.

Sheba went to check on a very sick man with HIV who we admitted earlier in the day at Jeevan Sahara Kendra.  While she was there she got a call.

A young woman who was expecting her first child had experienced the first throes of birth pains.  Carla - as we will call her - is due in September.  But we have found that for young women with HIV who are giving birth to their first child - the kid often comes sooner.

Carla is an unwed 22 year old who has had HIV since birth.  There is a silent generation of young people with HIV.  Young people who have never had the 'shock' of finding out that they have the disease - because they have always had it.

The challenge for them is coming to terms that they actually are infected.  A month ago Carla told Sheba that she thought she did not have the disease - and that she should be retested to show that.  Sheba had in her hand recent reports that showed that Carla not only had HIV - but because she had been haphazard in her medications - the virus was at alarming levels in her blood.  Her strain of virus had become resistant to the medicines that Carla had been taking in the lax way of youth - of a person who does not believe that they have the disease.

Carla got to know a young man at the clinic where she was getting her medicines from.  The relationship blossomed, but when she became pregnant he told her to abort.  She has not told him that she is HIV positive.  The last few months have seen Carla live on the fringe.  Her widowed mother (who also has HIV) has 2 other daughters and does not want Carla back home.  The story about Carla's disappearance has been told with various fabrications.  One of them was that Carla went back to the village.  Problem is that someone went there and found no Carla.

We have been encouraging Carla and her mother to go back home and face the truth - and for one of the local churches that they are involved with to support them.  Neither wants to do it.  We cannot force.

We had sent Carla to a well-known place for women and children - but they were so afraid of her HIV that they told people not to talk with her.  We got a very sad and thin Carla back after her 2 months there.  And so we nursed her back to health at the JSK centre.

Since she refused to go back home - with her mother vigorously agreeing to this - and steering Carla's thoughts in this direction too - we had to look for alternatives.

We found one in a saintly tough woman who has a special heart for young women in distress - young women who have been living on the edge.  This social worker took Carla in - housing her in a tiny 'group house' with 3 other girls - including another HIV positive mother.

Its no bed of roses here.  But its at least a place of hope.

So when Sheba got the news that Carla's pains had started, she headed over to this room.  The pains were slight, but the baby's head is right in position - and we expect to wake up in the morning with the news of Carla's baby.

A new life.  Will this child have HIV?  We managed to persuade Carla to start on 2nd line ART treatment - which has been generously provided by a partner NGO who specializes in helping out with 2nd line ART and TB treatment.  One reason was so that the level of HIV in her blood would be as low as possible for during the final part of her pregnancy and into her delivery.

Its 1 AM now and its pouring outside.

On the other side of the city of Thane a child is being born.

A new life.

Help

A young man called up asking for help two days ago.  There was a destitute man at the railway station who had been suffering from TB.  Did I know any place where he could be treated.

I gave a name or two - not having their phone numbers I suggested a website address.  Its a tragedy that in a mega-city of 16 million there are so few places that will care for the destitute.

Today the young man called again.  He said that the man was really not feeling well.  What medicine should he take.  He was sweating.  Should he give an oral rehydration solution.

I told him to bring the man to our centre.  He was brought in with the barest hint of a pulse.  Emaciated. Semi-coherent.  The only paper he had on him showed that he had taken some TB treatment from the Thane government civil hospital.  He was from out of town and didn't seem to have people around to help.  The young good samaritan had put the man in an auto-rickshaw with the help of some bystanders and brought him to us.

We could see that the man needed admission at an ICU immediately.  There was very little hope - but we referred him to the nearest hospital for emergency admission.  Giri - one of our JSK staff joined.  The hospital  refused saying that the man did not have anyone ready to take responsibility for him.  So our friend and Giri took the man back to the Civil Hospital to try and get him admitted.

The man died there.

Another unsung death.  Who does this man know.  Are his relatives wondering where he is?  Will they know about his passing away?  What happened to his family in the first place?  Did he fight with them? Has he been away from them for a long time or for a little.

Giri and Santosh (another staff who joined the group at Civil hospital), helped our young friend with the police report.  Another destitute death.  A post-mortem was performed and the body handed over to the authorities for cremation as an unknown person.

All this in the city that never sleeps.  In the place where people fly in from Africa to get surgeries done.

I feel sad and helpless tonight.  To know that a life has slipped by and we were not able to stop its merging into death.

And yet one of the glimmers of hope is the heroic behaviour of the young man whose heart went out for this destitute man.  The youngster is attending college in Mumbai.  Most of his friends are busy zoning out to their private pleasure-lands of music or are honing in on the rough-and-tumble ladder to success.  And here he is, caring for the person whom noone chose to notice.  Holding his hand, encouraging him, talking with him, praying with him.

Its the story that Jesus told of the 'good samaritan' come to life.  It doesn't have a happy ending - the man being helped died this afternoon - but it does shine some sparkles of hope into a melancholy night.

Independence Day Poem

Village in a city

After four days and nights,
the train finally spills them
into the city, these villagers
with mud inside their nails
and blood. Tucked
into crannies, crowded

quarters, they tend to floors
as they did their farms,
sweeping dust that needs
no watering. In the kitchen,
they peel and cut fruit
and vegetables, long since
cut off from the stalk.
Where once open fields
joined them to the sky
and one another, concrete,
special plates, spoons and mugs
keep them apart. Yet,
once a year, they meet up
on Independence Day,
under trees, transplants,
like themselves in Lalbagh,
spread of green amidst gray smog,
coalescing from all over the city--
to chat, eat roasted butta,
stand tall as the trees,
bare feet caressing
the red earth.

 

- Athena Kashyap 

 

-----------------------------------------------------

Athena is a writer who recently published a book of poetry - Crossing Black Waters.  Many moons ago we studied together in 5th standard at the Cathedral and John Connon School  in Bombay.