When I was twenty three !

Anna and I spent half a day at the dental clinic yesterday. During th min between time, it flashed in my mind a memorable occasion when Dr Frank Garlick, who stepped down from his role as professor of Surgery at the Christian Medical College, Vellore visited us, who were medical students at the Nagpur Medical college. That happened in 1971, when I was twenty three years of age and was in the fourth year of medical training.

Dr Garlick stepped down from his surgical career when he was in his mid forties, because he felt the need to visit young doctors working in mission hospitals who often felt 'alone and unaccompanied' by senior doctors for their professional development. There were medical students in different medical colleges who were needing guidance to find their vocation at a time when opportunities for post graduate training was restricted to a few. Although there were about 160 medical colleges in India at that time as against 14 at the time of independence, the facilities for post graduate training existed only in about fifty medical colleges. I remember there were only 25 post graduate seats in Paediatrics in India in the early nineteen seventies.

Dr Garlick's mission was to be an encouragement to medical students and doctors who were feeling constrained by lack of opportunities and professional mentoring, to practice medicine with a sense of vocation and fulfilment. The visit to Nagpur was the first visit that Dr Garlick undertook after leaving CMC Vellore. During the five days he spent with us, his focus was to get to know eleven of us who used to meet for a fellowship time once a week at the college. 

What flashed in my mind yesterday was the vocational question  he paused to us: 'A doctor is in the profession of serving and caring for others. Will you keep that as the focus as you look into the future'!

This is third year after my retirement from full time medical work. The weekly on line clinical meeting for professionals interested in child development and rehabilitation, which started in 2019 had discontinued in 2024. It got revived lat week, thanks to the initiative of Dr Vinitha Varghese. In a telephone call yesterday, Ms Shalini Shaji who helped to organise it in the earlier years recalled her learning experiences from these meetings. The paediatrics department of PIMS, Pondicherry prompted us to restart these meetings. One Paediatrician from a mission hospital involved in helping Neuro-developmentally challenged children mentioned that the meeting is a support to think academically!

I remembered the words of Dr Garlick while reflecting on the renewal of the weekly clinical meeting. It is a small effort we can take from ASHIRVAD to turn our attention to health care professionals who work in rural areas. They need support and encouragement when they encounter complex clinical situations of developmentally challenged children. Dr Garlick travelled to places to meet people to bring encouragement. 

In our case, we take this small step to stay available once a week for offering professional support to those who feel the need for it. Some professionals make video calls once a week to discuss children whom they meet in the Out-patient service. 

Anna and I feel grateful for the opportunity we have to stay in touch with professionals who look out for encouragement and support. We feel inspired by the example of Dr Garlick who spent ten years in India, visiting medical students and doctors to affirm them and inspire them to live with a sense of mindfulness of people in need! It was this which created the setting for the formation of Evangelical Medical Fellowship of India in 1974. 

It is only occasionally we come across people who keep others in focus, while they are at the prime of their professional career and take a less travelled path to offer sense of accompaniment to young professionals and students ! 

It was in January 2023 Dr Garlick was taken away from our midst! Anna and I remember Mrs Dr Val Garlick fondly and carry her in our thoughts! They lived their calling remembering others and reaching out to them. 

M.C.Mathew ( text and photo)

The home is a garden for children!

 

The feeding bowl in our garden was not refilled in the evening. That went unnoticed till the Bulbuls came for the evening round searching for food. They waited in the garden and one of them noticed the movement of a moth and flew in to catch it on time. The other Bulbul waited in the plant. The Bulbul who fetched the moth struggled a bit to swallow it. 

The Bulbul which had its feed flew to the adjacent nutmeg tree and engaged in bird call waiting for its companion which was still waiting in the garden near the feeding bowl, hoping it to be filled!

By then a Mynah had flown into the feeding station chasing the Bulbul away. 

The scenes like this in the garden alerts us of the ways birds search and find their existential needs. These routines are the events of each day. 

Such experiences bring an awareness of the demands that come upon birds to live adapting to different circumstances. The garden space offers the birds what they need. The gardens feed them and shelter them. 

In a dialogue on parenting practices yesterday, the questions were related to attending to the different 'needs and demands' of pre-school and early school going children, which sometimes looked unreasonable to parents. Some parents find themselves challenged to be patient and perseverant to engage them. What some parents find difficult is the 'unreasonableness' of  their expectations and demands. What if they insist on running into the rain to get wet and drenched! I thought to myself that it might be a legitimate 'fun experience' for a pre-school child, while it is a fearful experience for parents about the child catching a 'cold'! What difference it is from having a bath in the bathroom, if there is no lighting or thundering! 

Learning to be parents allowing space and freedom to include healthy experiences for their child is a journey which some parents do not take! It is a child who educates us to grow into parenthood. The parents need that attitude of allowing the children to guide them into the role of fulfilling the reasonable aspirations of a child and live fulfilled in watching their child grow up as an all rounder in attitude and behaviour! 

The garden offers itself to the birds. The garden of the home is such a space for children to feel welcomed and provided for! Every home is also for children!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The formative parenting!

This lone Bulbul was at this site in the rain, for a while! There was no other bird movement in the garden. The cloudy sky was getting darker threatening a heavy down pour. Its still and composed presence drew me to observe its next move. 

The movements were largely hopping and not flying! It disappeared into the thick foliage for its shelter when the down pour became heavy and windy!

For this Bulbul the rainy day break, brought some uncertainty and denied of its early morning visits to flight stations! For avians such dislocations are usual and predictable. 

It was the sight, of the Lily in the pond about to bloom, that clarified for me another side of this otherwise gloomy sight. By mid day the Lily would bloom even if it is cloudy and raining heavily! That certainty gives another orientation ! The nature brings signs of hope and bloom even in the rainy days. 

In a conversation yesterday, I was delighted to hear how a mother took a break from her work to welcome her baby and is currently adapting to the rhythm of her five months old baby with delight and ease, although each day is different from the other days. Most infants move towards the sixth month with greater enthusiasm to explore by crawling and socialising. That is when mother is alert to provide the baby with interactive opportunities with appropriate toys and reciprocal responses. A mother becomes even more present to the infant emotionally and creatively during this transition. With the baby sitting up and crawling, the movements become self directed. This mother has different cause and effect toys in the visual field of the infant, to activate and direct the movements of the infant. 

A Bulbul adapts to the wind and rain. An infant becomes fully present to its environment because the mother anticipates the needs of the infant and offers them in the environment. Both the Bulbul and the infant are finders and explorers! 

The Bulbul is free to move about and find its shelter in the rain. An infant too, when given freedom and encouragement, becomes a pathfinder to engage and socialise. What would surprise us when we observe such a well engaged child in a creative environment, is purposeful movements and regulated activities. Instead of a crying child calling for attention, an alert infant entertains himself or herself in a way to be even more observant and reciprocal. The instinct of wellness settles in within the infant because the anticipating mother provides the plan for the next move of the infant. 

I saw this in action while visiting a home. The infant was in the stage of being on his knees and attempting to bear weight with support to stand up. Seeing the infant move towards the chair which had books kept on a cushion, she reached out to remove them for the child to have space to hold on to the chair firmly to support to stand. In no time the child was doing what the mother anticipated. His delightful look at the mother when he accomplished to stand holding on to the chair, was a moment of ecstasy for the mother and child! This was a vivid illustration of anticipatory parenting! The mother was present ahead of time for the child to be assured of safety and showing the pathway to the child for the next move! 

This illustrates vividly how formative parenting is an investment in child development! It is a disgrace to childhood to offer passive parenting or surrogate parenting with screen time to infants and toddlers, when they await creative learning in an engaging environment, which is ready to reciprocate and participate in the exploratory instinct. 

The sighting of a Bulbul in the rain in our garden led me to these thoughts because its movements were orderly and planned! The above thoughts originated from my memory of seeing infants ready to explore! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The less noticed!

I made a departure form my regular walk in the garden and found the above sights which had escaped my attention during my regular walk! They were present away from the foot path that I was used to take regularly! The less taken path brings some surprises. 

A young consultant interested in further training in a speciality applied for a training programme overseas and he was chosen to his surprise as it was a keenly contested position. In his narration of his story of the last three years, he alluded to being taken through a path he had not anticipated in the speciality training, because the professor who supervises his training seems to take him through experiences which one would have acquired normally much later in the professional experience. The professor has an eye for what is outside the regular stream of learning. The professor leads this trainee to go beyond the usual. 

While listening to a clinical story of a 30 months old child this week,  who developed a stroke like illness following a diarrhoeal illness, was well investigated by the treating team and had arrived at a logical differential diagnosis. I was encouraged by the resolve of the young team of professionals to find a way forward to help the child who is now left with hypertonia and impaired mobility and language skills. Now that most common causes for this impairment are ruled out, the search is on for any unusual cause.The enthusiastic and compassionate approach of the professional team towards this child and his family was impressive and refreshing to listen to. It was evident that the treating team was moving beyond the regular path of approach to help this family. 

I missed the sights above in our garden because I stayed on the regular foot path that I was used to taking for my walk. There was more hidden beyond my visibility. The two illustrations of clinical situations also affirm the need to leave the usual path and take a less travelled path to make learning experiences complete. 

This has a message of significance to me. I can stay in my mid seventies confined to what I am used to do! That reinforces the routine. The opportunity to discover what was missed by following the routine opened up before me through these experiences.

From mid life when one makes the journey from being generative in the language of Eric Ericson, to be an elder in the seventies, the essential transition is towards focussing on the needs and aspirations of others. 

A young consultant told me the other day how she was offered an opportunity to be part of a neuromuscular team of professionals who are into exploring the prospects of treatment and rehabilitation of children and adults with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Spinal Muscular Atrophy with newer modalities of treatment and supportive care. Another consultant shared his thoughts about his desire to befriend young professional couples working in cross cultural heath care settings to accompany them to bring support and affirmation. 

The journey through the less travelled path is the only option when one is moved by the adventure of living, where the needs of others give a reason to be creative and exploratory! 

I realise that one does not 'settle down' nor one is on a 'conveyer belt' of activities, when one is in an elder's role, but becomes original and authentic by bringing experience and wisdom for others to benefit from! It is an occasion and opportunity to be giving willingly and altruistically, guided by the aspirations of the younger people. 

I feel glad to have an active association with young professionals because they speak a language of aspiration and hope; that gives an opportunity to affirm them with a discerning resonance! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Birds remember their garden space!

The above avian visitors in our garden this morning was a delightful sight as it was after a few weeks I noticed flight movements around the same time in the garden. It is a sign that birds are returning to the garden after having been elsewhere for most part of the monsoon. 

A pair of White-rumped Munia was also joined the outing after a while. They were feeding on the millets in the garden. 

 

What was special about one of them was its attempt to break the branch of the millet plant. Was it to feed afterwards or take to their nest somewhere to feed the fledglings! 

It was a morning of avian circus in the garden, which happened in a short time in between the rain fall. 

This became festive occasion for Anna and myself because we felt that the birds remembered us and returned to the garden to visit us with their bird calls! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Some lasting memories!

 

These flowers are from five rose bushes in our garden which have a long history. Although they bear only few flowers, each flower has a morphology and fragrance, distinct and different from the other rose bushes in the garden. These are native rose bushes which did not have a history of budding. 

As I watch them, during the morning walk they have a story to tell me. They were planted as rose cuttings in our garden by my parents which they gathered from other gardens in our neighbourhood. I remember multiplying these varieties in our garden by planting cuttings during the winter season. They grow up and have a natural resilience against  pests. The budded rose bushes are less resilient and insects thrive on the buds unless we spray insecticides to protect them and their leaves. 

The rose flowers are more than just ornamental in purpose. They are flowers associated with occasions. It was the habit of my parents to give visitors a few rose flowers and sometimes some rose cuttings. I remember watching those occasions when the visitors felt surprised and touched. When I meet senior citizens in the village shopping area, I still hear someone coming forward to tell me that the rose cuttings from our garden gifted by my parents are still bearing flowers. They too have long years of history. 

Now rose flowers are memorials of such occasions! The 'community living' practiced in our village at that time had the feature of sharing the produce of the vegetable garden between neighbours. It was common for my parents to give bunches of banana, beans and coconuts to our neighbours as we often had good yield of them. We received fruits such as pine apple, mango, and papaya from our neighbours. 

Anna continues this practice of distributing beans, banana bunches, rambutan, Chikkoo and papaya to few of our neighbours.  

They are symbols of yesteryears we like to carry on to celebrate long history of 'shared living' ! 

I recall sights in my childhood, of people carrying produce of the farm on Sundays, to the church to distribute them among the members of the congregation. It was a custom to bring the first produce of every season to share with others. The harvest festival in many congregations in the later years replaced this with an annual event. 

The insularity that is the norm now has replaced the experience of  shared living of yesteryears. 

We have many gains of comfort and prosperity now in a technologically advanced environment. But trustful and communicative living as a neighbourhood community is less of reality now!

I remember late Rev A.C.Oommen, the head of chaplaincy at the ChrIstian Medical College, Vellore talking about a practice in the early sixties, when a family would gather the provision list from a few families in the neighbourhood, when they went out for shopping. He used to refer to it as a sign of the attitude of proximity that prevailed at that time towards neighbours. 

I regret that even for us, neighbours are strangers as we live occupied with our own chores! 

I wish that the neighbourhood would become a social home for many!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The resonance of joy and hope within!

The above photos of a Moth, Dragonflies and Butterflies on a rainy day in our garden brought an awareness of how they too waited for their outing during the in between dry interval. They live well adapting to the hostile weather conditions. 

Usually the honey bees hover over the flowers of buttercups, lilies and hibiscus. That is missing during the rainy days. 

An ant crawling from the nine o'clock position, over to the rose flower was a sign of the uninterrupted rhythm in nature even on rainy days. 

I find this as an inspiring and comforting sight! Some seasons in our lives would have a constraining effect upon us. Anna and I are in one such season when the domestic helpers are not able to come  due to their illness. That places more responsibilities upon us for the upkeep of the garden and attending to the daily chores. 

The sight of these flowers in the garden and movements of dragon flies and butterflies in the garden helped us to focus on what is present! What is missing is what preoccupied us for a while. But what is present and vibrant gives enough cheer and provides continuity of hope. 

That shifts the focus to staying content and grateful! 

The cloud of disappointment is what each of us has to face during the transitions in life! A stanza of a hymn came to my mind while wanting to transcend the difficulties of the season:

"... All Thy works with joy surround Thee,

Earth ad heaven reflect Thy rays,

Stars and angels sing around Thee

Centre of unbroken praise,

Field and Forest, vale and mountain,

Flowery meadow, flashing sea,

Chanting bird and flowing mountain,

Call us to rejoice in Thee.." (Henry Van Dyke, Joyful, joyful we adore)

The garden and its beings sing the chorus of praise and hope, which is beginning to resonate within as I reflect and wait!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)