This lime tree is in its first year of its fruit bearing! Three years old and full of limes. It is the least attended plant in our garden as it is in a corner and escapes our attention or visit.
And yet it bears fruit where it is planted!
While walking pass this plant yesterday, I was moved with some memories of yesteryears and a season in life, where it was difficult to 'live in the situation that I was planted'!
Anna and I had finished our term of service at N M Wadia Hospital, Pune and offered our service for a year to a hospital in South India. We were invited to join the hospital by a friend with whom we were in touch. Accordingly we made arrangements to relocate ourselves. A few weeks before joining, we sent a formal letter to the medical superintendent, who replied that there was no vacancy then. By then we had left Pune and had no where to go. We spent two weeks in a retreat centre while waiting to know the direction. We did get in touch with the friend who invited us to join the hospital for me to work in Paediatrics. He got in touch with us and invited us to join the hospital. On arrival to join, we were given a room in one of the wards and asked to eat from the hotel outside the hospital as the mess run for the junior doctors could not take any more new people.
Anna and I were were posted in surgery. When I reminded that I was earlier offered a position in paediatrics, it was not considered. Later, when the friend returned after his leave, he arranged for us an accommodation in a flat that was vacant in the residential area and to eat from the hospital mess.
I struggled working in surgery. By then I had finished my post graduate training in community Medicine and was gravitating towards further training in child health. The only consolation was that I was privileged to work with a senior doctor of immense experience, dedication and simple life style with a preferential attitude for the disadvantaged. He too found me not surgically skilled or oriented. Once he requested me to do a vasectomy. On opening the Vas, I found that it was already ligated. It was the time of 'emergency' in India, where any permanent method of family planning adopted by any one earned him or her five hundred rupees. So it was not uncommon for unemployed people coming for a second time for vasectomy to get the finical benefit. On finding this I was devastated emotionally. The surgeon understood my vulnerability to discouragement. On another occasion, I cut an artery while doing the same procedure and needed help. At the end of three months, although I found the association with the surgeon a valuable experience, I was feeling let down professionally. I had a few opportunities to visit health clinics in the villages, but my language limitation hampered me form being fully involved.But accompanying the señor surgeon to visit patients of leprosy, or those whom he had operated upon gave me an insight about his caring attitude towards those who were most deprived financially.
It was then I discovered during the in between conversations that this surgeon took initiative to give loan to poor families to rear goats and allowed them to return the lawn without interest when they sold the goat! He was keen to promote digging tube wells in the villages. He popularised use of Oral Rehydration Solution to treat diarrhoea illnesses in children. He spoke against caste based separation in the villages. He helped families to send children to schools by providing loan to buy books and uniform. His wife was an active companion to all these initiatives.
Once a week he had children who lived in the streets come to his home and have a bath with soap and towel provided by him. He and his wife would play games with them and offer them a meal before they left in the late afternoon. I got to know more about it not from him but from a cycle rickshaw owner. Anna and I hired him to bring our shopping back home. He told us that he was one of those children in the street, who lived by pick pocketing, but coming to meet the doctor and his wife every week changed his life. He returned to school with their assistance. Later, he was able to get a bank loan with the doctor's support to buy the rickshaw and support his family. He continued learning at the night school and worked during the day. He told us that here were at least thirty-five such children whom he knew who were rescued by this doctor's family from dangerous living. It was a habit for them to smoke and consume alcohol, but the love and affection shown by the doctor helped them to leave those habits and embrace a new way of living.
As I shared the out-patient room with this senior surgeon I was privileged to see him respond to difficult situations with magnanimity. On one occasion a hospital employee walked into his room and shouted at him for giving a lot of work in the campus for sweeping. The loud abusive shouting distressed others in the adjoining rooms. This senior surgeon, left the room quietly without saying a word. I followed him. He went to the chapel and was in quiet prayer for half an hour. On his return, he asked me if I would accompany him to the house of the employee in the evening. I wish, I was free to do so, but I was on casualty duty! The senior surgeon did go to his home in the evening, and apologised to his family for making him angry. By then the employee was profusely sorry that it became a mutually healing visit. On the next day, the employee came to tell me that this senior surgeon had come to his home with a packet of gifts for this children and a bunch of bananas and left home after blessing him in prayer!
On another occasion a visitor, a laboratory technician had come to visit him in the put-pateint room, who was then employed in the middle east. After he left, the senior surgeon told me that this technician, when he was the medical superintendent had to be sent away because of him coming to work under the influence of alcohol. Instead of dismissing him, the surgeon got him a job in another hospital, where he underwent de-addiction treatment. Later he was able to go the to the middle east. After his marriage, he received immense help from his wife to remain sober and stable in his life.
Although I struggled to stay in surgery, where I was planted, it turned to to be a most valuable time of learning about 'mentoring' and 'caring', from several experiences I had with the senior surgeon.
This surgeon called me to his home and kept asking me about my experiences in the hospital. Instead of being able to narrate my experiences, I was overcome by sorrow and was speechless. Seeing my tears and sorrow, he realised that I was finding the surgical work stressful. He too realised that I was not even confident to do a tonsillectomy! He got me transferred to Paediatrics with a senior paediatrician. That became a new experience of recovery and encouragement.
Anna and I were able to support and encourage some junior doctors who joined the hospital during those nine months. Some life time friendships began with some people in the hospital during this time. It is to the same hospital we returned to work for another short period later, when we needed time for transition in our lives. It is a place we still regard with utmost appreciation for its value based practice of medicine and training young doctors with a missionary vocation.
Anna and I were able to support and encourage some junior doctors who joined the hospital during those nine months. Some life time friendships began with some people in the hospital during this time. It is to the same hospital we returned to work for another short period later, when we needed time for transition in our lives. It is a place we still regard with utmost appreciation for its value based practice of medicine and training young doctors with a missionary vocation.
For the next six months we worked in the hospital, became a valuable experience of considerable significance in our lives. We had to abruptly leave the institution as I was called by the Maharashtra government to its health service. All the students who studied in the government medical colleges in Maharashtra had an obligation to respond if called by the government to serve for two years in rural areas. That is how Anna and I went to work in the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences at Sevagram. That too became a turning point in my life as it gave me an opportunity to work under Dr Sushila Nayyar, the founder of the institution, personal physician of Mahatma Gandhi and the union Health Minister in Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's cabinet.
Life is a good blend of several experiences.
About three hundred years ago, it was an exercise of some intellectuals and philosophers to boil an elixir of several substances to find the content of the elixir. Although these alchemists spent days together to boil the elixir to get the substance identified, they did not find anything substantial at the end of each exercise, day after day. But the process of patiently and expectantly doing the alchemy, made these people became more connected with the inner realities of life. Some of the great authors, philosophers or discoverers were born through this exercise of alchemy! An 'alchemist' is one who processes his life to integrate all the experiences and grow up to have a holistic view of life.
The Opus or work the alchemists were engaged in, transcended the realm of materials; in fact they were engaged in the prima materia, the raw material of their lives. As I look back at this season of my life, I realise that a gentle 'work' of new consciousness about life, relationship, community, life work, family life, children in family, etc.was just taking roots. I grew up in a religious setting where rituals, habits and practices created a culture of conforming to what was prescribed or considered 'good' ! It was also a season of meeting some people who were on an inner pilgrim journey. Rev. Kiathan, Dr. Pattern, Dr Sterret, and Dr Burki, were the few I remember who spoke a similar language of this 'inner experience' of metanoia, through the habit of reading the Bible, meditation and silent prayer. The contact with the senior surgeon for the nine months reinforced this, because he practised interior silence, out of which came in his tone and words, a language of patience, discernment, insight and decisions which had others in focus.
Even before we were to leave this hospital to go to Sevagram, the Medical Superintendet, who initially refused a place for us invited us to return to work at he hospital for a longer term; some other doctors kept inviting us to return to be permanently located in that place. The ambience of trust and mutuality was a refreshing experience when we were ready to go. They had changed and both of us even more!
The senior surgeon was even more forthcoming. As he had known me from my student days, he was not willing to let us go! He even thought of writing to the Maharashtra government to take permission for us to be located in that place. He kept his word of staying in touch during the next five years we spent in Sevagram and Nagpur. What Anna and I received from him was a self-giving affection and interest in our lives for us to be more available widely to encourage the christian vocation of practice of medicine. In fact it was he who suggested to the International Christian Medical and Dental Association, to invite me to speak at its quadrennial conference at Mexico in 1984. When we embarked on starting ASHIRVAD Christian Concern for Child Care in 1983, it was he who offered to become the chairman of the trust that had to be formed to begin the Child Development Centre at Chennai.
Anna and I were able to keep in touch with this senior surgeon and his wife regularly. We remember visiting them even when they were becoming weaker physically. To be present at the funeral services of both of them brought uplifting and overwhelming memories of thirty or so years of association. They lived their lives being mindful of others.
All experiences in life carry an imprint of what lie ahead. For me, to be patient with myself or others is not natural. It is this alchemical journey that I am still engaged in!
The Opus or work the alchemists were engaged in, transcended the realm of materials; in fact they were engaged in the prima materia, the raw material of their lives. As I look back at this season of my life, I realise that a gentle 'work' of new consciousness about life, relationship, community, life work, family life, children in family, etc.was just taking roots. I grew up in a religious setting where rituals, habits and practices created a culture of conforming to what was prescribed or considered 'good' ! It was also a season of meeting some people who were on an inner pilgrim journey. Rev. Kiathan, Dr. Pattern, Dr Sterret, and Dr Burki, were the few I remember who spoke a similar language of this 'inner experience' of metanoia, through the habit of reading the Bible, meditation and silent prayer. The contact with the senior surgeon for the nine months reinforced this, because he practised interior silence, out of which came in his tone and words, a language of patience, discernment, insight and decisions which had others in focus.
Even before we were to leave this hospital to go to Sevagram, the Medical Superintendet, who initially refused a place for us invited us to return to work at he hospital for a longer term; some other doctors kept inviting us to return to be permanently located in that place. The ambience of trust and mutuality was a refreshing experience when we were ready to go. They had changed and both of us even more!
The senior surgeon was even more forthcoming. As he had known me from my student days, he was not willing to let us go! He even thought of writing to the Maharashtra government to take permission for us to be located in that place. He kept his word of staying in touch during the next five years we spent in Sevagram and Nagpur. What Anna and I received from him was a self-giving affection and interest in our lives for us to be more available widely to encourage the christian vocation of practice of medicine. In fact it was he who suggested to the International Christian Medical and Dental Association, to invite me to speak at its quadrennial conference at Mexico in 1984. When we embarked on starting ASHIRVAD Christian Concern for Child Care in 1983, it was he who offered to become the chairman of the trust that had to be formed to begin the Child Development Centre at Chennai.
Anna and I were able to keep in touch with this senior surgeon and his wife regularly. We remember visiting them even when they were becoming weaker physically. To be present at the funeral services of both of them brought uplifting and overwhelming memories of thirty or so years of association. They lived their lives being mindful of others.
All experiences in life carry an imprint of what lie ahead. For me, to be patient with myself or others is not natural. It is this alchemical journey that I am still engaged in!
As Anna and I revisit our experiences of life, we get a sense of the integrating effect inner lives, as we take time to process the experiences of life.
Each day is a day of insights and truths which when discovered would make life resonate with meaning!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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