The cloud that gets concealed!

The mysteries of the sky are many. One of them is the cloud. The cloud makes the sky adds to its outstanding splendour. 

In the third picture, the brilliant white cloud is getting covered by dark clouds announcing the impending rain. 

Just a bit of he cloud remained visible till the sky got cleared after the heavy down pour. What I noticed after the rain was this sight below!

Against a majestic skyline was the Myna perched on a coconut tree stem, that was left after living its life and giving its fruits for years. 

My thoughts kept meandering. A coconut tree stem and a Myna!

The coconut tree is always bearing its fruits for years on end. After that is over, it becomes a flight station for the birds of the air. 

A old tree with no life in it is not redundant. It is still an important station for birds. 

In a meeting with a couple of people yesterday, I got a sense of how there is a practice of discarding and forgetting those who lived and  served. I was shocked by an attitude of a chess board approach to people. The tendency to view people from a work output perspective is to reduce them to be just robot like in behaviour. You programme a robot it performs in the way you condition it. 

The humans are like the clouds in the sky. They have a life span and during that time they serve with a purpose. The passport office where Anna and I visited yesterday surprised us by the way its officials attended to people by being helpful. We got our passports renewed in 24 hours. Yes they were efficient but immensely humane and mindful in approach. 

When people grow older and are different in appeal or efficiency, there is a tendency to see them as  redundant. The sight of a Myna on an abandoned lifeless tree reminded me that life is still purposeful even when the shine of life is no more. Life in such situations become an offering to some others, who are still needy. 

For senior citizens, acceptance is a challenge! What they often experience is displacement. The rain clouds concealed the sky and the brilliant clouds on the sky, but only for a short time. 

Let me remind all senior citizens, that when we feel displaced, take a lesson from this tree that it becomes a flight station for many birds each day. 

Let us live hoping that we can bring life to others in a small way even with our declining.

skills. 

A friendly person of unusual nature whom I came across is a senior citizen, who visits us and others with produce from his vegetable garden. He shares his skills and heart with others!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Paper craft!

A cupboard is full of hand made toys from card board boxes in our department, all  by one person. Ms Shantha took it upon herself to do this .

Thanks to the help of professionals in the department, this has happened as a worthwhile project to promote paper craft to parents! The professionals designed them and Shanta crafted them. 

A collaboration which revived the ambience in the department!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Quiet presence!

This plant is the first thing I see when I get out of the car every morning at the hospital campus.

I watched this plant over the next six months, always with flowers. Even in during this monsoon when other flowering plants take a respite, this has been infill bloom. I am not sure whether many notice this plant or go near to receive its greetings. 

While I was taking photographs of this plant a few medical students who were passing by stepped to ask me as to why I often take pictures fo this plant. They remember me taking pictures of this plant a few times in the recent months. 

I invited them to draw near to the plant and count the number of  flowers. One of them said that there are  enough flowers for all their class mates.

They are tiny flowers and often are in a pair. That is one of the specialities of this flower, that draws me this plant often. 

Wherever there is a symbol of togetherness or confluence, I feel drawn by that. That has been a longing for me in my journey in professional life. As this suffered badly in teh context where I work now, I have searched for this symbol to revive me even more. I protect myself from loosing sight of the call to belong even when the reality at work place can be otherwise at some times. 

Live with a pursuit of purpose. That shall anchor us in a vision although the vision is distant from reality.

I felt encouraged with the medical students as I seldom get an opportunity to be in touch with them. Anna and I used two hang around in the college canteen on Fridays until Anna retired in December to give an opportunity for medical students to join us for tea. Whenever that occurred, it gave a feeling of nearness to their thought world. Some discoveries we made influenced us and revived our hope of staying in touch. 

This time the meeting with the medical students was around a plant, that reminded us of the purpose of quiet presence with freshness and fragrance!

M.C.Mathew(text and picture) 

A dragonfly in a dry leaf during a drizzle!

 

During a walk in a drizzle I noticed this dragonfly comfortably resting on a dry leaf!

The dry leaf got noticed because of the dragon fly!

The dry leaf is on its way out from a plant. It will soon fall off!

I listened to a family yesterday, who felt that they were not able to help their son to learn anymore! He seems to have come to his final stage in academic learning due to his cognitive limitations. 

I wondered whether he can go to a shop to make a purchase or cross  a road safely or go to a neighbour to carry message! The family felt that it was too much for him to attempt. To me this is a myopic view of that child. 

When they cannot do some things we want them to do, we restrict them from the things that they are able to  do. 

The Dragonfly made the dry leaf purposeful!

This is the challenge we carry with us when we think of people who are differently able. Our expectation is for them to do what we like them to do. They are endowed to do more than what  we  expect them to do or train them to do. They are sometimes ahead of us in perspective and  

Let all children even those who remain branded as 'not able' find a renewal in their lives because we notice them and value them for who they are now and who they would be in future. 

I met a young man in a wheel chair selling lottery tickets. He does it because he would like to meet people and make friends. He has about 200 people who come to buy tickets from him when each lottery is announced. 

His wheel chair bound restrictions did not reduce his prospects or capacity! He turned other's attention from his wheel chair to his charming and friendly orientation!

The dragon fly turned a dry leaf to be alive and purposeful. This young man turned his limitations to invite others to his circle of friendships. 

Life is a journey into new perspectives and opportunities!

Others are our formatters and path finders in our lives. Even our critics can reform our attitudes and sense of direction. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

A bird call is an invitation!

I watched this tree pie in our garden during an in-between heavy rain spell, looking at  another tree pie giving out its bird call loudly! Although that did not bring them together, I was surprised by the vigilance of the tree pie to notice another bird and sounding a friendly call!

I work in a situation where friendships do not often design relationships but working compulsions. I have reflected over this a lot in the recent months. We are people first, then workers in a common place. If we are people first then what shall form between people is human relationships. Human relationships are well beyond work related relationships. 

I took time to look at the way I relate to others. I might turn to others because I need to get a work done! Do I look out for people whom I can encourage and who ion turn can lift my spirit!

There are givers and takers!

Givers are those, who by the virtue of the goodness of their heart carry others in their consciousness and look for opportunities to reach out just because it is good to do so. The takers are those who receive all that they can find or extract and stay indulgent in receiving. 

But there are those who are feelers, who go beyond the above two positions and live with a spirit of sensing how they and others can relate at a deeper level of trust and mutuality. They are people friendly and live thoughtfully and sensitively. 

I had an experience of this yesterday. A friend who called me to say that he thought of me and wanted to catch up with news about me. In that brief conversation he was interested to ask about me questions which referred to my wellness and current interests. He wondered whether, I was still comfortable to offer consultations during this pandemic! He wondered whether I was risk prone!

I was moved to hear him speak to me with care and concern. I do not remember anyone asking me this question recently except Anna or our children! Someone cared to enquire sitting about 1000 kilometres away!

I felt disturbed because I have not been in this wavelength for a while now. Feeling for others or with them occurs only now and then in my consciousness and is yet to become a habit. 

We grow to be thoughtful and generous when we can feel for people and with them. That is a transforming experience. 

It was a bird call for friendship which set me on this train of thoughts. 

How much am I sending out signals to announce my friendliness! That is the message that I carry with me!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

The beginning and the growth!

I often in the recent days have thought about the beginnings of these buds in our garden. The hidden season in the life of a flower!

It is going to be ten years since the department where I work came into being. I still feel it is. alike a bud, growing slowly but steadily! I am waiting for it to unfold to its full potential. 

The only fully open flower is colourful and looks elegant. It is open to offer its nectar to the bees. 

It is the people in a department which forms a department. It is their work culture which makes the department become an open place for families and children to feel welcome. They sense the the potential and allow the full expression of the scope and mission of the department.

As we prepare ourselves to enter into the tenth year shortly, I live with hope and anticipation!  

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The world of a child!

This child has been an avid follower of automobile designs. He created his own design recently!

All children have some outstanding skills! His parents enthused him to pursue translating his ideas in picture forms!

At seven he is entering his pursuit!

It was a cheerful chance meeting with this family!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The dusk time yesterday!

The dusk scenes sometimes are breathtaking! Yesterday it was one sun occasion. 

As I watched the sights in the west and east horizons I found myself surrounded by a celestial world of realities which stood out as spectacular on a rainy day, when the Sun and Moon made their presence known in the skyline. 

There sights in this awesome splendour lasted only for a few minutes! The setting sun and the clouds obliterated the scene. 

The ecstasy of an experience is often short lived. Its memory also can be short-lived as it is often beyond our comprehension to carry such an awesome sight or experience in our memory lane. They are transcendent and therefore can be carried in human consciousness transiently and partly. 

The craze to perpetuate ecstasy experiences push young people to be substance dependent and partying oriented that they hardly live in the reality of a sober and conscious choice of wellness. 

The joy of living comes from a sense of belonging. We belong to ourselves and not to our false self or an image we or others create about ourselves. The true self within us is like that of a child who would feel comforted and carried by the warmth of his or her parents. 

Humans are born to live in the cradle of God's presence to whom we belong and in whose presence we find ourselves accepted and freed to live our lives in pilgrimage!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Flowers and Fruits are for others!

As I walked past these sights yesterday in our garden, I kept thinking about the garden that produced flowers and fruits for the last seventy years, since my parents bought this property and cultivated it. It still yields and feeds the birds of the air and gives plenty for us to live on! Whether it is monsoon, winter, spring or summer, the plants and trees give their produce for others to feed and live on!

Life is lived in the garden of humanity. 

The last 20 months since the corona pandemic struck us, humans live in a frozen state in fear and deprivation. Fear because, who would get a serious disease or would be consumed by the illness is still a guess. Deprivation, because thousands who lived from the daily wages or small earnings have been denied their livelihood because shops were closed, factories shut, eateries in partial functioning, tourism spots declared out of bounds, etc. People who lived from the proceeds of their enterprises have had to sit and wait. 

Our neighbour who earned from his tax service about 1500 rupees a day does not earn 300 rupees now. A mobile street eatery vendor has an income of 200 rupees as agist about 1000 rupees every day. People are sliding in to debt, poverty and distress. 

With all the loud talk by the state governments and the Union government, of helping people to live and resettle themselves, those who remained at the margins have got further displaced to hand to mouth existence. 

About 20 percent of those whom my colleagues have contacted to enquire about their children confessed that they are not able to visit the hospital as the consultation fees is too high for them to bear. Even with the fifty percent discount we offered, we are still not able to welcome them back.

As these thoughts surfaced in my mind while I was on my walk watching the earth giving its produce in all seasons in plenty, I felt awful about those who do not get a share of such blessings as they have no land to cultivate or money to invest on farming. 

The humanity is not a home for those who do not possess or have no roots. They are the have-nots.

I took a bunch of banana to a shop keeper and asked him to give a dozen banana free to each migrant worker who live in our area, who do not have daily jobs due to the monsoon. This shop keeper who has a meagre income told me that he arranged for a kilo of rice each week for about 20 of such workers who come to his shop. He allowed the regular customers a debt upto 200 rupees for a month. He also owns a coconut oil extraction machine, because of which he sells coconut oil at cost price. 

I returned from that visit from that shop realising how much less I am mindful of those who do have not much to live on during this time. 

I remembered what Nehemiah exhorted the people while celebrating after rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem: '..send portions to him who has nothing prepared..' (Nehem.9:10).

The flowers and fruits are for others. 

I wish, I can grow in greater consciousness that what I have is also for others, when they are in need. We live indebted to others because of whom we have what we have. So they too deserve a share from our abundance. 

I confess I am only an early beginner in this consciousness at 72 years of age! Let me invite people younger to me to begin early to grow in this consciousness! That is the only way we can live gratefully and fairly!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

 

 

Birds on a rainy day!

I watched this Barbet on a coconut palm in between showers drying and grooming its body and getting ready for its next flight. 

I kept looking for birds in our garden during this short dry spell. What surprised me was the absence of any bird flight movements in the garden. 

I kept walking to see if the birds were perched wet and not able to fly till they were dry! Or did they confine to safe places under the cover of thick foliage!

This is watt I found in our garden! An assortment of sights!

The birds were there in their usual places. A barbet was still finding its food and a pair of Bulbuls had found a place to protect themselves from the rain in thick foliage. 

I returned amazed how life was normal for birds! 

They get used to living in the midst of adversities. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Children's Corner in every home!

I felt moved and thrilled by the initiative of my colleagues at work last week, who designed five different models of Children's Corner for a home. They used the facilities and toys that are available in the department to design different models which parents can adapt. 

Th idea of doing this was generated after  the department uploaded a video on 'Play during COVID time' https://youtu.be/KqdTnSWBvco 

Following this video, we turned our attention to see how we can popularise play among parents during this COVID season, when parents and children are already finding the stress of prolonged closure of school and home schooling. We heard from some parents whom we contacted about the difficulties in having alternatives to video and mobile phone time for children. We did not find many parents who extended their reading time or story time or indoor games or family times beyond the usual to take advantage of the normal school going time. They talked about how they felt short of ideas and children felt restricted and denied of class room learning and playing with other children.

During this exercise we created models of children's corner that might be suitable for infants, toddlers and other pre-school children. Although we did not plan well enough to design the corner according to the age groups, some ideas surfaced during a discussion yesterday to upgrade our designs and make them corresponding to the ability level of children. 

As we keep thinking about children's experiences during the COVID season as a department, we feel disturbed as children in the age group of 4 to 5 years, who we  were longing for their first school experience did not have that opportunity even this year. While enquiring about the way children view this, I came across some interesting adjustments that parents made to keep their children school ready. 

In one family of four year old twins, they were waiting to go to school with their sister.  As this  did not happen and the twins got disappointed, their mother had an idea of getting all the three children ready in the uniform every day at the same time, when the school bus would have come to take them to school. She organised to have a schedule for them akin to what would have happened, even with the break time, when they would have had their snacks with other children. The twins would have their afternoon sleep and would change in to the regular dress in the late afternoon similar to what would have happened in a school day. Their elder sister becomes a teacher for them when she is not involved in the on-line class for herself. The twins had something of a semblance of schooling with two other children from the neighbourhood joining them for part of the morning on two days a week, when the mother who was a former teacher, provided them  interactive learning. This became a home schooling integrating with the neighbourhood. 

This story fascinated me to gather such anecdotal stories of alternatives to regular school during the COVID time.  

One other story that highlighted the creativity of parents in finding an alternative schooling experience for their five year child son, who could not join the Upper Kindergarten was equally fascinating. His mother would take him to school every day dressed in the uniform which was only a walking distance from their home. He would spend time playing in the play area and go into the class room to spend a short time. They would return home to have another two hours of formal learning experiences. The school authorities allowed children from the neighbourhood to come to school if parents contacted the school early and returned home in about an hour. The mother talked about this as a useful way to keep the child active about wanting to learn. The school had about ten to fifteen children coming to the school at different times of each day. His mother helped him to keep a journal of each day by making an entry in the scrap book with drawing sketches or pasting photos that seemed interesting to the boy. At the evening meal time this boy shared something about the experience at school each day. Some parents caught on this idea and the school was ready to do their bit to fill the void in a child's life.  

Although COVID time was dull and boring for most school going children there are several stories of exceptional creativity to keep children motivated and occupied. 

We have felt the need to start a campaign for Children's Corner at every home. I wish it wold be one initiative we can take forward as the department where we work enters its tenth year in September 2021.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)