A welcome sign!

I really wish and desperately hope that the alcohol consumption would come down and many would abstain from alcohol use! I have a suspicion that social drinking is a common practice in 'god's own country'! When we went for a wedding reception, alcohol was in the menu. Who was gravitating to that corner. Young people: students, most of them teenagers!

The single factor that I come across in my conversations with mothers and wives,  which  damages the family ambience, is alcohol overuse by men! It is a habit which damages relationships and disturbs the harmony auto home.

I wish moe voluntary organisations would take a lead to redeem people from this non-communicable disease !

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

An opportunity in a difficult time!

This photograph may remind many of us of the sights, we see in our streets almost daily, with the forthcoming elections in four state assemblies towards the end of the year and the parliamentary election next year.

These marches, rallies, public meetings, etc remind us of the democratic process of creating a majority opinion to sway people towards an ideology and a political party.

Some of us wonder, whether this democratic process has almost got out of control with speeches at these political rallies becoming accusatory, defamatory and acrimonious. We rarely hear discussion or exposition of ideologies, or alternatives solutions to issues we are faced with. It looks to me that there is a determined effort to malign leaders in the opposite side of the political spectrum, by below belt comments, meant to provoke and hurt. This to me is not democracy or political campaigning, but a highly distorted view values in democratic tradition.  

I read and watched the election process in Australia which brought another party to govern the country. I felt there was respect of people, even when policies were subject to scrutiny and criticism. 

I have had occasions to listen to debates in the house of Commons and the House of the Lords in England. I felt elated by the respect and honour the parliamentarians offer to each other, which was inherent even during heated debates.  

The forty or so percent of our population who are below forty years of age are charged emotionally and swayed by the rhetoric of the political leaders that, I fear the spread of an increasing spirit of intolerance, animosity, and confrontational attitude.  This spills over to create tension between religious groups and communities. I feel anxious that we are getting divided as a nation emotionally and socially. This is inconsistent with the spirit democracy of a nation.

I have a suggestion. Can we take more peace initiatives! Can we speak, write, and advocate to respect the worth and value of others, although they prescribe a different political or religious ideology. 

This campaign can begin from our pulpits and messages and talks we give on different occasions. 

It is peace and goodwill, which we are committed to as messengengers of the first Christmas story. I wish we have people like, late Brother Roger of Taize' movement, to dissolve human barriers we create and create an instinct for pilgrimage for peace!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)     

     

Burdens of Living

This picture is that of scores of people waiting at the main street in Perumbavoor, 10 kilometres away from where Anna and I live. Every morning by about seven in the morning, about five hundred or more  people wait in groups like this on both sides of the road, waiting to be hired for jobs at the construction sites, farm, estate, etc. 

They are migrant workers from, West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, etc. Almost all of them would be hired most of the days, but those who do not get hired have a hard time. Those hired would earn at least five hundred rupees a day which is two times  the wages they would earn in their home town, if at all they can find a job. 

The work force in Kerala is largely from other states of India, which speaks of the upward mobility of the employed in Kerala to white collared jobs, with fewer people available as artisans, farm workers, domestic helpers,etc. 

I got to know some of them who work in the hospital. There is more  people than there are jobs as a result of which, many get only fifteen days of employment.It is stressful as they stay away from home for three to four months and do not save much from what they earn. They live with an uncertainty and anxiety, that addiction to drugs, alcohol, etc is on the increase among them. The majority among them are in the mid twenties, who are school drop outs and unmarried. 

The silver lining in this situation is an effort by the Non- Government organisations  to form job hubs with continuity. There is a campaign to offer them insurance cover, subsidised health care and paid holidays. There are some caring groups, who befriend them and help them to find temporary accommodation.

Theirs is a story of travails of life in a globalised world, where opportunities for better prospects in life come at a heavy cost. We use them to get our work done, but do little for their welfare. The economic development safeguards the people at the top of the pyramid, and those in the bottom of the pyramid are left to fend for themselves.  

I am looking around to see if church congregations can be enthused to become their 'neighbour'!

M.C.Mathew(text an photo)

Marketing with sensitivity

This picture is of a shop, in a street few meters away, from the main road in a city. It was early afternoon and all the decoration lights were on. It is  a city which has ten or more hours of power cut each day. All the shops selling clothes were similarly illuminated. 

Later that afternoon an engineer working in the state electricity board mentioned to me that industry or merchandise firms  consume almost forty-five percent of the electricity. Only the rest is available for domestic consumption, agriculture, educational in situations, hospitals, etc.  Some states are chronically power deficient. 

I wondered why this illumination was necessary in the middle of the day! One shop keeper mentioned to me that in a competitive culture every shop has to outdo others. There were about twenty shops selling clothes in that street with even more illuminating lights outside. 

To me, this is one of the direct adverse effects of marketing. It is not the quality of the product that often attracts the customers, but how the products are marketed. 

Marketing has many subtle ways to trap customers. The advertisements interrupting any TV programme, almost every three minutes or so is another example of how they use the media to entice people to buy a product, in superlative language. The truth is concealed, distorted or presented only in part. The marketing technology  is a business strategy and often trivializes business ethics and good practices. 

Let me suggest that with the on line shopping becoming popular, the customers would have an advantage to make up their mind independent of the advertisements. 

The culture of good practices is yet to become the standard practices in many business transactions.  

I wonder whether more of us can give feed back on the un ethical advertisements so that our voice can become a restraint! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Act kindly while rendering justice

I recently heard these children sing at a conference an invocation song at the the inaugural function. The theme of the song was love, justice and unity. It was a most appropriate song for a conference which had delegates from about 13 states of India. I wondered why the organisers chose to have an exclusive girl's choir sing this! One of the organizers told me at the tea time, the women represented the theme of love, justice and unity better.

I have been wondering whether we will feel united in our society by anything at all considering that caste, religion, economic status, educational achievements, social class....etc. divide us so badly that people are almost venomous in their approach towards those who differ with them.

I came across what girls of a school have been doing in a rural area about eight kilometres from the school. As an activity of the social service club, these girls visit the senior citizens's home in that village twice a week to help them with their bath, washing, cooking, shopping, visiting, etc. They read newspapers to those who cannot read due to failing sight. They dust and clean the house and premises. They even feed them if they are bed bound. This school has been doing this for over five years now. This village was at the edge of a larger village, and therefore suffered without regular electric supply, which was partly addressed by the initiatives of the school. 

Now, volunteers  from the main village have begun to offer similar help to their neighbours. Another two schools are doing similarly in two other villages.

We need to promote integration and collegiality by several acts of kindness. Our people need to experience inner healing, before they can offer kindness to others. 

Our media is constantly bashing the guilty and accused. There is very little effort to help those who are involved in crime to live and act differently. Accusing a wrong doer is only one aspect of justice; the other aspect of justice is that the wrong doer is redeemed by acts of kindness and personal support, while undergoing punishment. That is how we restore him and enable him or her to live justly and fairly. Every person has a conscience which is subject to revision and renewal. This is why counselling and correctional therapy will be most necessary as a therapeutic component of justice system.

Rendering justice is good jurisprudence; but restoring the offender to fullness of life is healing, which represents the compassionate dimension of justice.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo) 

Hall marks of a Place

Every place has some distinctive features for which it is known. The Union Territory of Pondicherry is known for its tourist attractions of the old French settlement, lakes, marble silk cloth, hand made paper, pottery, Pondy lamps, etc.

The Pondy lamp shades are made of specially made light transmitting rough paper around the light source at the centre. These lamp shades are in shapes of a dome, rectangle, square, etc. The paper is heat resistant and its shape is held by scaffolding made of finely split pieces of bamboo. It is one of the commonest decorating item tourists look for in Pondicherry. They are sold in different cities in India and overseas.

It is difficult to trace its history. Some say it has been a common sight at the Pondicherry homes for over 100 years. Its origin is connected to the French nationals who had some special tastes for interior decoration. It is an ideal way of illuminating a room when you want a uniform diffusion of light without the light source blinding the eye. 

This is made by many families as part of cottage industry. Many women's self help groups are involved in producing it and marketing it. Of course its price is variable with popular shops charging even three times its actual prize. 

I have learned something from this example of making an item of utility a branded item. It is made of naturally available components and recycled paper. It highlights the prospects of finding different ways of using less expensive, locally available and easy to maintain components for making something of much value. In an industrialized world, there is an invaluable place for handcrafted items as they represent human ingenuity, creativity and imagination. I feel challenged to support artisans and traditional craftsmen as they are threatened by machine manufacturing. We need to preserve a vast resource of experience that is associated with traditional handicrafts.   

M.C.Mathew( text and photo))        

Electricity shortage and wastage

Most of us are familiar with such sights when the lights are not put off on time. An Electricity official told me that there will be a gain of at least of 20 percent of electricity consumption, if wastage can be limited. He suggested that if every user puts off the switches when electricity is not needed, this gain will automatically be significant.

This has to do with civil consciousness. Somehow, there is a neglect from our part in doing what we can to keep our premises clean, use water sparingly, use dust bins for throwing away trash, limit use of paper, etc. We are not tuned to the voice of the environmentalists about the damage we force upon the nature and its resources by chronic defaulting.

A warden of the hostel told me that he reduced the consumption of the electricity in the hostel by one third by having sensor-controlled lights, which would come on when there is a movement and would go off when it ceases. These lights in the corridors, stair cases, toilets, etc. are usually recommended for green buildings which many people access. The cost is recovered in less than one year, by the reduction in the electricity bills.That is a long journey for most organizations.

In a mobile phone driven culture, we walk talking, that we miss seeing a light that is burning unnecessarily or a tap that is leaking. Save our national resources to the extent that we can and create a civil consciousness about our environment! If we use our environment, its upkeep is our responsibility.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

An act of kindness on the Independence day

I happened to be in the village where I grew up, on 15th of August, 2012. The last time I was in my village on an independence day was in 1963.

What greeted Anna and myself early in the morning was the procession of children from one school along the mail central road bearing national flags, singing 'vande-matiram’ and raising patriotic slogans. We were enthused by the spirit of patriotism they conveyed. They and their teachers greeted us. One of the teachers remembered my mother who taught at this school and retired thirty years back.

What about the rest of the village! Three other schools did not show any sign of celebration. All the shops were open as usual for their business. People were indoors in a holiday mood. The liquor shop was open, although prohibited to do so on the independence day. There were two or three shops, which had the hoisted the national flag outside their shops. It was a still and sleepy day.

The previous independence day, when I was present in the village in 1963 was different. The street was decorated in tricolor with national flag hoisted outside every shop. Men and women had pinned the flag on their attire. All the five schools in the village had a joint celebration with the after noon spent in community service of cleaning the school campuses, visiting sick people in the village, distributing food to poor people, having an elocution competition on India as a nation, staff-student sports events, an exhibition foot ball match in the evening between staff in the schools and local foot ball team, etc.

In forty years, my village has lost something. It appeared dry of the spirit of togetherness and adventure of journey ahead as a nation. There was decadence and skepticism.

What cheered Anna and myself  was the gesture of the shopkeeper, who came rushing to the school children in the procession, and offerred two containers of eclair chocolates to greet them. Even the spectators got their share including us. 

But for witnessing this act of thoughtfulness, we too would have been submerged in a spirit of resignation. This revived our hope. Every act of kindness is like a corn of wheat that will sprout and bear corns in plenty in due season. 

Awake, each of us is a means for change that we are looking for!

M.C.Mathew( text and photo)

Changes in job opportunities

Let me share with you about changes taking place in the job opportunities of the unskilled workers in urban India. 

The Indian roads are overcrowded with automobiles, particualry two wheelers.  One can come across scooter mechanics functioning from their congested and crowded rooms, almost in every  street in a city. There is enough and more work for every mechanic.

There are also several tyre maintenance shops to mend puncture in an inflatable tube used in the tyre. Since most of the two wheeler and four wheeler manufacturers have changed to  the use of tubeless tyres, the conventional tyre maintenance shops do not have enough work. They wait for their customers.

Most owners of the  modern cars will mend their tubeless tyres with the help of a self maintenance kit which is easy to use. Also, with the quality in the road surface improving, the tyres are less prone for punctures.

This is a good example of how some jobs are still needed and some other jobs are less viable economically.

I remember meeting the head of an industrial truing unit recently, who mentioned to me that, his centre has started retraining programs for those whose jobs do not sustain them financially. 

I realize that many get silently displaced from their jobs with all the economic reforms we are ushering in. Those of us who have stable jobs can contribute to this social transformation by supporting the initiatives of the NGO’s who identify such people who need retraining for new jobs.

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)