Showing gratefulness

I watched this senior citizen engaged in rolling a leaf held between his hands, sitting in the front portion of a public building which was closed, being a Sunday. For about an hour, I happened to be in that place  listening villagers  who were telling me about their distress in having to travel long distances to fetch water, as  the piped in water is available only once in a week. 

This senior citizen according to them was showing signs of dementia. It is his habit to sit at the same spot every day most of the afternoon doing the same thing every day. Fortunately he has a caring family who takes care of him. The villagers do not think that he is getting any medical attention. He hardly speaks and needs help to look after his daily living needs. He would eat only when made to eat.

One out of ten in a village is ordinarily a senior citizen and this is on the increase to become one in five, in ten years from now. They may get some old age pension or subsidised food if they are from an economically disadvantaged community. Otherwise they are left to fend for themselves and some of them have no family support.

The community Medicine department of CMC Vellore started senior citizen's day care facilities in the Gudiyatam Taluk about five years back to offer recreational, occupational, relational and self development opportunities. As more than half of those who come are people with special needs, they receive help professionally and from each other. The consultant in charge of  this programme  told  me once, that, 'this group is another helpless group in a community'. The senior citizens make paper bags and other handicrafts items to engage themelessves meaningfully. The outcome of this initiative is that there is a decrease in the depressive behaviour among the senior citizens.

There is much volunteerism in health care and  yet senior citizens are not beneficiaries of much help. I wish this will become an area of concern for rural hospitals and faith communities, who have a significant role to show the way!

The 'burden of care' is a social responsibility and but I hope we would not make the senior citizens a burden on us. 

Ever since Anna and I have come to live with my mother, we are made aware of the reduced lives the senior citizens live because of their physical or mental limitations. And yet, this is the opportune time to reciprocate gratefully to their life long service of love by caring for them.   

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)      

Labour of Love

A chore that is demanding for most women is washing the clothes of the household, especially when there is no access to running water or when the water has to be fetched from a far a way water source or when there is a water scarcity. Most women would have to wash about a dozen pieces of clothes on an average every day, for which they spend an hour or more. It is a chore that is exclusively delegated to women in most homes. I have a sense that most women do it voluntarily as an act of supporting the family. This is age old tradition of most homes more so in the rural areas.

Among the several chores women do at home, I presume that this is one of the difficult ones, which consume time and energy. Most women wash by striking the clothes on  a washing stone. It is a physically exhaustive activity.

I was told recently that the texture, finish, colour, durability and the feel of the cloth get damaged by this and most cloth manufacturers do not advice this way of washing.

I am not sure whether it is  a tactic of the manufacturers of washing machine to popularise the sale of the washing machines.

One thing is certain that the washing machines consume lesser water and give more durability to the clothes.

I have a suspicion that this is one chore women do for which she gets least recognition or acknowledgement.  She does this almost daily with no complaint. She would get complemented for cooking good food. Most of us do not think that someone at home washed, dried and ironed our clothes and fail to say 'Thank you'.

A home is made hospitable by consciously appreciating all those who labour to make our life comfortable.  It is by noticing what others do to us in our family, we enhance their self esteem and reward them to experience fulfilment.  

M.C.Mathew. 

  

Fruits in and out of season

I am not sure if I like Mango or jack fruit better. Both fruits are easily available in most parts of the country during the season. There are even fruit festivals organised in urban areas to promote these two fruits. Apart from consuming them fresh when ripe, both these fruits can be used before ripening and after in several ways, which are extremely popular.   

One interesting thing about both these fruits is that both supplement calories to those who are on a subsistence level. During my childhood days, both these fruits hardly costed anything. One dozen mango was sold for two rupees and one full jack fruit for one rupee. Now one dozen mango would cost about 200 and one jack fruit about 75 rupees which make these fruits in accessible to people from low socio-economic background, depriving them of the caloric advantages these fruits provided. 

I was listening to a debate today on food access to the economically disadvantaged. The impression that I gathered was that food security is an idea than a reality today.  I heard a statistics that 21 percent under five children and 35 percent of senior citizens are malnourished in India today. Against this about 12 percent children and 27 percent adults are obesity prone. This is frightening. We are faced with extremes. 

One thing that struck me about this jack fruit tree in the photo is that it has four generations of fruit in it. This means that this tree would give fruits for about nine months. This is a new phenomenon due to climate changes taking place in the environment. Instead of the well defined four climatic conditions in one year, we have in between times which adversely affect the trees. But the trees respond by bearing fruits.

A fruit bearing tree is no more occupying the land space during the non-season. It is adapting to the climate changes favourably.

This is a metaphor for humans. When there are changes or stresses, do we become more productive or  effective? It is justifiable to surrender to the circumstances. but it is sign of the overcoming spirit when we remain as a ray of hope in difficult circumstances and become path finders for others.

M.C.Mathew( text and photo) 

Educating children is a calling

Some of the oldest schools in India were started by men and women who came to India with a mission to give themselves to children  for a formative education.

This school in the picture was established by the Church Missionary Society, an organization which was born in London and had its head quarters at Waterloo Road for several years.  Every time I visited  this building, where the offices of the Christian Medical Fellowship and Inter-Health also were located, I got a glimpse of the pioneering story of this organisation, which spread its wings to Africa, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Burma, etc.

Rev. Michael Nasir Ali was its general secretary when I first visited its office in 198, who subsequently became a Bishop of Church of England and visited us in 2007,when we were still at CMC Vellore. It was during several meetings with him over the years, I got a glimpse of his passion 'education as formation', which he ardently advocated during his tenure as Bishop. This missionary vocation of hundreds of men and women for about two centuries  was pivotal in creating educational opportunities for 'natives' in these countries during the 'colonial' era.

The above school which we visited, is located in a spacious campus with a church in its campus. This school was the centre of educational activities in this town. It was the first in this region to offer 'English' education that opened up the opportunities for many to seek higher education. The central Travancore, as it was known in those days had some schools and colleges of repute, thanks to the men and women who came from England to offer leadership to establish and oversee these institutions.

Our school education in those days was soundly rooted in a value base approach and was designed for a formative influence on children. It became the means of social transformation in our society.

This raises the question, 'is education a formative experience for our children today'?

In a meeting yesterday, I heard teachers ask an alarming question,' where are we headed in our education? Many students end up with no sound character at all'.  Teachers only lecture on their subjects and are not role models now-a-days. If students have no formative experience, teachers, let me suggest that we owe an apology and revise our life style!  

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

     

Attend to a child

I was fascinated the way children interact with adults in a social setting of a marriage, which Anna and I too attended. 

There were adults who were fully focussed on relating to their friends and children were hanging around or playing among themselves.

There were other adults who paused to listen to children, hear their stories and found pleasure to relate to and engage in their interests. Children guided their conversation. There were exchanges which children were welcome to initiate and guide The adults adapted their conversations to include children and their world of happenings. I noticed some children going to familiar adults whom they knew would respond to them comfortably.

This was an interesting scene for me as I believe that children would never be an 'interruption' in the gatherings of adults, if they are welcomed to participate. They would lighten the conversations with their  laughter and fun, which would add to make the experience socially uplifting.

The challenge for adults, in social gatherings, when children are present, is to refrain from making every conversation professional or business linked. There is a tendency to have a children's corner, where they play on their own and the adults continue their interaction with adults. 

There is wisdom in making social occasions as family times. Let children be welcomed to participate in social occasions so that family ties are established between families inclusive of children. There are families who organize neighbourhood family gatherings. This was common in one medical college campus  where Anna and I lived for some years.  

We are challenged by the addictive tendencies of children to watch TV, play games in the computer, surf the internet, etc. Most of these habits have an origin in the practice adults introduce to distract children, while adults are busy pursuing their conversations and do not want children to be present. So children too get interested in adult gatherings because they then would have unsupervised time on the net or watch movies that parents would not normally let them do at home. This is the way some children get indulgent which would affect their moral fabric.

Make children the focus of our attention at all occasions, when they are growing up. Let family life is designed to foster children's aspirations. When adults do this consciously we invest on children to imbibe sound conduct and character.

Who is talking about conduct and character in the whole debate of safety for women in public places! Women insist on their  rights of freedom and gender equality. While they are important, the seminal issue is 'how to instil values that would allow children to grow up to be men and women of sound conduct and character'!  

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

   

A differing opinion is a resource

The faint shadow the two lights cast on the wall was not visible to my sight, but the photograph picked it up.

There are many things we miss seeing because it is apparently insignificant or not striking. Even with the best of our alertness or sense of presence, we are likely to perceive some things incompletely or tangentially.

And yet, we seem to be assertive of our perceptions and rigid with our position often times. This is evident in the realms of politics, economics, education, technology, etc. 

One of the disturbing phenomena we notice in the editorials of the news papers, national media and political speeches of our leaders is the one sidedness with which they communicate. The statesmanship which we need in a divided polity with tensions in our neighbourhood is almost missing. 

In the life of our organizations or institutions, we need others to show us what we have missed to see and appreciate. And yet, I suspect that some who share their insights, in a contradicting manner to the views of the majority are subdued, ignored or frowned upon. 

Let me suggest that those who perceive deeply and sense holistically can be a grace in a community. Jesus of Nazareth saw what others failed to see. The parable of the Good Samaritan was spoken by Jesus to help the people of that time to see what they had failed to see. And yet instead of a complement, he received a cross. 

A child of nine years who came to visit me helped me to see this. He noticed two fish that lay dead in the aquarium. Just before he had come in to the room, I had watched the fish in the aquarium for about a minute and had not noticed it.  A couple of minutes later, this boy who is fond of ornamental fish went straight to the aquarium and drew my attention to the dead fish. He told me that live fish may hover around a dead fish. It is this which drew his attention to the dead fish. He knew far more than me though I have had an aquarium in my room for about thirty years now. 

We promote learning and growing, when we acknowledge the wisdom and insights of others, even if it appears to question our position or views.

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Burdened Mothers

I have across many mothers who recently spoke openly about their distressing experiences of having to accept responsibility for their home single handedly.

Their husbands return home tired and plunge into viewing TV. Some come back home drunk to push the panic button of quarrel, abuse and violence. Some disappear behind their desk to continue their job on the computer or telephoning or entertaining business visitors. There are some who demand to be taken care of while the wife is struggling to complete cooking, attend to the home work of the children and    get the clothes ironed and school bags ready for the next day. Some mothers have the responsibility of having to take care of the elderly parents, which consume time. There are families where the father is travelling even up to 20 days in a month, on account of work, leaving the mother responsible to hold the domestic front intact. I have come across less than 25 percent of families in the last four months talking about their home front with ease and comfort.

What has disturbed me most is when husbands are normally absent from home and come home once or twice a year for a few days and try reestablishing the 'control', which makes it almost intimidating for the mother. He would insist on another routine for children often indulging into fulfilling all their fancies to compensate for his prolonged absence, violating the norms and values the mother was trying to establish for children. A father bought a play station and a home theatre for the teenage children, without consulting the mother, which ended up in a quarrel that could not be resolved even after the father left after the holidays.

Mothers, who now-a-days choose to work outside the home for emotional or financial reasons are burdened and I suspect that they are silently 'bearing' the burdens due to their self giving instinct. 

I wish husbands and fathers consider to revise their role and function at home! What if husbands take the responsibility to wash up after dinner, help in making breakfast, getting children ready to school, iron clothes for the family, dedicate at least three days in a week to be present at home to participate in family chores and activities to enhance bonding and intimacy! With the domestic help not available to many homes, men have a larger responsibility for house keeping. A big thank you and a hug to his wife  is the least that a husband should offer every day, before going to bed! 

Women are more tired, anaemic, erratic in eating and resting and sleep lesser hours than men. Men ought to be more involved in family life by their presence and participation!

I wish husbands and children can celebrate once a month a 'Mother's evening' at home by waiting on her in  a special way so that she feels elated with acts of kindness lavished on her, by every member of the family!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)