A children's park!

A nation becomes inclusive in its outlook, when there are efforts to create more facilities for children, which forms 35 percent of our population!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Foster family conversation!

It was a pleasant evening yesterday when the foster family got together to recollect the visit of three of them for a conference at Dublin and efforts by the others in the relief camps set after the recent flooding!

We meet to a talk and listen... it is refreshing to see how young friends live there lives mindful of others!

We remember Caren, Anjali and Rhea who are preparing for their entrance test for post graduate training! Thomas would soon leave his resident job and return to his preparation for the entrance test!

Life is a journey together with others!

Thank buy friends for bringing abundance of goodwill to Anna and myself!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

Two limes !

Annam, the Occupational Therapist, when she left us last year following her marriage planted this tree in the garden of the Early learning Centre, which has two limes now!

From a sapling it is now a fruit bearing shrub!

This to me it is a symbol of the fruit of goodwill!

What we do would bring some good to others sometime!

Shanthi who is the house keeper of the Early Learning Centre was radiantly glad when she recalled how the plant has grown! Annam planted and Shanthi watched over its growth!

We can bless the goodwill of others by our collaboration!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

A bridge!

I found this photo in  news paper of a temporary bridge, being built across a new water steam that got formed after a landslide in Munnar during the recent heavy rains!  

What was special was that most of it was done by the residents of the area with the guidance of a relief team! 

If the information is correct, about seventy-five percent of the relief activities were done voluntarily after the flooding!

Yesterday Anna and I heard from five students of MOSC College who used their holidays to visit relief camps with food grains and other supplies ! They planned and organised themselves to reach  camps in in accessible places to help people trapped!

The news in the national media is all about the exceptional voluntary action in the state of Kerala after the flooding! It is a pointer to what is possible when we trust each other to collaborate!  

The painter who is helping us told me, 'his neighbours were responsible helping who suffered damage form the floods" Whoa are these neighbours! Daily wage earners with  large heart!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Getting ready for the Reading room!

It was a captivating sight to see my colleagues at work yesterday to make the storing boxes for articles and journals for the reading room in the department! They designed the boxes, got the press in the hospital to donate the cardboards neatly cut and found the suitable glue to put them together!

While walking around the Early Learning Centre, which is having a new coat of paint yesterday, I recollected my former colleagues who have left behind their memories of creativity ! 

Most of the facilities we have in the department are through the voluntary efforts of the team at Developmental paediatrics and some students of medicine and nursing!

What a delight it is to see the outcome of goodwill!

I feel, a work place becomes a 'second home' because there is a shared experience through collaboration! A colleague who recently joined the department said yesterday, 'I come to work because it is an inspiring place'!  

To all the former colleagues, students, children form the campus and the present colleagues, three cheers! 

You have made this place a second home through your self giving! Children and families who come to this place benefit from the ambience you create!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Cars everywhere!

There are 14 places in the hospital campus, where cars are parked. During a walk yesterday, i counted, one hundred and fifty cars belonging the staff of the hospital parked in designated and undesignated areas. 

The road leading to the college building in this photos used to be free of cars earlier.  Now even this place looks congested and rather risky for access during an emergency! 

At CMC Vellore the parking became a challenge that two multistories automatic parking bays, away form the hospital site,  are now in full use!

Why parking is an issue in public places! 

Keeping access to exit in an emergency is a need during an emergency. About five thousand people are in the campus at one time! 

A hospital is a green zone! Now the passage within the hospital space is provided by electric vehicles in some hospitals which make sense to keep the hospital air less contaminated by carbon monoxide and sulphur particles!

I filled petrol yesterday and realised that it was the highest I paid since I started using a car thirty five years ago! The petrol price would not be a deterrent for owning cars! But better public transport might make us use them instead of our cars! In this state of Kerala for a week now the government owned public transport service has reduced its services as there is no diesel in their fuel stations! 

We move from one challenge to another!  

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

After the trimming!

The jackfruit tree which gave plenty of fruits and a home for birds and squirrels, located in the garden of the Early Learning Centre has dried up! It was trimmed six months ago as its branches were overhanging the electric supply wires. It sprouted well with new branches following this. But during the monsoon rain, it has suffered probably, with water seeping into the stem, through the exposed cut surface! 

What if we had cut the surface in a slanting way and covered the stem with a waterproof covering for a season till the new branches fully covered the cut surface! It was a question that I asked the wood cutters, but they dismissed my request!

This jack fruit tree has a history of thirty five years, planted by Dr Nambudiri, a Psychiatrist who loved trees and plants while he stayed in the cottage!

It gave it fruits plentifully in each season and it is now waiting to be be cut for the wood to be used for some furniture or making other household satiety items. 

Now its memory alone lasts! 

It is yet another lesson to me. How our carelessness and indifference to plants and trees bring a disaster !

A tree in our environment is our companion and provider!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)