Santhosh's ramblings

I Chronicles 12;32 talks about “the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command.” The question that should be in the top of our agenda as leaders of Indian churches, institutions, organizations, parachurches and networks be, do we have a core group of men and women, who understand the times and discern what the church in India should do? The context is fast changing, and most of us who are keeping their eyes above the routine lives we live cannot but see the fast changes. Much is being written about the changes and so this short write up is not to dwell on the same. But to high light some key changes – the ardent religious nationalism, the arrogance of power, the corporatization of services or almost everything, the side-lining of the minorities and the people in the lower socio economic and caste communities are quite visible. The question that we should be grappl

The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is the sandwiched one. Sandwiched between the sorrow of the loss and the resurrection the next day. A friend of ours asked this question today. “In some church traditions, today is called 'Holy Saturday'. It is mainly remembered as the day where Jesus' body was in the grave. Many others believe while is body was still in the tomb, His spirit was alive. For the disciples, Jesus' mother Mary and other followers of Jesus it must have been a day of silent mourning. They must have remembered fondly the experiences of the years; must have been a day of fear. They were not expecting the resurrection... so they were getting ready with the spices for the body. Wonder what they would have done differently, if they had believed Jesus' words about His resurrection?” Reflecting on this I was doing rounds on this sandwiched Saturday and the day before. I realized that for most hospitalized people stay in the hospital is like

I started writing this (in my mind) on Women’s day. I wanted the first story as a celebration story for women’s day. But as usual, many good intentions, this fell on the way side but I am thankful that it was not forgotten. The story has grown from one into stories multiple women, and a one good man. It was almost 2 months back when I saw this girl PK, first. When I saw her, she was deeply comatose, on ventilator, with history of “Hexaconazole” poisoning. She was 14, and looked much younger than that. Somehow the clinical presentation did not fit in with the diagnosis. The family from a very poor background, had no idea what happened other than that there was an empty bottle of Hexaconazole lying around. We met with the father who was all in tears and said, she is his “apple of eye” in the local Bhojpuri equivalent, and pleaded with us, to make her well. I was not at all sure if she would make it. Deeply comatose, running high fever, with extensive aspiration pneumonias, no respir

D (death) is a topic we seldom talk about. Or if at all we talk, we talk it over for a short time and then move on to other immediate and urgent issues. Last few days, some of us have been constantly faced with or heard about deaths of many around us. Last week, practically every day, one person would have been brought dead to our casualty. Elderly, neonates, young girls and middle aged. Maybe it is the severe cold around this part of the country, that they are unable to reach the hospital in time. In the middle of these, a middle-aged lady in her early 50s, known well to many of us passed away after a short spell of illness due to cancer, away in Western India. Then we had the untimely death of the young surgeon in Odisha, who was known to many of us. There was a young boy of 14 years with whom our team had spent time planning for his re-education (check my previous blog) who was brought in with suddenly hepatic failure and died in less than 24 hours. During these events, there h

As I walked into the emergency, the sight I saw was chaotic. One elderly lady who had been brought dead was being taken out of the emergency. There was a very young girl, probably less than 20 undergoing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. There were two other children quite sick on oxygen and support. Two Doctors were struggling hard to resuscitate this young girl. Her heart rate was less than 30, she had no spontaneous breathing and was brought in just then referred from another center. I joined the team and tried our best with various methodologies of resuscitation for more than one hour, but she succumbed to the cardiac event she had suffered by ingesting Aluminum Phosphide, a deadly poison. She looked very young and innocent. And we had no idea what had prompted her to take this drastic step. A few minutes later as we were explaining to the family, the nurse in charge pulled me aside and told me the story. This nurse, while we were trying to resuscitate the girl, was talking to t

Unusual for us, we found ourselves on the road this time on Christmas eve and Christmas day. For me personally, I did not look forward to it. Brought up in the tradition of Christmas eve carols services, (which has been given up many years back when we moved out of our home state) Christmas morning services, meetings with friends etc., a Christmas on the move was not something I was happy with. So to motivate myself, I reflected   on the Christmas story and took comfort in the fact that Mary and Joseph travelled 90 kms on foot (in full term pregnancy), Shepherds travelled from far outside town, into town, late in the night or may be early hours of the morning, the wise men set out on a tedious long journey…..Till someone pointed out that these people travelled out of dreams visions and political compulsions, and I was left wondering what vision dream or political compulsion drove me this Christmas…. I took a book to read during the journey and the back cover caught my attention.

As we look around in the global leadership circles, political and otherwise, we are clearly seeing some common trends. The type of leaders that seems to connect with the majority are those who can appeal to the perceived aspirations of the powerful and the majority. Or the middle class who are the majority. The connect is through the power of rhetoric, and charisma, offering them what they want to hear, generally an immediate promise of a resource rich economy. Some use polarizations based on certain groups or ideologies as the binding force, but whatever it is, it the ability to connect and offer what the so-called majority seem to aspire that set these leaders apart. The aspirations of the majority are, what they themselves see as best for them, the resources they require. The person who can “connect” is their leader and even adulated by some as their “saviour”. For e.g., If they have been longing for bread and these leaders, respond – “Last many years they have not offered w