Santhosh's ramblings

The last decade has brought in major transitions and changes in our nation. How should we as a missional community respond and re position is a question that is coming up in many discussions. Given below are a few pictures that come to my mind. One – Strategic scattering The two pictures of scattering from the bible are quite relevant for us today. The first one from Genesis 12, at the Tower of Babel, the second one from Acts 6. As a community we have done reasonably well in building reputed institutions of the church, that focus on religious, health, social, educational and developmental and other engagements in our nation. Some para-church mission movements have transitioned from being grass root movements to setting up institutions that reach out and engage with communities in various ways. But we also have started observing and hearing about, many institutions losing its original focus. The foundations built by the founding fathers seem to be breaking or shaking. Inst...

I had the opportunity to spent 3 ½ days with a group of enthusiastic path breakers, who are engaged in primary care and medical education with a difference ,  across our nation.  This 3 ½ days spent with “The Group” at Vellore was an invigorating , encouraging and a challenging one! After a few days of these meetings, I am still reflecting – how can I be enthusiastic, passionate and pathbreaking like “The Group”. An enlightened group, who have understood what is important for the context of our nation. Let me expand what I experienced here. The time with this group was invigorating because, there was a palpable and  perceptible passion, a passion that was   instilled in  all ! Passion for primary care, passion for teaching, passion for facilitating learning, and the desire and hope to make a difference.  Echoing what was shared by one facilitator from the Franciscan blessing  “And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can m...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer(1906-1945) Discipline If you set out to seek freedom, then learn above all things to govern your soul and your senses, for fear that your passions and longings may lead you away from the path you should follow. Chaste be your mind and your body, and both in subjection, obediently, steadfastly seeking the aim set before them; only through discipline may a man learn to be free. Action Daring to do what is right, not what fancy may tell you, valiantly grasping occasions, not cravenly doubting – freedom comes only through deeds, not through thoughts taking wing. Faint not nor fear, but go out to the storm and the action, trusting in God whose commandment you faithfully follow; freedom, exultant, will welcome your spirit with joy. Suffering A change has come indeed. Your hands, so strong and active, are bound; in helplessness now you see your action is ended; you sigh in relief, your cause committing to stronger hands; so now you may rest contented....

I just returned as a marked man.   Having been marked by the mark of democracy – ink poured over left index finger. I was one of a few hundred lining up for hour and half or more from 7.00 AM in the morning at a polling booth of about 5 dingy dark rooms and a courtyard of about 400 sq ft. There was these few 100s in 6 – 8 serpiginous queues, waiting in the summer heat, patiently to get themselves marked. But this is where democracy lives. Not in corridors of power of Delhi or state capitals. In the small villages, slums and residential colonies of our nation! Having the privilege of having a say in how I feel the country should be governed. As I waited in the queue at the polling station - there was that feeling of being part of a vibrant grass root democracy – where in the midst of a very caste conscious and divided society, the well off and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, the upper caste and the lower castes, the majority community and the minority communities...

Today was a day of sad stories. A 1 day old girl was brought in Neonatal sepsis. The family was feeding her cows milk since the mother had to do the housework. This was the second girl and the father was palpably angry with his wife for perpetrating this crime. When we said the baby needed admission, he flatly refused. There was no point wasting money on this girl he said. He would take her home to die. And he herded his family into their sedan and drove away. All pleas and threats including calling the police fell on deaf ears. And the baby was not really sick and would've surely made it.....  Then just now a 16 year old girl was brought dead to the casualty. She was 8 months pregnant. She had gone to the government hospital in the morning for breathlessness. From there she was told to go to a private clinic. She visited all the private clinics in M spending an hour or so and a good deal of money in each until she finally reached here. But she had expired on the way, just 10 minut...

Working in health care, in rural India, one is used to casualties, sudden medical crisis that are brought into emergency where the team gets together to stabilize the patient before deciding what to do next. Some go on into an acute care ward or ICU, some go into a low-end care or high dependency unit, as the situation may be. Some even go home after the initial stabilization. Most of the casualties that come in are crises that has been waiting to happen. There was a festering wound, a lingering illness, an ignored symptom or disease. Ignored for months together by either the patient or those who are responsible for to take care. And by the time they decide to come in, many are beyond help. They have ignored it so long that the illness is beyond cure. Some have been fooled by practitioners who had promised them a cure but was using their illness for making a fast buck, while the illness is progressing. By the time the patient or his or her family realizes the mistake, it would be t...

As one ages having worked years in institutions and living through much experiences, one faces many dangers. The major one is the danger of institutional frameworks that limits thinking.  Working in institutions for decades one ends up having an institutional mindset and behaviour. “Institutional behaviors could refer to any behavior that is more common among individuals within an institution than those not in the institution. ... “ Usually the term "institutional behavior" is used for prisons, mental hospitals, orphanages, large corporations, and government bureaucracies.” But this affects people from all institutions.  We end up expecting a certain type of behaviour, following rules and regulations, policies and processes etc. These might be important but these  become behaviour traits and limits our thinking. Affecting our ability to think out of the box, the ability to innovate and be flexible keeping impact as the overarching direction. And if behavi...