Santhosh's ramblings

It has been few months since I returned from visiting a location of our nation, which is not too visible for most of us in the visible, incredible and promoted India. Physically I am back, but like the story of the porters in Africa who felt the speed has been too much and they were waiting for their souls to catch up, 1 my soul is still some where there, in the valleys beyond the Eastern Ghats. My mind is still processing the various things I saw and heard. As I left the airport from the nearest city, the concrete jungles with huge billboards, the large worship places of free market economy, the malls, with its own beauty, I was treated to another beauty. The beauty of, the jungles, hills and valleys and 6 hours of flying through the bumps, hairpin bends with no net connectivity. The person who was driving me, was in his early twenties, a recently married young local man. After couple of hours of flying through these roads, he asked me, can I talk to you about something. The quest...

It was the day after international women’s day (IWD). These women were shifting soil from  a kilometer away to clean their small village. Because the nearby land owner would not allow them to touch their land! To fill up the water puddles and make the village more hygienic. They have been doing it for a few days, on IWD too.  Why were they doing it? They had lost all livelihood opportunities over the last two years. Men had come back from the various cities they were in, because of lock down. Men had returned back to their cities but not much money was coming in. They had to survive.  A well-meaning civil society organization came up with this plan. Clean up your village for 8 hours a day,  Rs 300/- will be paid for those 8 hours. Cash for work, a well-known program. Listening to their stories were disturbing. 4-5 generations back they had migrated from a nearby district to this location. 5 or 6 families in the periphery of a jungle and beside a river, setting up the...

The Cause of War Every war, there is always justification. Most times justified as a right cause by the perpetuator or the one who starts the aggression. Right in their perspective but seen differently by the one who is at the receiving end. There will be historical issues of divisions based on land borders, language, religion, tribes, or other perceived wrongs. Some of those memories are still raw. The wrongs done by either one in the past or a third party in the past, which needs to be sorted out and finally. Issues from the past are usually extraordinarily complex and simple solutions can not be found for such complex situations. Nations try to sort it out by what they believe is the best way! But at best it is always us vs them. We are right they are wrong, and we have to teach them a lesson. But in this us vs them we forget that as humanity we share a common origin, we carry a shared image, the image of God, and a common destiny of death and for those who believe in life after d...

Two years have passed since the start of the pandemic. I remember in 2020 February, traveling in South East Asia, and listening to some leaders who were sure that this pandemic was a conspiracy by certain nations. Two years down the line, we are still are unclear and WHO is requesting for stronger collaboration to sort this issue out!   I remember while in the airport, my family forcing me to buy a N95 mask at an exorbitant price, to protect from something we did not know then well. Today we know somethings better but there are still many unknowns! Few weeks later in early March, out in a rural hospital in North India, we were having challenging conversations. Listening to the stories coming from New York hospitals, stories of many dying, health care professionals succumbing to the illness, systems overwhelmed by the numbers, we were wondering what would happen to us and our communities where there were no masks, PPEs or systems to care.  Then the lockdown happened. Governmen...

As I start to write this article, the news of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 virus is the main news in media. By the time this article reaches you, the context of COVID-19, might have changed, for better or worse, I do not know. But one thing is sure, we are living in uncertain times. Most nations and experts were sure that we are turning around the bend, only to be disproved again, like the multiple times over the last few months. As of today, ongoing uncertainty seems to be the new normal. Uncertainty that comes out of a new normal of living with the virus. Epidemics can end two ways - transmission is well controlled and new cases come down to zero, and the epidemic is history. The other is, the disease becomes an ongoing part of the infectious-disease landscape, or an endemic. The shift from pandemic to endemic entails a number of practical considerations for managing the epidemic and the way we live. But the shift is also psychological, as we will be deprived of the satisfaction ...

Genesis 4:3-5  [3] In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, [4] and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, [5] but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. As he stood in front of God that day, conversing with God, he would have been cringing inside. Feeling ashamed about how useless he was. In the new normal world, post Garden of Eden, he had worked hard, so that God would accept him. But all his efforts were in vain - instead of God accepting him he felt rejected, because his sacrifice was not regarded well by God. He was feeling ashamed, depressed but angry too. Angry with God and upset with his brother!  Genesis 4:8  [8] Cain spoke to Abel his brother. His struggle was not with God alone but with his brother too! His brother had done nothing intentionally. But his comparative and competitiv...

  Two pictures that captured my eyes today morning. A feather floating into the room, drifting along with the wind, going where the wind blows. Today it landed up in our front room, to be swept away by me and taken out with the garbage! A feather that was part of the body of a bird once, actively participating in the forward momentum and the miles that bird would have flown, today is a drifting in the wind. It has no sense of direction or where it should go, it is propelled by the winds around, till some one picks it up and throws it in the garbage! The second picture that came to mind was one of ‘driftwood’. I was reading in the Good book “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. ² May be this was that brought the picture of driftwood in my mind. Driftwood is floating wood that has wound up on the shore due to the actions of the elements. Once part of a big tree, or structure of ship or a building, today is...