The Christ of the Indian Road

I read a quote by this author whilst reading "Speaking of Jesus" by Carl Medearis and decided to investigate him further. This is the book; it was published in 1925. I am only on Chapter 4, but already I am underlining his words and am challenged by his message and the various conversations he has with people like Gandhi who was a personal friend. He has written other books about following Jesus and some of his lectures can be read online. I shall be interested to hear what he has to say on a number of subjects.  Here is one passage from the above book:

If you are interested in his biography the link below will take you there. There is an interesting comment by Martin Luther King which is worth noting towards the end of the page.
 
http://www.estanleyjonesfoundation.com/about-esj/esj-bigraphy/

 So, with Bible in hand, "church family" support and a variety of books, the "searching for and finding Him" journey continues and as we all know, it is much more fun doing this together!

Now, which one am I, I wonder?!

Day 8 Asha Kusumpar Pahadi and the "Loanies"

Day 8 Asha- Kusumpur Pahadi

Today we had the opportunity to meet up with a few members of the community who had taken out bank loans between 2008-2010. Seventeen people in Kusumpur Pahadi have taken advantage of this. It was a privilege to meet them, discuss what they had taken their loans out for and then to walk over to their shops/businesses and see the evidence for ourselves!

Pushba and Dhanbati proudly showed us around the community.

Kamlesh

A year ago Kamlesh took out a loan for 15,000 rupees with which she bought 2 manual sewing machines.  Her customers bring their materials to her and she sews the garments, charging them 150 rupees.  She earns about  400 rupees every day.  With the profits she  has been able to buy a third machine with an interlocker and also now employs a younger girl who she is training.  she says she earns about 12,000 rupees a month and pays her employee 1200.  Her husband is a gardener earning 5,000 monthly, so she earns more than he does.  She has 3 children, two girls and a boy and says that the money she earns, after her loan installments , is going towards getting a better education for her children.The lady on the right now runs a small sewing business having taken out a loan for 2 sewing machines.

Kamlesh is on the right of the photo

Nigel and D listen to the loan stories.

Kanchana

Two years ago Kanchana (who has lived in Kusumpaur Pahadi for 30 years) took out a loan of 30,000 rupees in two installments, first 20,000, then 10,000 to start her Beauty Parlour business. She had completed six months training which was being offered by the Rotary club for 15 rupees a month (about 25p). So with a 90 rupee investment she was on her way! She gives her teacher free treatments!

Now she gets at least 15 customers every day and makes about 500-600 rupees profit daily, unless it is wedding season (Feb)when she can earn up to 2,000 rupees profit!

The picture below shows Kanchana's daughter, who works with her.  The photo on the left shows her wedding make up!

S Kavitba

Three years ago S. Kavita took out a loan for 50,000 rupees over 5 years,to open a general store.  With the profits from this shop, and after the loan repayment, she and her husband have been able to put a down a deposit of 150,000 to buy their own rickshaw which will cost 450,000 in total.  Each day, he pays the dealer 400 rupees (he earns about 800 rupees daily).  So now they have two businesses and hope to buy a goods carrier in the future.

This is the General Store.

This young girl is sewing her brother's school uniform.

Me buying some stationery from one the "loanies" who is doing very well at exam and admission time!

The lack of water still continues 3 years later, where the community have to rely on tankers to deliver their drinking water supply.

Day 7 Asha Kusumpur Pahadi

Day 7  Asha Kisumpur Pahadi

This was the slum community we worked in with our first team from  Yeovil, back in 2008.  We were introduced to the Bal Mandal (Children's group) Some of the children could remember different members of the team that had been out 3 years ago, that was pretty impressive!

We remembered this young girl who had danced at the Inauguration, back in 2008, she beamed when we told her!

The Mahila Mandal (Ladie's group) came to meet us too, It was good to meet Sosheela again, the lady who makes the best chai!  Sosheela is in the pink sari

It had been suggested that we hold a workshop with the college Students to encourage them in their studies, so we had a question and answer session about studying and preparing for exams.  Each student introduced themselves and explained what courses they were on, at least two were about to take final exams! Asha will have its first graduates in a few months!  They discussed what sort of jobs they were looking for: police, civil servants, teaching, accountancy were among the choices.  These students have already come so far, when you consider that for some of them the lectures are also in English....

The boy front right is Sosheela's son.

Then we had some fun with them, they wanted to know about our jobs and families.  Was Nigel and Sue's marriage a love marriage or an arranged marriage!  That got us on the subject of arranged marriages which caused much animated conversation!  They all seemed happy with the idea. although one lad didn't want his wife to have a job.  They told us that they would have 1/2 an hour with a girl to decide whether they agreed with their parent's choice!  We asked the girls what would be the most important question they would ask the boy?  "Does he have a girlfriend?" came the quick reply.  I don't remember the answer from the boys! 

It was good to see their personalities coming through, you sometimes miss that when you come with a larger group.

Day 7 Meeting up with Reena!

Introducing my "Indian Grandchildren" Ashish and Sakshi!  Ashish is nearly 4 and Saksi will be 3 in August.  I met Reena in April 2005 when I first came out to Asha, she was about 16 then. We meet whenever I come out to India, despite the language barrier, we manage pretty well, I'd say! It's been good to see her growing up into a woman.


Ashish (his name means blessing) and Sakshi (her name means witness)

Reena changes Sakshi into the dress we bought her!  The bright pink colour went down very well!

She loved it!  Ashish's tiger T shirt will be modelled on a different occasion, but he smiled when we showed it to him!

Reena,

Me and Reena

Sakshi in the front, Ashish behind her.

Reena, Me and Mukesh's sister (Mukesh is Reena's husband)

Reena with me holding Sakshi.

Reena with D

Me with the children.

The family photo which will be framed on our dresser!

Sakshi being cute!

Day 7- The womb, the unsafest place for a baby girl?

Arrived back in Delhi at 05:30 and made for the cafe outside the station where we could have a coffee and wake up properly and in my case, watch the families and travellers come and go, admire the saris etc!  A couple of men were seated on a table next to ours, one of them asked if we we were part of "something" ministries.  We wondered if they had been on a conference in Delhi as they were both Pasters, it transpired. The older chap was Paster and was part of "Everett Mission Charitable Trust"  which is based Jharkhand near Calcutta, he gave me his card with all the details  which included a family photo, his wife and three children. It turned out that in fact he had nine children, two of them were their birth children and seven they had adopted  who had been abandoned. He pointed out one of the children, a little girl, sitting between his other son and daughter.  They had found her on a rubbish heap, in a terrible state.  He said that he too had been brought up in an orphanage and didn't know who his parents were, now it seems his heart is reaching out to these unwanted ones.  I wished I had asked if the other six they had adopted were also girls.

It is a timely story as there has been so much written in the Indian Press about female foeticide and infantacide following india's recent Census. A few days ago I wrote the following paragraph, it seems appropriate to include it here:

The womb, the unsafest place for a baby girl

I saw this headline in one of the National newspapers this week, it caught my eye and I read more of the article.  Like us, India held a  National Census last week.  The results are not good news for girls.  In Mumbai, for example there are only 838 girls in the 0-6 age group for every 1,000 boys.  The provisonal results for the Census across India are "sounding an alarm over the falling child sex ratio (CSR)  Despite several awareness campaigns worth millions run by the state to check dwindling numbers, the results are worse than 10 years ago.  Who is committing female foeticide and infantacide?  Apparently it is not the poorest and least literate communities, to the contrary the reverse is true.



However, every day there are horrific stories reported about discovered girl foetuses and  various descriptions of how newborn girls are killed....not easy reading, but there it all is in graphic detail in the daily newpapers,  I'll spare you the knowledge, it will break your heart....

Healthy baby girls are quickly  taken home from hospital before they are registered, later pronounced dead.

Injustice, in your face......

Day 5-Afternoon- The Bear Necessities!

This afternoon we had our 5th and final safari.  D. has bought an Indian Bird book which has been invaluable in identifying all the varieties we are seeing fly overhead or perch.  Nigel is getting some great close ups with his zoom lens.  Sue hasn't been on tripod duty today!

White throated storks....

Parakeet nesting in a tree...

We've seen vultures and woodpeckers, tree pies, kingfishers, honey buzzards and a whole assortment of others!

Breastfeeding monkey!

More monkeys which are everywhere!

Ancient Ranthampore Fort above....

and then this...The Sloth bear!  Very rare to see, the driver of our vehicle had never seen one! What a day we are having! He was up a tree when we first spotted him....

He had knocked down a bees nest and we watched him climb down the trunk and proceed to scoop out the honey with his claw and lick, whilst all the bees encircled him!

It was a classic Winnie the Pooh moment!

"That buzzing-noise means something. If there's a buzzing noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee. ....
And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey.....
And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it." So he began to climb the tree.”

After this episode of watching "Baloo", we heard that some people had seen a leopard "Bagheera", but that was not to be us today!  We were all quite stunned to have seen 2 tigers and one rare Sloth bear in one day!

Day 5 -Morning-The wonderful thing about Tiggers!

Another 5:30 wake up call and we're off!   Within 5 minutes of arrival at the National Park, a tigress strolls down the road!  Everyone is amazed!  We don't get a very close view, but it gets us all excited and on the look out.  The guide tries to track where she might go, but after a while we move on. Little did we know what lay ahead....

Sitting out in the open was a tiger, panting in the heat, no one could believe their eyes!  We thought yesterday was a good sighting, but there was more to come!

Panting in the heat

After a while, he gets up and slowly ambles off, we follow...

He walks in front of the Cantaur (Open topped vehicle)

and down to a small pool beside the road....

Had a drink whilst we all watched from above....

and lay down in the water to cool off!

Look at the pads on him!

We watched him for about 20 minutes!  I can't believe we'll ever ger a better sighting than this! Some people we have met haven't had a single sighting after 5 safaris.  We feel very privileged.