Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Glimpse of Tamil Countryside
We drove out to the countryside, passing by a thousand villager faces, bullock carts, goats, lunghis, sugar cane fields and coconut trees. Tropical greens, garland yellows, red bricks, white sumos. The roads deteriorated with each passing kilometer and we arrived at a small church along the way, some 20 kilometers from the closest town. We ate fish and biryani, papadams and chutneys. We navigated our way to a huge flood plain backed up by a rustic dam. Palm trees growing out of the water and children jumping of rocks and splashing in the liquid sea. I stood on the other side of the dam, thinking about the size and power of water. Walking past the buffalo underneath the mango tree, I arrived at a small temple in the shade. The local boys batted the cricket ball in a grove of gum trees as the sun poked through the green leaves to color my skin while soaking the unprotected valley in a powerful bright.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Unique Above the Rare
In a country as unpredictable as India, I’ve been surprised that over the past week I’ve found myself feeling locally acquainted with this country. Whether its a bull causing a traffic jam, a two hour wait for an appointment or a packing an auto rickshaw with 7 people, I’ve finally walked in the shoes of the sub-continent, head waggling my way through obstacle and joy alike.
At the moment I’m sitting in Salem, Tamil Nadu. Relative to Bangalore, it’s distinctively South Indian. It’s a smaller city with a stronger sense of pride – a true locals city. People grow up in Salem, live in Salem and die in Salem.
South Indians refer to South India as the real India. Unlike the north of India which has been invaded regularly and dominated by foreign rule for many centuries (Aryans, Mughals, British), the South kept an unbroken culture until the coastal arrival of the spice traders in the 1500s. Even then, it seems that the Southern cultures is dense enough to take welcome any newcomer into its fold, so long as they can take it (South India welcomed the arrival of Jews as far back as 2,000 years and the same for St. Thomas who arrived with the gospel in the first century.) This fact brings a strong sense of depth and an enormous pride to the people, the kind of pride you find in people who date their culture in the thousands of years, not the hundreds. I had a similar feeling in Rome and I’ve never felt it at home.
This is unmistakably different from my last trip to India. Instead of cruising among the light skinned and tall folk of the north, I’m with the shorter and darker neighbors down south. The written language no longer hangs from a line like Hindi, but rolls and rounds with the swooping curves of Tamil. Cold plains and Himalayas swapped in for jungles and hot afternoons. Meals served on banana leaves and not out of the tandoori oven. Trading in naan for rice, chai for coffee and mughal cuisine for epic thalis.
It’s sunset at the Salem Social Services Society. I’ve wrangled a plastic chair and perched on the roof (one of the absolute gems of Indian architecture is that most buildings have rooftop decks). Scattered clouds canvas the sky and gentle pastels add gentle flavors to the sky. Palm trees dot the skyline – their leaves nest into a dense thicket all around the third story of this building. My friends Martin and Kannan practice their kickboxing in the shadows; Tam takes her photographs off all four sides. The local church blasts Tamil devotional music through speakers collected in the apse. It’s time for 6pm mass. The boys below practice volleyball. Smoke rises from the coconut grove as earth and paper and plastics burn away. Sets of small, young, jagged mountains draw out the horizon and bask in the fading light. Evening will pass into night momentarily.
This corner of the earth, unique above the rare, blends with me.
At the moment I’m sitting in Salem, Tamil Nadu. Relative to Bangalore, it’s distinctively South Indian. It’s a smaller city with a stronger sense of pride – a true locals city. People grow up in Salem, live in Salem and die in Salem.
South Indians refer to South India as the real India. Unlike the north of India which has been invaded regularly and dominated by foreign rule for many centuries (Aryans, Mughals, British), the South kept an unbroken culture until the coastal arrival of the spice traders in the 1500s. Even then, it seems that the Southern cultures is dense enough to take welcome any newcomer into its fold, so long as they can take it (South India welcomed the arrival of Jews as far back as 2,000 years and the same for St. Thomas who arrived with the gospel in the first century.) This fact brings a strong sense of depth and an enormous pride to the people, the kind of pride you find in people who date their culture in the thousands of years, not the hundreds. I had a similar feeling in Rome and I’ve never felt it at home.
This is unmistakably different from my last trip to India. Instead of cruising among the light skinned and tall folk of the north, I’m with the shorter and darker neighbors down south. The written language no longer hangs from a line like Hindi, but rolls and rounds with the swooping curves of Tamil. Cold plains and Himalayas swapped in for jungles and hot afternoons. Meals served on banana leaves and not out of the tandoori oven. Trading in naan for rice, chai for coffee and mughal cuisine for epic thalis.
It’s sunset at the Salem Social Services Society. I’ve wrangled a plastic chair and perched on the roof (one of the absolute gems of Indian architecture is that most buildings have rooftop decks). Scattered clouds canvas the sky and gentle pastels add gentle flavors to the sky. Palm trees dot the skyline – their leaves nest into a dense thicket all around the third story of this building. My friends Martin and Kannan practice their kickboxing in the shadows; Tam takes her photographs off all four sides. The local church blasts Tamil devotional music through speakers collected in the apse. It’s time for 6pm mass. The boys below practice volleyball. Smoke rises from the coconut grove as earth and paper and plastics burn away. Sets of small, young, jagged mountains draw out the horizon and bask in the fading light. Evening will pass into night momentarily.
This corner of the earth, unique above the rare, blends with me.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Miracleworkers of the 21st Century
For two weeks my team and I had the good fortune to deliver a 30-hour course at St. Joseph’s College in Bangalore. Formally titled “Leadership, Values and Action”, our class focused on understanding oneself (relationships, behaviors, values, etc) and seeing where a change is needed or desired. From there, we help them to develop a vision for action on those areas that have come to light.
But the kind of change we discuss is meant not only to bring a positive affect to one’s own life, but it’s the kind of change that brings real freedom in a life. When a life is lived with real freedom, the vision for that person grows and begins to include far more than himself. It extends to include many.
As part of our course, we took our students to a local boys home run by Don Bosco. From what I witnessed there, they are a group of people who have become free inside and thus available to work for a much broader vision.
Child abuse in India isn’t something you see in the open all the time, but its there. In the west, we typically think of child abuse as a drunk dad who whacks his kid now and again. Much of the time it is. It’s pathetic behavior that causes deep fears and insecurities. More common, I would think, is emotional abuse in which parents act as nothing more than grown up children, using their more sharpened mind to make immature power plays on emotions. It’s disturbing, but in a way, I understand it. It’s a function of broken relationships over generations and a difficult culture that can crush the human spirit.
This happens in India, but even this is not even remotely close to the underbelly of child abuse.
Perhaps what I see as the darkest thing in the whole world is organized child abuse. And its in India. And its not always hidden. In fact, sometimes it walks right up to you with a smile.
Throughout India there is human trafficking of children. Organized criminals partner with corrupt police, businessmen and politicians to use children to turn profit. Kidnapped children, swindled children and abandoned children are picked up off the streets in slums and trains stations and taken to situations of cruelty that are hard to stomach: Children sent out to beg in busy intersections and beaten unless they generate a certain return; Boys going to work in hotels where they work 20 hours days and are chained to the wall at night; Girls and boys working as slaves in brothels.
For a time I denied this kind of darkness in the world. I just couldn’t imagine a person falling so far away from love that they would destroy innocence. Sadly, I’ve come to accept it. But in that sadness emerges a possibility to change it. The people at Don Bosco have also seen this situation and they’ve gripped their faith and taken their hands to work in an effort to change it.
I sat in amazement as I heard the tragic stories of abused children and the lucky few who had been rescued and taken to centres for rehabilitation and education. The stories I heard made my stomach turn and stirred anger in my heart. By the end I was exhausted and in despair. Helpless. Even in the middle of the session, a 6-month old girl arrived at the centre, abandoned at the Bangalore City Bus Stop that very morning. The center averaged 6 or 7 new arrivals a day (In fact, a six-month old girl arrived while I was talking with Father Geo). And these were the lucky ones who were reported or divinely guided to safe hands. Many others would disappear, possibly forever of the streets each day.
I could hardly get down my puri curry at lunch. Even with all of their efforts, even Father Geo and Father Edward gave a sense of the size of the problem. The government refused to give them money to help address the issue, even after naming them the official government agency for missing children in the state of Karnataka. The roots of the crime dug so deep that even those on the “good” side of the law were entangled in the deadly web.
Still, a song rang out. It was a song of hope. A song that tells the story of one person who stands up for the marginalized and takes part in the redemption of the world.
With all the desperation and the tragedy of this situation, men and women were stepping up to counter it on the ground. With every reason to say “no, it can’t be done”, they were saying, “yes we can and yes we must”.
With a problem so big and entrenched that little can be done to affect root causes, a group stands in the gap to offer hope.
With a problem so huge, that group spoke in humility: We can not do it on our own. This is a work of faith. And it is only through faith that one can topple these walls. Our only answer is to face organized crime is with equally organized systems of justice. We must live out our answer with free and spontaneous acts of faith.
I left renewed. These were the miracle-workers of the 21st century: Restoring hope and faith to innocents. Giving them grace in human form. Life anew.
But the kind of change we discuss is meant not only to bring a positive affect to one’s own life, but it’s the kind of change that brings real freedom in a life. When a life is lived with real freedom, the vision for that person grows and begins to include far more than himself. It extends to include many.
As part of our course, we took our students to a local boys home run by Don Bosco. From what I witnessed there, they are a group of people who have become free inside and thus available to work for a much broader vision.
Child abuse in India isn’t something you see in the open all the time, but its there. In the west, we typically think of child abuse as a drunk dad who whacks his kid now and again. Much of the time it is. It’s pathetic behavior that causes deep fears and insecurities. More common, I would think, is emotional abuse in which parents act as nothing more than grown up children, using their more sharpened mind to make immature power plays on emotions. It’s disturbing, but in a way, I understand it. It’s a function of broken relationships over generations and a difficult culture that can crush the human spirit.
This happens in India, but even this is not even remotely close to the underbelly of child abuse.
Perhaps what I see as the darkest thing in the whole world is organized child abuse. And its in India. And its not always hidden. In fact, sometimes it walks right up to you with a smile.
Throughout India there is human trafficking of children. Organized criminals partner with corrupt police, businessmen and politicians to use children to turn profit. Kidnapped children, swindled children and abandoned children are picked up off the streets in slums and trains stations and taken to situations of cruelty that are hard to stomach: Children sent out to beg in busy intersections and beaten unless they generate a certain return; Boys going to work in hotels where they work 20 hours days and are chained to the wall at night; Girls and boys working as slaves in brothels.
For a time I denied this kind of darkness in the world. I just couldn’t imagine a person falling so far away from love that they would destroy innocence. Sadly, I’ve come to accept it. But in that sadness emerges a possibility to change it. The people at Don Bosco have also seen this situation and they’ve gripped their faith and taken their hands to work in an effort to change it.
I sat in amazement as I heard the tragic stories of abused children and the lucky few who had been rescued and taken to centres for rehabilitation and education. The stories I heard made my stomach turn and stirred anger in my heart. By the end I was exhausted and in despair. Helpless. Even in the middle of the session, a 6-month old girl arrived at the centre, abandoned at the Bangalore City Bus Stop that very morning. The center averaged 6 or 7 new arrivals a day (In fact, a six-month old girl arrived while I was talking with Father Geo). And these were the lucky ones who were reported or divinely guided to safe hands. Many others would disappear, possibly forever of the streets each day.
I could hardly get down my puri curry at lunch. Even with all of their efforts, even Father Geo and Father Edward gave a sense of the size of the problem. The government refused to give them money to help address the issue, even after naming them the official government agency for missing children in the state of Karnataka. The roots of the crime dug so deep that even those on the “good” side of the law were entangled in the deadly web.
Still, a song rang out. It was a song of hope. A song that tells the story of one person who stands up for the marginalized and takes part in the redemption of the world.
With all the desperation and the tragedy of this situation, men and women were stepping up to counter it on the ground. With every reason to say “no, it can’t be done”, they were saying, “yes we can and yes we must”.
With a problem so big and entrenched that little can be done to affect root causes, a group stands in the gap to offer hope.
With a problem so huge, that group spoke in humility: We can not do it on our own. This is a work of faith. And it is only through faith that one can topple these walls. Our only answer is to face organized crime is with equally organized systems of justice. We must live out our answer with free and spontaneous acts of faith.
I left renewed. These were the miracle-workers of the 21st century: Restoring hope and faith to innocents. Giving them grace in human form. Life anew.
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