My brother's keeper

I have been asked to take a devotion on the subject of “ Am I my brother’s keeper ?” and am thinking hard on this the earliest question that man posed to God and unquestionably remains a prickly one. One can not lightly answer “yes” or “no” to this most ancient of questions without the echo and resonance of its implications ringing in our years. Even while writing this, I am mindful of the many people who considered this question and answered “yes”. On the shoulders of those who considered me their brother, and chose to be my keeper, I stand today. I stand today, not very tall, but still stand

I remember the first of them, a senior in the medical college I studied. In my earliest years as a Christian, I had lots and lots of questions and the belief that every question of mine had an answer. Often my questioning would run late into the night, till either he or I or both would fall asleep on the rather fragile string cot that the hostel supplied to us as students. It was he who taught me not to judge. Decades ago, the evangelical church was not too forgiving( is it today, ? I don’t know). I had habits like smoking cigarettes which would have earned me instant ostracisation those days and these habits could not obviously be hidden in a hostel situation. But this person( his son incidentally is a colleague at Oasis today), he never judged, never condemned, and at least on one occasion , sensing my frustration and vain attempts at giving up smoking,he fasted and prayed for a while hoping that this would help. Although it did not, and I would give up smoking many years later, the fact that some one would care enough to fast and pray for my good remains a touchingly enduring memory.

There was this other family, who in student lingo was my “local guardian”, the one family we could visit with official sanction when the hostel food was just too unpalatable. The man took Bible Studies in the hostel and the first time I met him was a couple of weeks before he was getting married. Our friendship grew as their marriage grew and they kept on sharing their own life experiences with me. Experiences in marriage, experiences in parenting, experiences in planning one’s future, resources, money--- they kept nothing back. And I following a few steps behind, lapped up all that they had to share, to teach. and leant a lot.

There have been many others , but I remember these two families in particular because as time went by, I discovered the truth that not only were they my keepers, and later my wife's’ keepers too, but in time , their children often became my daughter’s keepers . The question “ Am I my brother’s keeper ? ceased to be a question; it became a statement of experience of truth.

The question often haunts me - so many people have invested in me, so many have answered the question “ Am I my brother’s keeper with a resounding “ yes”, that I often ask myself - have I been any one’s keeper ? and cared for them, as I have been cared for ? it is a difficult question to answer in part because I do not have the same gifts that they have and cannot care or express care in the same way.

The one consistent thing that I have heard about myself in the quarter century that I have been an adult is that I am a good mentor. that I pick out the best gifts that people have with whom I relate, either at work or else where and nurture those gifts , water them and develop them till they are in full bloom. People tell me that working with me is hard, at least initially, but in the long run, I have had their best interests at heart and few have regretted this. Another way, is through my small writings - like this one perhaps. I have been writing these sorts of pieces which have no great intellectual value for close to two decades now and as I travel around the country, I have been met people who say that they have been “blessed” by my writings, whatever that might mean.

And so I hear all this and wonder - am I my brother’s keeper ? I don't appear to be touching any one’s lives in the manner that mine own has been touched and so there is this perpetual dilemma. But whatever be the situation in my life or yours, increasingly the realization is dawning on me that this ancient question is really a riddle. The answer to this is not to be given in terms of “yes or “no”, but much rather in terms of “how” and “what”. How am I keeping my brother safe and secure in an increasingly uncertain world, and in what ways am am I equipping him one day, to be his brother’s keeper some day. That to me is the real question. The one that really demands an answer.

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Women : Our crown jewels

As a man I am finding this to say this and the views might not be accepted by some ; but let me say this with the usual disclaimer - women are perhaps the crown jewels of Oasis, the organization I work for , its conscience keepers and its soul. To be sure, there are lots of good men here too, but embedded at various levels in the organization- capably, articulately and very eminently running several key functions in Oasis, without whom the organization would collapse, and even I would be handicapped , are some very gifted and talented women.

And this post is a recognition of that. It is not tha twe men dont need attention and affirmation. We do. But men do often get a lot of attention and are even vain glorious attention seekers. Women, on the other hand- and I am talking about the ones I meet at Oasis anyway, are quietly going about the work that we are all about - about restoring broken lives and seting them on the path to wholeness. inthe last 16 years that Oasis has been at work in India, several lives have been touched and transformed and repaired. and although we may not have clean cut research to prove it, women have been pivotal to this. And some ofthose women were around yesterday, are around today and I ask God that they are around tomorrow too. I say this with unbelievable appreciation for their work and perhaps for the work of all women who work in organizations with the ethos that Oasis has - where the efforts required are immense, the results are uncertain and the monetary rewards at least aren't great. And yet they go on.

I come from a generation where the men went to work, worked hard and passionately even perhaps, but once they came back from work , they sat down to chill with the daily paper or the television, or what have you, and perhaps did some work too , if there was a pressing deadline at the office. In any case that generation did (and do) pretty little at home. I know that times change, and it is a different generation that you might see out there at the workplace. But again, because the very nature of my work keeps me informed about how society is or is not changing, I am aware that not too much is changing. And so women still work a lot harder than men in most cases; at home and at work- and if they are lucky , they can expect to be affirmed and honored at one of these places; but if they have hit a bad patch of soil, they can toil tirelessly at both places without any recognition or reward anywhere. and so, if my colleagues represent any thing of mainstream Indian society, they too would be working hard at their multiple responsibilities.

I began this article well, but am fumbling to finish it, because it involves talking about and admitting to one's own frailties and foibles. Talking about working women in general including my own wife and my own colleagues in Oasis as our crown jewels is one thing, but to value them that way is another. Do I do that ? Well, this article is not a hypocritical ode; it is real and written straightfrom the heart and I can picture many of them, right now as I type out these words, and I certainly value them and as I said before, without the assistance of some of them, I would be personally crippled ; leave alone the organization. At home, without the immense burden that my own wife, a busy working woman carries, I would not just be crippled but paralyzed. But I am not sure that my speech or action reveals any of that respect to these women unless any one of them has a particularly high level of discerenment.

But let me not end this piece by self flagellating myself. I am here today and will one day be gone. And while I may need to see what I can do to shape up my own speech and conduct,these crown jewels are an institutional resource - each one of them a blessing from God that needs to be valued and then that respect needs to be conveyed. How do we do that ? Rewards and promotions and all these accsesories that come readily to mind and all these are important, but these are good outward indicators of some thing else. Perhaps, it is an inner reverence that we need to cultivate, that will then play itself out in many different ways.

Paying back

Last week , one of my friends of the last 30 years dropped by our home to spend several hours of her valuable time with our daughter and offer her professional help.( in this age when you can "add" and "delete",friends in seconds, I had actually to do some calculations to be sure that we had been friends that long). Years ago, when we used to cycle together to Bible Studies, I doubt that we thought that our friendship would last too many years- let alone reach down to the next generation. Sitting a bit far way from the action, I sit and wonder how I can pay her back. But that of course I cant - neither cash nor kind can compensate this sort of gestures and of course she is not expecting any recompense. The fact is that if she reads this, which is very likely, and recognizes herself, which is also very likely, she is possibly going to be very uncomfortable. Yet the gratitude I feel for this gesture is huge.

I remember another incident, which occured about a month ago when I was attending a program at our facility called Purnata Bhavan, near Nasik. A petite, bespectacled girl approached me and started a conversation : " Uncle" she began.I winced. Usually, when some one calls me "Uncle", it is someone who I am expected to know and remember and thereafter, address by the first name or some other form of endearment. But this girl, I could not place. But I quickly discovered that this girl,I was not expected to remember. She was part of Oasis's Purnata Bhavan facility at Igatpuri some years ago and was now studying for her Masters in Social Work in a reputed Mumbai college. What she wanted to know from me was simply this - once she finished her course, could she come back and serve Oasis ? She felt that the contribution of Purnata Bhavan was immeasurable in her life and she wanted to pay back part of the debt. I remember vaguely saying that there would be always a place for her In Oasis, but what I better remember is that it was dusk and getting dark and that this girl wouldn't be able to see the tears beginning to roll down my cheeks.In the past several months, I have cried often, but I still don't know how to cry in public.

Perhaps next to grace,gratitude is the noblest human trait that we can get to see this side of heaven - and it is a rare thing. But when you see it, it is sublime. An unforgettable story of gratitude that I always remember at times like this is the story of Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth was the son of Jonathan, David's best friend who was killed in battle. Jonathan, when he was alive, saved David's life on many occasions and yet there was little that David could do to repay. He was then always the fugitive, trying to stay alive for the next day's battle with neither the resources or the ability to do any thing. And by the time, David was king, Jonathan was dead.

By the time, David had consolidated his power and conquered all his enemies, Jonathan was long dead and could have well been a figure in the past tense. But David remembered. David had no agenda to push here; no motives- hidden or open. He just remembered all that Jonathan had done for him when he was alive and even though Jonathan could no longer be repaid, David wanted to do some thing tangible for some one in Jonathan's family. And that is the noblest thing about gratitude - it has a long memory. Long after the event is over and the last chapter in the book is written, a grateful heart remembers, fondly, and often with nostalgia of gestures and favors that can never be repaid. And so the thoughts of this girl doing her social work course, being grateful for the chance and wanting to give some thing back to Oasis; my dear friend serving my daughter - a favor that I am unlikely to be able to repay in my life time - these are occasions when human gratitude and God's grace mix together to produce an aroma that is unbelievably divine.



Marching off the map

Oasis, the organization that I work for in India is changing and there are many things about change that are frightening and can unnerve even the one who is initiating it and that of course in many ways is me. And the main reason for my fear and also possibly the fear of others is that change follows no known road maps and in the non existence of maps, we often feel lost. It's our natural impulse to want to go back to familiar territory - to go back to the land we know, to the places that are recognized, to the areas we have maps for. Everyone in the history of the world has always been tempted to go back to what it has known, but to continue reinventing oneself will require that we will always march off the map and conquer new worlds and do different and untested things. We have a choice - we can be an entity that turns back to what is familiar, or we can be a truly pioneering entity and march off the map to do the things that truly need to be done instead of doing the same things over and over again

Every one of us reaches a point in our lives when we're challenged to march off the map, to step into uncharted territory. . In my personal life as well as professional life, there have been many- , when I chose to follow Jesus Christ, when I left the secure job in the Indian Air Force, when I married my wife who is not an Indian, when we chose to adopt our daughter. Some situations and their consequences I could expect, but I can guarantee that I have and all us have to learn to always come face-to-face with the unexpected, no matter how well we plan or research or learn from others. There's always something new, an uncharted course that's waiting for us. And some of the twists and turns of the course of my life has left me bewildered. And though frightening, we need to learn to be able to take the risks that are involved in advancing God's kingdom here on earth.

The apostle Paul gives us some suggestions as to how we can best do that. "Forget what lies behind," he says. That doesn't mean that Paul doesn't want us to celebrate the past. Paul is always about celebrating the past; sharing the lessons he's learned, savouring his successes. What Paul is telling us here is "don't dwell in the past?" Don't always look back and think, "Remember when we used to do it that way.

What Paul is telling us is that things change. Times change, styles change, the culture changes, people's needs change. And if we don't keep up with those changes, we will get stuck in the past. And if we get stuck in the past, in the way things were, in wanting things to go back to what is familiar, to what is comfortable, to what is safe, pretty soon we will let fear and familiarity dictate what we do, and we will be afraid to try something new. Paul also tells us to strain forward to what lies ahead. Here's where there's a tension between all three elements of time - the past, the present and the future. We know we shouldn't dwell in the past, to wish for things to be the way they were. We know it's important to live in the present, because that's where we are today. But we're also called to "look ahead," to visualize a future.

It's the same message that Jesus gives us in the Sermon on the Mount. "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you," Jesus says, "that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” "Don't long for the past and d the way things have always been." Jesus tells us. "I'm showing you a new way to live. Remember the past if it's important to you. Enjoy those memories, cherish what you learned, celebrate what worked, but don't live in the past. Because I have something better prepared for you."

Anyone knows you can't run a successful business without a plan. We can't run a household without some kind of budget. We need to look ahead to see what's coming next. All those questions relate to present and future planning. The future may not be exactly what we envisioned, we'll all have to make some changes to accommodate new thinking and new directions, there will certainly be a learning curve as we get to know and understand just what is going on, and adapt to new personalities and peculiarities, but we can rest assured in the fact that God has things provided for.



Comings and Goings

I held my first job 26 years ago and that is a long time ago. In that long span of time, I have held several jobs and the current job is my 9th. Except on two occassions, I remember my boss’s pained facial expression when I told them that I was resigning. They were much older than I was and hierarcy and seniority prevented them from openly expressing their anguish and hurt , but their body language displayed sorrow. On one occcasion, my boss plainly told me that if I left then my entire department would collapse if I left at that juncture, and then left me to decide what I would do. At stake was a job that would give me nearly four or five times my then salary, a couple of trips to Geneva a year, and a place on the international NGO circuit. But looking at my boss’s pained expresion , I decided to stay on for some more time. I think that is the only time, I chose to do so. The rest of the time, I couldn’t care less what my superiors thought. I had made my decision ( hopefully prayerfully) and stayed oblivious to what others - my bosses or my colleagues thought.

All that changed recently when a beloved colleague came up to me and said that he was resigning. The resignation letter was contained in an innocous envelope and intuitively , I guessed what the subject of the discussion was likely to be even before the envelope was handed over to me. I guess that when you have handed in resignation envelopes all your life, intuition becomes strong in that area. I didn’t and don’t want to lose that colleague. And yet, as I was trying to make eye contact with my colleague and convince him to stay on for some more time, I was finding it difficult to do so. In my colleague’s eyes, I saw reflected the pain and sadness of my many previous managers and directors who did not want to lose me and let go of me but had to, faced with my iron determination and grit. Who was I any way, having left 8 jobs in my career to preach to my colleague on loyalty and faithfulness ? Yet with a pained and hollowed expression on my face, I made a passionate plea for my colleague to continue, because very honestly if that person left, there would be a void that would not be easily filled. No one of course is indispensable ; but some are certainly dearer than others.

This evening, writing this , I see life differently, very differently. I have never had a great sense of self esteem; I have always believed that people like me can be easily found and easily replaced. But perhaps not. Hearing my colleague say all that I have been saying over the years, and hearing me say, all that my bosses have said over the years and seing in his eyes, a reflection of my many bosses ; all of them the noblest of people that God has created, makes me wonder. Makes me confused. I never thought that my leaving anybody would create a void or a vaccum anywhere, but perhaps I was wrong. Though I fumble in so many areas of my life, perhaps in some domains of life, I have some thing to offer; a place where I have some thing to give, even if it is in that just one place. Perhaps loyalty and faithfulness is a valuable commodity after all; just that one learns to recognize and value it once one is one on the verge of losing some one loyal. 

Tom Little : When a statistic becomes a name

Every day these days , we hear of killings, bombings, terrorist attacks; so much so that I dont take note of them even if they are in my own country - much less an attack, a bombing in a foreign country. they are just benumbing statistics, which mean nothing because they mean nothing, i dont know the people , what they do or did and obviously not their names or any other personal detail. and yet, once in a while, images blur and the statistical data becomes a name , a person, a distant, albeit faint memory that one can not shake off. that happened to me on the 9th of August.

I got the news from some friends that some ten people had been killed on Friday in Afghanistan. the news filtered down to me on Saturday and the name on Monday. Dirk Frans, the Director of the International Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and a man I had worked with briefly in the past had held a press conference in Kabul to announce the killings of these ten people. Among those killed, one name stood out for me as more than a statistic - Tom Little, the American ophthalmologist , who had served the Afghan people for close to forty years, helping them by literally bringing vision and sight. When he was killed, it was probably quite typical that he was killed while holding an eye camp in the Afghan province of Nuristan.

As I write this , I do so in the in the midst of significant personal difficulties that show no signs of going away, if they ever will. And it is easy enough to wallow in one's own pain, sadness and hurt. But Tom's life and even more than his life - through his death, Tom Little reminds me and challenges me of what it is to live for the Kingdom, thinking beyond one's little aches and pains and have in sight only a city whose builder and founder is God himself.

I met Tom Little, only a few times, and my memories of him are sparse. but even so they are enough to proclaim him to be a hero, worthy to be listed among the heroes of faith listed in Hebrews 11. it was the early 90s, and my wife and I used to be the part time caretakers of a guest house in Delhi. it was often in use by people transiting through India and boarding flights to the US or Europe. Tom Little was a guest who used the place often - either flying into Afghanistan or returning back there after a brief vacation. I remember Tom from then, even though we met only a few times and he was just a guest and I a nominal host making polite conversation over the dinner table. But then some times, dinner table conversations, become memories that you carry around for a life time.

I remember Tom as one of the few people who had chosen to serve in one of the most dangerous places in the world and he had chosen to serve for the long haul, because he was clear that God had called him to come and serve him in Afghanistan and he would obey .. cheerfully and without asking questions. and because God did not call him back, Tom served him in Afghanistan.. not for five years, not for ten years, not for fifteen years, but for close to 40 years till a people who did not know his worth or value killed him in harness as he served their own people. governments came and went - the Communists went, the Mujaheedin went, the Taliban went, and today the Karzai government is tottering, but Tom labored on.

But through it all, like the unchanging God that he served, served the resolute Tom Little weathering every battle, witness to every war. Every day life brings forth battles ; small and big. Perhaps the only choice we are afforded is to make choices about the kind of battles we will fight and their size. Tom made the choice to bring a glimpse of the Kingdom to come in one of the harshest places of earth to serve in - by literally and figuratively, giving the Afghan people sight and vision for 40 years. Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends. in a country, where people come and go like sifting sand, Tom hung out there for that long a time. The fanatics who killed him and nine others on Friday, may not realized that it may be a very, very long time again before they find another man from a different language , culture, race and faith, who loved them enough to live with and for them, and in death be buried with them on their soil. Sadly in life, the most important lessons are often learnt the last or never learnt at all....

He shines on all that is good.... vignettes on an old lady

It is about three months that i started living in Mumbai as a paying guest with an elderly Maharashtrian family. In this time, my landlady and her reclusive husband have told me more about their lives than I perhaps have shared with them. And not just with them – but with any one – even with people who have been my friends for more than a quarter century. And that makes me sad... that to realize that I was never able to be able to come to the point of being able to be vulnerable and open to even my closest friends and perhaps even family who probably will know so little of of me. I wish I were different , but I will never be different and all most people will ever see of me will be the stern, external visage that God has given me and which with time can only get grimmer and glummer. But wait, this is not about me ... it is about my landlady.

It is only yesterday that I learnt that my landlady and her husband are a childless couple. Years ago, they wanted to have to have kids, but some thing went wrong and the doctor told them that they couldn't have kids. The lady ... a very progressive and forward thinking woman wanted to adopt , but the husband forbade it and that closed that chapter.

The landlady's husband can't hold down a job. Some time in the past he used to manage worker's canteens in factories but that was quite a while. These days, now and then he works at being a canteen manager , but not for long. The lady herself managed a beauty parlor for several years. When the parlor closed, she retained many of her loyal clients, and she now services them in their homes. Over time she hasn't picked up any new clients, but lost some and the family income became unstable. Eventually , they decided to rent out both their bed rooms to paying guests like me , choosing to sleep at nights in the living room. The income from the paying guests is currently the only guaranteed income the family has.

None of this need have been shared with me. Most days, I wake up , have a hurried breakfast and leave for work. I return back from work and settle down with my DVDs and books and my blogs. The brief conversations we have are over dinner which we eat squatting on the floor(no dining tables in the house). In this little time of talk, I have learnt all this and more. When i first set foot in this home, in the earliest days, my landlady told me that in welcoming me into her home, she was also welcoming me into her life and its various moments. At that time ,i had dismissed it as and polite rhetoric, but three months later, i realize my mistake.

I don't know how easy or difficult it is to share of yourself in this way, to share of your life and your experiences, your fears and your worries and many other things- not just in talk but also in walk because I have never done it and perhaps never will be able to do so. There are many, many area of life, where I wish my DNA was composed differently, that I was a different kind of person, -more warm, less forbidding and more open , but those things will perhaps never happen.

Every morning and every evening, I remind myself that with all my frailties , I am created in God's image and that I am one color in his rainbow, even if it is just gray. And then I turn to my frail, elderly land lady and in her weather beaten face that has seen so many autumns of pain and is in her vulnerability and her openness and her frankness, I see God's image painted in a thousand and more colors.

Vignettes -Set 2

1) I love the very old song “Those were the days. It brings back so many happy memories...

2) I have had some of the most wonderful friends in the world. Some of them, it seems, I have known half my life... or is it more?

3) I miss my father who died in my arms twenty years ago every day. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of him, in spite of all those years….

4) I also remember Mr. P.K. Madan, my principal at the Mother’s International School, New Delhi when I was studying there. He saw hope in me when no one else did, even I didn’t and showed me what a teacher is meant to be.

5) Remembering all these people and writing about them is making me cry and it is nice that it is ok for men to cry these days.

6) I am a very shy person, there is so much that I want to say; but I don’t know how to make up the words.

7) I don’t have a very healthy sense of self esteem these days; perhaps never did have one.

8) People find it hard to believe that I used to be an Air Force doctor once.

9) Some works of art like the Sistine Chapel just have to be inspired by God alone.

10) I wish that magic really existed; that you just waved a wand and things became better and different.

11) I love history ; it would be nice if time travel became possible and I could see all those historical events that you only read about in history books

12) Every time you want to really cry, just read “ The Little Prince”

13) Shakespaeare had some of the most amazing insights into human nature.

14) If I were an old style maharajah, with lots of money and nothing to do, I would travel around exploring the world.

15) Bach’s Sleeper’s Awake is a divinely inspired piece of music. You can actually feel the resurrection that will happen when the Lord Jesus comes again.

16) I don’t like greetings like “Happy Birthday”, “Happy New Year “and the like. Que Sera Sera. What will be, will be.

17) I don’t like ice cream so much. I love the sweet curd that they sell in baked clay pots from creaky, old refrigerators in Kolkata.

18) it is nice to speak many languages; I know so few.

19) Some day I want to visit the pyramids of Egypt.

20) The New Testament parable of the prodigal son is one of the most timeless stories ever written.

21) Along with the parable of the Good Samaritan, the lost sheep, the lost coin. they give you hope.

22) When you meet a truly good and holy man, you just know.

23) It is great when you scan your computer and there is no virus.

24) Not many are going to read this; but still talking about you is so agonizing.

25) I am haunted by the thought of the kind of legacy I will and frightened that I won’t leave one at all.

Marching off the Map - Fragments from a Diary

Why be a development professional? It is a line of work, where no matter how much you work and what you do, you never make enough money and that commodity is certainly necessary in today’s world. I guess the engine fuel is a single word: Passion. It is a funny and disquieting word. For it makes you travel on strange roads where there are few trails to follow, few comrades to lean on and few to mop up the mess you leave behind on life’s journey. And yet passion, like the old man atop Sinbad the sailor is a companion you can’t shake off- it is a burden and a joy all at the same time.

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to impact the world or at least a small portion of it. .The vision was fragmented initially but ever since then it has become crystallized around the theme that every responsible citizenship is called upon to “serve his generation” as others have done in their time. For me this has been through my role as a development worker, initially as a mid level professional setting up projects that directly changed lives and today providing leadership to an organization and inputting into its strategies and equally importantly through my calling as a part time development writer addressing audiences and try and shape public opinion on matters of social importance.

Although over the years, one accumulates many stories and memories, one that is forever on my mind, is a small work that I initiated with Afghan refugees at a time when the Taliban were supreme in Afghanistan and it seemed that their rule would go on forever. The ignorance that most people had of them and their existence, even in my own development sector has taught me to constantly seek out the invisible needs in our midst that no one practically sees and make them visible and known to others. To rummage in the shadows where no one looks and bring obscure facts and situations in the light continues to guide a lot of the writing that I do too.

The project with the Afghan refuges helped many families which were scattered and fragmented find hope and identity in an alien land. The work was guided by the Bible’s teaching to always remember the stranger and the alien in our midst. Over the many years the project ran, many families were helped and reunited in different parts of the world. Then 9/11 happened and shortly thereafter the Allied invasion of Afghanistan which overthrew the Taliban. Many of the refugees who hitherto had been looking forward to nothing but gloom suddenly saw hope and freedom.

Many returned back to Afghanistan and some others settled else where. Although they could have forgotten us and rejoiced in their new found and some what unexpected freedom many remembered. From different parts of the world, they sent e mails and thank you for what the project titled”Umeed” (Hope) had done for them. Although my role was mostly limited to conceptualizing the project, hiring capable staff that had the same concern and vision and then leaving them to do their job, it was and is an unforgettable experience till this day.

Over the years, my understanding, involvement and roles as a development professional have changed considerably and more eclipsed my training as a medical doctor. But my passion remains the same – in different ways, using different means to silently change my world for good and God so that it may provide for the world, glimpses of a better world that may yet be and yes….. Hopefully like I said before serve my generation as best as I can, conscious that every evening, my yesterdays are becoming longer and my tomorrows becoming shorter. And that restless energy to be useful and the meaningful in the time given to me I hope will never cease.

Light of Life - Remembering the Associations

I came across Light of Life for the first time in the early 1980s, when I was a student in the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. I was a new Christian from another faith background and hungry for Christian literature. There used to be a Christian bookshop in Pune that I used to frequent. They had a good collection of books, but they were expensive. Light of Life, then priced at Rs.1 or 2 was affordable and had good spiritually uplifting content. I cannot remember who the editor was then but subsequently Benny and Susan Joseph were appointed as the editors and made their home in Pune. For quite a while, till I finished my studies and left Pune, their home was one I often visited. They were good friends.

My active association with Light of Life began after Mr. P.Abraham took over as the editor. Some time in the mid nineties, a small article that I had written for Interface – the newsletter of the UESI in Delhi which my wife edited for a while was appreciated. I expanded on the theme a bit, asked a friend to type it out and then sent it by post to Light of Life. These were days before e mail became common and even computers were not that common.

After about six months ,when I had come to think that the piece was really no good , the article suddenly got published which encouraged me to write some more. More importantly the exercise of writing for Light of Life forced me to learn to do my own typing as my friends had their own work and the tedious task of proof reading what others typed out for me was also a tedious exercise.

I am grateful to Light of Life and its editorial team for allowing me to glimpse in a small way what the influence of the media can be. In many remote parts of the country, where people have never met me but have read the articles that the magazine publishes, people think that I am a full time writer or some thing which is flattering to me!

Light of Life has helped me to enlarge my writing vision. Mr. Abraham’s editorials in the magazine are not dull sermons and he and others like Rev. Kuruvilla Chandy write and say things that force you to think for yourselves and not blandly accept what has been handed down to us. Through their writings, I myself have been challenged to look at the world and what is happening in it through “heaven’s eyes” and write and interpret events in that light and having done that share them with not just Christian readers but also others.

As Light of Life celebrates its golden jubilee, one of the biggest things we need to thank God for is for its editorial team which has kept its content relevant and meaningful and not allowed it to get branded as a staid devotional magazine. The Christian media in India is small but in that small world, Light of Life is big.