What gives

I walk into the town  hoping to pick up some weekly supplies-the empty town stares back at me with a few people like me carrying small paper bags.A ' ninety nine P' shop manned by bangladeshi men are the only ones open.I try to pick a few things I plan to juggle through the week with the canteen fare.The bus stand looks empty.There is a single cab in the taxi stand.I walk up to it and unlike the other cabbies who immediately jump out to help this one stays behind the wheels.Even as I say,'the hospital'I understand why. His eyes are blood-shot yellow and he looks frial.Even as the music blares I ask him ,'All the shops are closed during easter are they?He is an afro-british and tells me in his british accent -'easter is the only time in the year when everything is closed in this country'.I ask 'not even Christmas,he says-'not even christmas!'The country seems to know it's priority well. I wonder why he is on the wheels during easter.The jou...

Easter is the day when Jesus Christ who was crucified on the cross to pay for my and your past ,present and future sins,triumphed over death and he rose again to sit at the right hand of God interceding on your and my behalf. The victory was won on the cross.We are justified before God the father because of Christ's sacrifice and we are FREE....... It is a cause for celebration,it is a cause for proclamation..every man alive has the right to know that the price has already been paid ..and He is free to be what He is meant to be in Christ. ''But the resurrection points to an even greater truth: Death has now been conquered! The grave is not the end, but heaven's doors are now open! Jesus is alive, and He wants to come into your life today. Why not discover this great truth for yourself by turning to Christ today?''- BILLY GRAHAM Amen and thank you Lord Jesus.

Last week has had it's set of challenges.Half way through the rounds my boss took me aside to let me know that the offer to work another year was open.I warily asked him for some time to consider the offer.He said,' take your time'.I have a month to answer him. I wrote a letter to my ED in Delhi about it and his reply went in the lines of  'your welfare is the priority'. That is what touches me about the organisation I belong to.It has a soul.Thank God for my seniors. I am undecided and keeping things in prayer not entirely sure how another year is going to benefit me. I have ,as have always done, asked the counsel of some of the seniors. I try to think how another year is going to benefit me. For one,I would like to publish one book atleast which seems to be more of a possibility here-may be I could do it in another six months. I could travel a little more,widen my horizons a little more..... I am not sure I will learn much if things continue the way it is...

It is saturday morning and all of us are in the kitchen cooking an impromptu meal and eating while it's cooking,catching up on old times.Suddenly from the door Ojasvi enters carrying a leaflet ,waving it and shouting,'Hossanna ,Hossana.....' Anu asks,'what does it mean?-Dinesh says ,-it's something from the bible-I am trying to decipher the exact meaning when Ojasvi starts explaining to her mother-'Mommy you know when Lord Jesus was entering Jerusalem on a donkey ,his friends and disciples were standing by the road-side carrying palm leaves to welcome Him and that is when they were shouting-Hossana!Hossana!' That started Anu asking me,'Why did Jesus die on the cross?' I tried explaining things in simplest terms as possible and then one thing lead to other and I found myself sharing my testimony with her. I have often asked the Lord-why have you brought me all the way to England? If it is to share the gospel and see hossana in the lives of my fr...

It is nine o'clock at night.The temperature is dipped down to sub-zero levels.Anu has turned the heating to 30 degrees and yet I am stretched out before the fireplace with my feet sticking into the gas fire.Anu and Dinesh spread out the dinner on the carpet next to me.Ojasvi is on the sofa stretched out .Suddenly she gets up from her position and prances around restlessly,half moaning,half pleading,just these words-Mommy! mommy! mommy!Anu is on her feet asking frantically ,'Ojasvi,what's wrong beta? She just pleads Mommy,...mommy...mommy even as she prances around. Anu discovered her little toe had another small injury.She showed Anu exactly how the hinge on the door had hurt her.She had hurt her finger the other day in the classroom. She was tired,she hurt ,she was sleepy,she was uncomfortable but that eloquent little child could just put one word to the discomfort,'She wanted her Mommy.' Lord Jesus had a similar solution to all his struggles,the solution was w...

In school the other day Ojasvi stuck her forefinger under a closing desk.She told me that it hurt badly and she cried until Mrs X noticed and took her to the infirmery and stuck a bandaid. 'You know Chering,there is a clot below my nail and when the clot dries, it forms a scab'- I know how painful crushing one's finger below the onslaught of a closing desk can be,it can make a fully grown person faint. I told Ojasvi that and she replied with a sad expression on her face-'But I cried'. I found myself saying, 'It is allright to cry when it hurts.' How I needed to understand that myself.

Every month without fail the telephone call comes.I find myself blabbering down the line while a part of me wonders,'who is this?'I don't recognise myself,the whining,the complaining,the weeping,sometimes very rarely the sensible sharing.It's my friend Sheba.She listens,she apologises,she sighs......and then she talks sensibly about her challenges,her struggles..,her joys ,her lovely family.....never whining,never complaining,just sharing... and then she says,'Chering we are proud of you'.I wonder why. She shares from her spiritual walk and we pray together. Persistantly,consistantly,almost like Jesus.

When I was doing my post-graduation in a christian institute we had a junior doctor's fellowship.We used to get-to-gether every friday evening for a time of praying ,singing and sharing the word together.We had a senior amongst who used to knock every door along the corridor with a question,' A,are you coming?' Some of us were prompt in answering and immediately responded whereas there were some who did not.She never stopped .It was the same question in the same tone.It was never judgemental,never impatient. Every friday she would without fail knock at every door,call out the names and ask,'A,are you coming? There was one particular friend of ours who was very rigid in her ways and did not respond to the call for a long time.One day she responded and she testified about the persistant knock that got through to her. She did not live long.She succumbed to a bone malignancy while we were doing our post-graduation still. I should like to think that the knocks of my fai...

I book a machine,put in my cash card ,the door opens.I empty my bag of the week's laundry and set it going.I leave the place to do other errands on a saturday afternoon.Half an hour later I come back,the laundry is still in the process.I try to stop short the process because I am impatient and think it is enough poking and prodding for now.It does not stop.I give up and then watch the fascinating process the clothes go through before it finishes the entire cycle and is ready to be put into the dryer. I feel a strange sense of peace even as I give up the thought of short-circuiting and wait and watch fascinated, the process of my clothes becoming clean The big lessons in life are learnt while we watch ,listen, and wait.

When life gives you a lemon. 68 Views | Posted 5 months ago Chering Tenzing "Because He lives" The other day I decided to go to the lakeside for an outing. If you know me that would require quite a bit of discipline from my side.I am the sort of person who will go for a holiday to whatever place but will be the happiest to curl in my bed with a book,albeit whatever location. The lakeside was a lakeside with a lake ,a cinema multiplex,a restaurant and a host of water sports which did not look like it would take off because of the famous english weather.The ducks added some activity to the placid lake.I walked along the pier,took some photographs and just hung around hoping to see that 'ah' scenery the nature often flings on you unawares. I went through the movies going on in the cinema-there was Taken2,Halloween.....and some others.It did not inspire me to invest three hours of my precious life in it. The c...

My memory of Satbarwa is a maze of different colours-I am not sure which colours would suit which part in my life because it is forever surprising me with odd memories which  I think forever changed the person I was to become.All of it is precious and when I look back I would not change it for anything in the world.If I had one word to describe my time there, it would be,'intense'. I remember my ED then,observing me at work and telling me,'Chering ,don't hold yourself back,that is what the juniors observe and that is what they will do.' Somewhere along the way it stayed at the back of my mind. In last but one year of my life we were organising a get-to-gether for the villagers in our campus and while we organised it, my SAO who was from another campus observed,'How is it that all the staffs and the people involved are putting all their effort into the process ,they are working to the point of collapsing'. We in the mission circles are good service provi...

Today even as I sit on my bed with the day stretched out before me I close my eyes and listen to the sound of the day around me.The faint steady buzz of my computer ,cars moving in a distance ,twitter of a few birds in a distance.Even as I open my yahoo India page the headlines read ,'Sanjay Dutt granted five years term in jail for Mumbai bomb blast case.'There is a twitt fron Pritish Nandy which says ,'It is going to destroy him,-what a prophet of doom! There used to be a time in my younger years I used to be a fan of the family and used to follow the story closely.In the plastic world of Mumbai film industry being destroyed would I guess be losing out on fame and money but there is ofcourse the dreaded time out amongst the criminals in the prison.And ofcourse he would not be able to have that precious time with himself...the sort I am having now or will he? Some of the greatest writings and greatest vocations were discovered behind the confines of a jail for whatever re...

'You know Chering,I have an unseen friend.' said Ojasvi. What's your friend's name,I asked out of curiosity. 'Rudy!' she said. But I know Rudy-I told her. She said,'I know'. The last time I was in Anu's place I had dozed off on my bed.I woke up to Ojasvi's-sweet,'Rudy,this is Chering!' I lazily opened one eye and to my utter embarrassment stared at a pair of green eyes of one of the cleaners. I dived into the covers and remained there for the rest of the time. 'You know Chering',Ojasvi told me further.'I have this lovely diary and a pen covered with jewels and Rudy is jealous of me because of that'. I was really intrigued to hear the word jealous from a child of her age so I asked her,'Ojasvi ,what is being jealous?' Her answer was simple enough. 'Wanting something someone has badly.' She even had an illustartion for it. She told me that she was jealous of two of her friends in class,H and A be...

I wake up to the sound of Anu and Dinesh talking to each other in their bedroom next doors.It is six in the morning and it brings joy to my heart. Reminds me of parents.I can remember forever choosing to take the bedroom right next door to my parents whenever I went home for the holiday.Their tete tete starts from 3o'clock in the morning in a comfortable companionship before each of them enter their prayer time ,to start the day.Mom gets up a little earlier.Dad follows around an hour later,his tea and his porridge eaten he goes for his walk. He enjoys having us for company.Now I believe my uncle who lives three kilometers away comes to pick him up every morning(By the way he is my mother's brother,and they get along like house on fire.).He must be in his late seventies and my dad is in his mid-eighties. Mangan is heaven personified.It's a little paradise where you hear the birds singing,the crickets chirping,the flowers blooming,the sun shining ,people smiling from ear ...

I asked Anu not to pick me up because I wanted to try the bus-route.I saw Billericay ,a huge town which even had a TITAN office.I dropped off at the Hutton village stop and started walking.A lady directed me to keep walking in rounds.I followed the road until a diversion stood before me.I decided to take the church lane.It led me to the Hutton All saints church,extremely beautiful and an old structure.Even as I absorbed the architecture I noticed a gentleman bending down on the grass in the lawn,partially hidden by the fence.I shouted across the boundary ,he did not respond at first ,then suddenly he looked up ,offered a profound apology.He said he was partially deaf.It was then that I noticed he had a camera in his hand and he was trying to photograph something on the ground. He gave me a detailed direction which I received at once with a lot of gratitude.It was a beautiful walk in the country side ,beyond the Park lane.There lay the familiar Hutton free church,a landmark to identif...

i went to ojasvi's annual concert today.they had a line up of musicals with the form one singing raindrop on roses right up to a song on jonah in the fishes belly to end up with a palm sunday number on jesus rode a donkey to town. it was a very sweet lining of tiny tots doing everything they possibly could. the part i liked was that poignant pause after the performance when the tiny tots would expectantly wait for the applause to come.the expression was worth watching,and also the way they sang the part,'when i don't feel so sad.'there was a little genious Max who played the piano brilliantly-he could not have been more than five years old. there were also two very important looking five year olds who were the stage managers and after each performance went around the stage organising the stands ,et al. just watching the children being allowed to be on stage performing for an audience can be so very revealing.

(Athanasian creed for which the church fathers,I believe were tortured and maimed.) Athanasian Creed 1. Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith; 2. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. 3. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; 4. Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. 5. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. 6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. 7. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. 8. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated. 9. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible. 10. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit ...

I remember vividly my senior texting me to prepare a short talk on 'calling 'to be shared with some medical students. I had no idea what I was to share and I was praying on my couch in Herbertpur asking the Lord.I asked specifically,' Lord what is your calling in my life'? Suddenly out of the blue came the response,'You are called to participate in ''the intimacy of Trinity'''. I felt such a release as one often does when the Holy spirit breaks through to us. That was the one line message ,as abstract as it sounds I had from the Lord. The more I dwell on it ,the more I understand what a profound and a crux message it was. I always cringe in the retrospect whenever the Holy spirit prompts because the more I dwell in it ,the more I realise my inadequacy to carry the revelations He gives us when we wait on Him. The relationship with the trinity was the heart of Creation, reason for Redemtion....and the initiation and the destination for any ...

This weekend was the walk through fire.I was to be incharge of the entire acute medical unit for two full days with the two juniors doing the rounds for the monitered beds which is the tougher bit with the consultants covering the either ends. Friday was the usual take until a tough looking asthmatic came huffing and puffing into the AMU reffered by the GP.We started off with the usual nebs and steroids but half way through his saturations dipped and he started screaming his head off.I thought he was about to have a tamponade or something.His ECG had been fine,his gasses were allright.The med reg was hovering around ,so I  immediately called him for help.He took charge and asked me to call the HDU,while he ordered for mag sulphate and aminophyllines to be given.The HDU consultant came with a junior,wheeled the man to the HDU,started an arterial line and continued with the nebulisers.Eventually he did not require an intubation.I felt a little sheepish at the end of the d...

The other day I was reading about David Livingstone.All my life ,I have in many ways looked up to him,so much so that the first idea of donning a white coat in life came from the biographies of Livingstone and Sweitzer.David Livingstone in reality was branded a failure by the world.It was Stanley of 'Dr Livingstone I presume', fame who when he went in search of Livingstone, brought back reports that changed the entire impression. More than the testimony of Stanley were his faithful African friends who had been with him in Africa ,who expressed their impression of him by taking Livingstone's heart out from his body and burying it in Africa even as they brought his body back to the pomp and fare of the glorius funeral England had arranged for him. That I guess is the paradox of christian life. The ultimate picture of Christ ,-'it never mattered to Him'........ The picture of His disciples...'till it does not matter to us'....the work on us will continue ....

The other day I saw a piece of news item saying Ram Singh who was the chief accused in the high profile Delhi rape case had comitted suicide in Tihar jail.This was the man whose blood every sane Indian had been baying for when the news hit the frontline,so much so that it caught the eye of the western world as well.Uncommon occurence, considering how many woman get raped and brutally murdered every day. The first reaction I had when I heard the news was a painful pang,a sinking feeling...the thought that the news that somebody else had already died for his sins had not reached him. 'For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.'-John 3 vs17. A great man of God,a born hindu while giving his testimony about his discovering Christ and becoming His disciple was sharing how after he had read the bible and the Holy spirit had convicted him asked his friends in the office,'How come you never told me?' That q...

'You are worth weight in gold','what a lovely face you have','you have just the right job you know?''Are you married?,lucky girl!''God bless you'.This was Doris 92 years old lady with dementia,living with her daughter in law.She was brought in with incessant diarrhoea of nine days duration.She repeated the above lines after every two minutes. The nurses cynically handed the patient over to me saying the relatives had to leave because they had not eaten their dinner! Doris started telling me about her life,how she had brought up her children on her own ,how her husband liked the pub life a bit too much,spent all the money there.Curiosity made me ask about her husband and she said he's still alive.She suddenly screwed her face and said ,'I don't know where my husband is?I don't remember,she looked terribly distressed and said 'Isn't this terrible,I don't remember. Her pain and confusion was writ large on her face.I f...

It snowed hard today.There was a thin blizzard even as I walked towards the AMU.It was a monday it did not feel like one.I am walking towards a working weekend and I am looking towards it with a certain amount of anticipation and restfulness.Apparently we do the rounds for the monitered beds which is the tougher bit but that's how we learn. Dr Samuel was post-taking today so it's like seeing someone from home. Today I saw a patient embolising before my eyes.It was a frightening experience seeing a young gentleman in his forties going into a spasm even as his beautiful wife looked on.That was apparently the fourth time he'd had a similar episode.One big victory all of us gloat over is getting the radiologists on your side and they are a tough nut especially on night calls.For every CT/MRI requested at night you have to sell your case to the consultant radiologist on call.They call back the department and then it moves.The man had S1,Q3,T3 with RV strain pattern.We were an...

It's almost ten o'clock.It's been one of those busy days when I have not had the time to catch my breathe.I could do with a drink of something.I dive into my handbag and wonder if I have enough of change in me.I take out a fistful of coins and I start counting.My colleague who has just come in to take over, comments from one corner-'That's a lot of money!'.Actually it's not ,it's a lot of five and ten pences and I need one pound forty pence for a cold milkshake.I make it by a scratch but that has all of us grinning from ear to ear in a moment of cammadarie. It is fascinating how simple threads of vulnerbility brings out the best in us. Just this afternoon I had to go food-shopping.Having missed my breakfast I entered a cafe,ordered their cod and chips and settled down somewhere comfortable.Got talking with the lady behind the counter about bookshops in the area.A typically regional gentleman entered the cafe.Scrutinised the menu in the cafe for a bit ...

Caste Demographic data reported by the Sachar Committee on Muslim Affairs in 2006 [151] Religion Scheduled Caste Scheduled Tribe Other Backward Class Forward caste Buddhism 89.50% 7.40% 0.4% 2.7% Sikhism 30.70% 0.90% 22.4% 46.1% Hinduism 22.20% 9.10% 42.8% 26% Christianity 9.00% 32.80% 24.8% 33.3% Islam 0.80% 0.50% 39.2 States with significant percentage of Christians as per 2001 census State Population Christian (%) Christian (numbers) India 1,028,610,328 2.3 24,080,016 Mizoram 889,000 90.5 804,545 Nagaland 1,990,000 90.0 1,791,398 Meghalaya 2,319,000 70.3 1,630,257 Manipur 2,294,000 34.0 779,960 Goa 1,343,998 26.0 349,439 Andaman and Nicobar Islands 356,152 21.7 77,178 Kerala 31,841,000 19.0 6,049,790 Arunachal Pradesh 1,097,968 18.7 205,548 Puducherry 974,345 7.0 67,688 Sikkim 540,851 6.6 36,115 Tamil Nadu 62,405,679 6.06 3,785,060 Jharkhand 26,945,829 4.05 1,093,382 Assam 26,655,528 3.7 986,589 Tripura 3,199,203 3.2 102,489 Chhattisgarh 2,010,910 2.5 634...

Today I met up with Annah in the assesment unit.A young lady from Kenya,reffered by the GP for low haemoglobin.She was grossly underweight,had a hepatospenomegaly..could have been any patient walking into my outpatients in the hospital in India.Even as I chatted with her,I asked her,'How did you get a name like Annah?'She told me she had been named after Hannah ,Samuel's mother.I asked her if she was aware of the other Anna who had prophesied over baby Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem?She was aware. She was apprehensive about a lot of investigations the doctors had advised so I had to talk her through it.She was the only person in the UK from her family.Rest were back home in Kenya. I was deeply moved just seeing her. The sunday last,I had collected some tracts from my church.I keep it in my bag incase I get an oppurtunity to give it to someone.I have been praying about it but I constantly feel like as though I am carrying a bomb in my bag-not weighed down but I realise ...

The day I joined the trust,I had to get my id made which gave me an access to the computers and the various doors around the hospital at my place of work.It is an electronic pass.When you don't have that pass with you life can be pretty difficult in the trust. I have used that pass quite flippantly and have never given it a second thought. Every weekend I go food shopping.Most days I take a bus back and walk a short distance to my quarters.Some days when I have more than I can handle I take a taxi back.However taxi takes us up the hill but does not have access right up to the quarters because there are bars which need a pass. I dislodge and struggle the short distance up the stairs ,sometimes making two trips. The other day I needed to get my air ticket printed out and I was not sure where I could go on a saturday morning .I walked up to the educational centre,and lo what do I find, there is actually a few computers with printers and internet kept in a room for staff use ,24 h...

Today I walked up to the church inspite of a bit of a flu I seem to be coming down with.I hesistated transiently but the Lord had other plans,the big,bright sun came up my window and fell directly on me.I picked myself up and headed for the church.I took pains to discard my jeans and dress a bit formally. It was a lesson I learnt in Inverness.One thing I noticed about the missionary who was distributing the gospel tracts was that he was dressed very respectably. The first thing I did was ask for some gospel tracts.Unlike India,where we see gospel tracts lying all over the place often treated very carelessly,here we hardly see them.Betty directed me to Stewart.Flora,a lady who I had met by God's grace two sundays earlier caught up with me .Suddenly a lady came up to me with a bunch of tracts ,there must have been around fifteen of them and asked me ,'How many do you want?'I was taken aback but I asked back,'Can I keep all of it?' She said ,'ofcourse you can....

On my way back from Inverness,I broke my journey at Farringdon to see if I could pick up a notebook for myself.My old one apparently had cracked the screen and had served it's time .Tugging my bag along I scoured the streets for a computer shop and the last one had closed for the day at three PM. Too late for  lunch and too early for  dinner I realised my need for some supplements.I found a cafe open ,catering I suppose to the institutions around.It had the soup for the day in cans and toasties with various fillings.I picked up one and handed it to the counter to be heated. It was cold in London after the series of sunshine in Inverness. It is the soup that always catches my fancy.I get the feeling they just put in everything they can get their hand to make it.It was spicy,tasty and hot,much like the Indian rasam and as I tucked in further there were lentils floating around as well. It took me back to the soup I had had in Inverness.It was another thick gruel which pr...

For sometime now I have had this desire to meditate on the charecter of Jesus.The background and the culture that we come from, paint a picture of Christ which suit us and makes us feel very comfortable...the sort of peaceful God that toed the line to the tee ..the sort of saint we wonder why the people would want to crucify and yet when we look at Jesus we perfectly understand why? He broke every heresay,breaking the backbone of every thing false that made people wonder what they could hold on to when they did not have the truth. It was the beaten,the people at the end of the line..who mostly had nothing to lose who grasped His grace and enjoyed it.His strenght and His confidence in doing what He did came from His identity He had in the father. I was reading the other day....just the act of washing His disciples feet....only the menial slaves and mind you 'women' were allowed to do that during those times.That is what prompts Simon Peter to say,'No,you shall never wash...