IX Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore

Click to hear the South India morning as you read on:

It is early morning in Vellore. The residence and campus of the Christian Medical College Hospital begins a steady modulation into day. Bulbuls, parakeets and hoopoes take up a morning cry from the overhanging tamarind trees, rising in argumentative pitch until the trucks and autos passing outside the campus walls take over.

The CMC in Vellore is a small town. Separated between hospital campus in the busier downtown and college campus in Bagayam a few kilometres away, it is a massive organization: a modern facility with a staff of 8500, 1500 students, with a daily caseload of 6000 outpatients, 2500 inpatients, 150 surgeries, 50 babies delivered – and a staff of 20 chaplains.

On our first 2 mornings on site, a nice air-conditioned car has been sent to bring us from campus to the hospital, with careful rendez-vous at the transportation department or main reception near the central chapel, lest the Canadians get lost in Vellore traffic or hospital corridors. But, we have told our host, Rev Finney Alexander, that we like the adventure of the autos (motor rickshaws) and can safely negotiate with the drivers about the "varying" prices of the drive. We are trying to break out of a certain "bubble" that we know we live in as westerners visiting this country in comfort. Paying for all things has turned out to be David Jonsson's job; negotiating with the drivers is Linnea's skill set. Having a sense of direction comes naturally to neither of us, however the family has developed a certain instinct for getting places that has worked reliably so far.

  

in the Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore

We spend our time shadowing the chaplains, singing in their devotions and services, leading some choirs (adults and children), increasingly speaking with student groups about our musical life of faith, and sometimes teaching liturgical music leading or biblical storytelling. It is stretching us in every way. 

Ida Scudder Center for Women and Children

I sometimes have a keyboard, and other times do not, which has caused me to rely on Patrick and David for guitar playing, to sing unaccompanied sometimes, and to dig into the creative recesses of my brain for alternatives. This is very important when one has done a job for decades and has repeated herself too many times. David plays drum kit when there is one, often playing the chair with the sticks he brought from home; however he has played a child's toy drum once or twice and is good with a box. Nicole plays a tom and sits in with a shaker regularly. When Isaac is not playing the LCD projector, he takes up the shaker, too.

Christian Medical College Hospital

Indians are reputed to be spirited singers and that has been true for us. We sing with many student groups, and young adult and children's choirs. They bring to their singing a heartfelt gladness and youthful true sound, as well as the earnest desire to do it right. I suppose that, as this is a university campus whose members are some of the country's best students, it makes sense that they would be serious students of music, too. It is my job to honour the desire for excellence - and yet disperse it a bit with the challenge to be authentic and passionate - a risk for any choir.

This is my job in Canada as well. 

Children's Choir in the Chapel

I love the moment in music leading when a glimmer begins to appear in the group – a slight adjustment of posture, a widening of the eyes, an expansion in the air – an elation as singers begin to perceive the power of their own singing. Polite attention gives way to shared Voice and the group becomes one – more than the sum of its parts. 

The children in the 4 choirs we have sub-let for these 3 weeks have a big voice and are full of fun, though very respectful. They sit on the cool stone floor of the chapel in which we practice, the boys on one half-circle and the girls on the other. Our voices rebound throughout the circular room with its vaulted ceiling  – sometimes an aquarium-like confluence of sound, sometimes pure peals of choral bells. 

College Chapel

The difference in my western style of group leadership is apparent when we lead young adults or adult professionals. I am used to a certain amount of speaking to and directing of groups, balanced with a back-and-forth engagement with its members. In India, this is foreign, awkward. I will ask a group if they know a certain song, if they need more time working on a part, if they have ever had the experience described in a passage of bible, and it will be hard to get a sense of the response. This is partly because I am not sensible to the slight mannerisms and facial gestures that are totally clear to Indians: a wiggle of the head means yes, but I sense that it can also mean "I wish I could say yes".

I am glad to find that I know so much of the repertoire sung here at the CMC. I realize that my entire life of faith: my agnostic childhood, my Anglican youth, my teen evangelical background, the spectrum of United Church Canada belief, my travels in Canadian and American denominations and regions, our time in Australia/ANZ, and my experiences with a diversity of spirituality in the world, have led me to this moment.

I can draw on language that is an integration of all that I have experienced and still feel true to what I really believe.

However, the big hit of the tour is The Rap.

That's Matthew 25: "Jesus, when did I see you hungry? When did I see you scared?... You know that I care. But hey – when did I see you there?" The crowd – children or adults – begins to smile and even giggle. A bible passage as a rap; imagine that! They ask for it again and again. I tell them that we will repeat it only if they rap the refrain with us - which they do. And then they ask for it again.

We have spent time with the parents and very little ones in the children's ward of the subsidized hospital, preschoolers in mama's arms, grandmothers sitting on chairs with little ones clinging to their legs, a newborn lying on dad's lap with feeding tube hanging. One nurse translates everything I say into Tamil; the chaplain translates into Hindi. Everything takes 3 times as long in Tamil.  "God is so good..." Dad asks me not to sing the song with "boo" in it while new baby is sleeping. I tell the story of the Prodigal Son as an expression of comfort, mistakes, jealousy and a Parent's uncomplicated love; most of those sitting in the room are Hindu. I simply end: "That is what God's love is like" and some parents nod.

Autos (Our Favourite)

"If you sit down on the Jesus Bus, it is a bumpy ride..." Quick adjustments. My mind is racing overtime even as I try to tell the story of the man whose friends lowered him through the roof toward Jesus - to primary children at the school and then to health care professionals in a devotion. What are the children thinking about the many people they see with paralysed or amputated limbs around here? What are the doctors thinking about the balance of prayer and medicine? What can I say about "When you did this for the least of these..." when I have just nodded, but not given money, to the grandmother seeking a coin in the street market? "Get on the Jesus Bus", seen on an Indian road, with flashing coloured lights, brilliant side-lettering and painting, is a different ride. I know nothing! What am I doing here - telling you about faith?

at Vidyalayam Primary School on campus

Night has fallen, as it does at precisely 6pm here. We have sung after worship with nursing students late into the evening. Patrick, Nicole, Isaac, David and I make our way across the still boisterous street fronting the Christian Medical College of Vellore, negotiate an auto for all 5 of us at a night price and squeeze in together, looking forward to the dinner held late for us back at Alumni House. 

With Isaac in the rear well behind our seat and the 4 of us seated together in the back seat, our driver bids a teen to hop in with him and all 7 of us motor down the main drag, passing buses, swerving around scooters, narrowly missing men on bicycles. His seat-mate is clearly his younger brother, perched up front with his arm around his elder, maybe learning the hair-breadth skills of auto-driving as we roll. The two talk and laugh comfortably together, hardly aware of us as the lights of the street pass us noisily by. And strangely - in this one moment of finally being not really noticed here in the heart of India - I feel a bit of that bubble pop. And I settle a little more fully into this bumpy ride.


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