X Touching the Hem of Vellore - CMC

The electricity has dropped out again, the room swallowed into black. The electronic keyboard ends mid-note, the numerous fans scattered throughout the college chapel lose their motor thrum and slowly drift to silence, my voice becoming a solitary echo in the room. It is the kind of moment I have often feared: What to do if the power goes out and I lose all my electronic supports? However, these small outages happen about a half dozen times a day in the CMC complex, so I have become used to them. We have dropped into absolute darkness in the middle of a complex action song in the women's hostel, lost sound on stage in front of 400 children at school, gone silent in presentations to student groups. After a couple of weeks of this, I now step away from the keyboard and simply carry on the song without missing a beat, counting on David and Nicole to drum it along for me or the group to simply carry on. And sometimes I notice, to my surprise, that my own reaction to it all is one of relief: I don't have to do this the way I always do this. I am going to have to find another way to get to my destination with this song. And everybody understands.

2nd year Med Students

Heema walks me back from Fitch Hostel, where we have sung together (no men allowed) in the evening. She is a first year allied health sciences student and she is having a hard time adjusting to the difference in food here in the south; she's from Himachal Pradesh state up north - where they have snow in the winter and more chapathis, less rice. It cracks me up to hear an Indian speak of adjusting to the food when the curry and rice diet has appeared very similar to me all month. Obviously I haven't yet begun to learn the subtleties of this country.

But, there are immediate differences. Leaving the north, we felt a wave of it as we stepped off the plane: the air undulates at 30-plus degrees. Lush palm trees line the streets, saris prevail in brilliant vibrancy. Skin is deep dark, and the Tamil language rolls fast like a wooden cart on hard road. There are monkeys living in the trees around our home on the campus; one of our host chaplains, Rev Arul Dhas, advises us to avoid the area around a certain tree as we tour the campus one evening: a female has just given birth and is on the defensive. 


Flying fox bats hang in the tall green tree at the end of Mango Road, muttering and flapping their large wings as they hang upside-down in the daytime.

Jalakantesvara Temple (1566 AD) in the Fort

Banyan trees stand curving and strong, with their long tendrils hanging down to the ground. I make a mental note to ask someone why there are bags attached to the ends of many of these tendrils along the roads and streets, and learn that it is a practise of offering a newborn's umbilical cord, hanging it on the tendrils of the tree, connecting to the source of nature.

Bananas hang from trees nearby, coconuts are piled up on spread blankets, the vendor ready to cut the end off its husk and inner shell, great sprawling heaps of watermelons stand like fortresses along the road.

Indian seed pods making a good shaker

And all I know is that whatever I have planned will not be. If I think it will be a small, intimate group, 300 students show up with technology, chairs and snacks. If I prepare for a large workshop, 15 or 1 comes. There is a keyboard, there is none. There is no pedal, the power cord doesn't exactly fit in the electrical connection or the sun melts the tape that is holding it in. A bible study that, to me, is a group conversation expects that I come with a 60 minute presentation. An emergency students' meeting pre-empts our evening devotion with med students and so we stay late. 

Strangely, knowing this has lessened any anxiety I brought with me about planning and presenting. I make two columns of possibilities in my little notebook and trust that blankness in front of people is an opportunity to ask for help or sing off-piste.

Singing at Vidyalayam (see how "a" is made with a curl)

Still, I made three columns for the children's oncology ward. I was nervous. Possibilities: 1) mostly little children who might need finger play, sound games and hug songs, 2) mostly parents with a variety of religions and languages - and who could use a word of Christian comfort 3) mostly older children which would call for a mix of stories and songs. Turns out to be Anshu. With a surgical mask around her bright little face, she joins us as our family band takes up the bench along the window, bringing her puzzles to the table. The doctors are late making their rounds today and the children will come as they are able. And so I join Anshu and the nurse in putting together puzzles. Isaac sits in too, beating us at cards, unfazed by the medical atmosphere.

Solving puzzles with Anshu

Anshu's energy is bright; this is her last "check-up" visit in 3 years, confirming that she is clear of cancer. She and her dad will return to their home in the northern state of Assam, 3 days' journey. He thanks God for her health. Younger Nikita joins us, trailing an IV tower; all that can be seen of her face is weary but willing eyes. As I sit with Nikita, arranging tiny wooden furniture in the dollhouse, Anshu comes near and matter-of-factly pulls out of a stashed purse a container of tic-tacs, shakes one out and gives it to her younger friend. Later, Nikita will open her fingers to give it to me.  Her eyes, over her facemask, have an almost apologetic look. The head wiggle means this time, I think: You understand.

Dj's children's ward drum

After the music with Anshu and Nikita and Roshan and Naim, (in which I have to guess by their eyes only if they are really smiling and singing) (and yes, they are), I am left with these children very much on my heart and mind. David and I return a couple of days later to visit them again. All have been discharged but Naim. His father, in long white Muslim garb and kufi hat, is glad to see us. Naim had been declared free of cancer last December and by January it was all back. He is the only son, the youngest after 6 sisters. He and his dad have been at CMC for 2 months now, away from their home in Bengal – also 3 days' journey from here. We visit him in his room, give him a funny Canada pen we have brought, pray with them. 

Dad takes the elevator with us. He is on his way to noon prayers at the mosque down the street. 

Triage at CMC

I am blown away by the breadth of the ministry in this place: the variety of needs, languages, spiritualities that all must be respected, the medical concerns that must be dealt with quickly and for little cost, the need for an institutional organization that can make it all work efficiently. We eat with international visitors most every morning and evening, people who have come on an "observership" to learn how it is done at the Christian Medical College, people who are here to teach laboratory procedures or quality control, people who came and got "hooked" on the place and return 1-5 times a year to both teach and learn. 







Elwyn from Birmingham says that people travel great distances for attention here because they trust that they will get "honest" health care. There is no bakshish at any level. Rev Pearson says "People feel the presence of God here. They say it over and over to us."

Worship Languages

Back home at nightfall, David and I wander up to the college store, to explore and try to memorise what is packed into its tight lines of shelves. As I sit out on the front step of the store, a group of monkeys swings into the yard in front of me, circling the trash can, reaching in to bring out bags of rice leftovers, pop bottles, banana-halves where someone has left the protective rock off the top of the dust bin. A late monkey approaches, trying to near the group, the food. She is limping – no, not quite - she is favouring something, holding it like a soft thing, dragging it slightly along the ground as she crawls. The other monkeys do not allow her near, threaten her to a distance across the street. As she hobbles away to sit and watch the others eat their fill, I see it: her own newborn, not long dead.

Nicole on the mountaintop

"What story should I tell?" I ask Serene, who is 11 and the daughter of the pastor, as we make our way to the Rehabilitation Chapel on Sunday morning. "Maybe the one about the woman who touched just the hem of Jesus' cloak?" she offers. Such a story for India: Jesus in a crowd that is pressing in on all sides, a woman who is untouchable, but who dares to reach toward the healer. Jesus says 'Who touched me?' and you can almost hear the disciples laughing: 'What do you mean who touched you? We're in India, dude; there is a billion and a quarter people here.'

Go ahead and reach. Ask for what you need. Lay it out there. God is listening.

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