Thatched House

The steward shooed him away to make room for me. I protested but it was too late. So, I sat in the front row. It was Good Friday at church; the day when the death of Christ is remembered. I tried to connect the significance of Good Friday with what the steward just did; and it left me with a feeling much deeper than uncomfortable.   The front rows in our churches have become reserved for the so-called ‘VIPs’ of our society. The social stratification of our society gets played out in our church sitting arrangements. Church has failed to be a place of counter-culture; a place where people feel equal, if only for a few hours every week. So, it is understood and accepted that some people are of more value than others. This value of people is assessed on the basis of possession of material wealth or college degree. Who in heaven or earth has taught us that these are the measuring rods of human worth? God made us all in his image: the poor and the rich, the educated and ...

I have written articles, some short and some long. But do I have what it takes to write a book? The question is mind consuming.  If I think of what I know and write down whatever comes to mind, I can fill up a book. I think I can write a better book than some local people who has books in their names. But that is not what concerns me. Will I be able to write a book that I would love to read? Can I write a book which is really worth publishing? Can I attain the level that I expect of myself? That is what bothers me. It is not just about having a book in my name.  To be honest, I really don’t know that much about anything. Take the topic of health, for example. I have written a number of articles on health. But if some readers are to put them together and critically analyze, I have just been revolving around a handful of points. Take another example, Christian faith/theology, the next most common topic I have written on. There too, it is not too many points I ke...

‘Go forth and blog’. Pope Benedict to his priests Blogging is exciting. You have flexibility and total control over your blog. You can blog about anything, at any time, at any length. So, first, there are no rules on blogging. However, I would like to share some tips that I shared with a friend who was considering to start a blog: 1.    Don’t worry what you should blog about. Don’t worry if a thousand books have already been written on the topic you have in mind. No two people read the same book. No two people see the same thing. 2.    First sentence is so important. You can lose readers with a bad first line. OK, you witnessed a shootout on your way to college and you want to share it. If you start by saying how your day began, what clothes you were wearing that day, or what the definition of a ‘shootout’ is; you can make the gunfight seem boring. Instead, you can start with something like ‘Bang bang!’ (Writing a story doesn’t have to always sta...

(a facebook post for fellow folks) Learn grammar. Dear brothers and sisters who are appearing HSLC and HSSLC, ‘what are your plans right after exam?’ Here’s one humble and earnest suggestion: Learn grammar. Take English grammar tuition. For the rest of your academic career and beyond, you will be writing and speaking in English. That is inescapable. Science, Arts, or Commerce, you have to write in English for your exams, face interviews in English for your jobs or for admission for higher studies. So, it is important that you learn it fairly well. Take grammar tuition. Why right after HSLC/HSSLC? It’s because you won’t find a better time again in life. We learn as we go up in our career, but on grammar, what you learn during school is pretty much how your grammar will be for the rest of your lives. That’s also because there will be no more grammar course in college or university. Learn grammar. People make fun of each other’s accent, including the...

This is from Ice Age IV. As the 'ice ship' was tossed about in the ocean by a violent storm, Sid cried out this memorable line: If I don't make it, find me a wife, and tell her I love her.

Since the liberalization of the Indian economy in the early 1990’s, government spending on the social sector has been cut in the name of Structural Adjustment Policy. Government spending on health dropped to as low as 0.9% of GDP in 2005. The State Human Development Report 2004, Nagaland showed similar decline in state government’s allocation to health sector as percent of its total expenditure. When government spending on health decreases; private out-of-pocket expenditure increases (which increased to about 80%). This trend results in people falling into debt crisis due to paying of medical bills. Health expenditure is said to be the commonest reason for people falling into indebtedness in India. About 2% of population fall below the poverty line due to spending on health care. There is a partial renewal of government’s commitment to health care. Public spending rose to 1.2% of GDP during 2011-12 and private out of pocket spending stood at 67%. But it is still far from adequat...

After a full day’s work, I come home to hold my one month old niece. She doesn’t like lying down. She loves to have her head raised and gentle rocking pleases her. She started responding to music as early as when she  was two weeks old; not to any music but to a particular song. It is a beautiful hymn called ‘Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour’.   It became her personal mp3 lullaby. If I were to choose a song for her, I couldn’t have chosen a better one.  All she does day and night is to sleep, stay awake, feed on her mother’s milk, cry and make sounds which are not yet words. She doesn’t know that people can be greedy and do bad things. I asked her, ‘what type of society are we offering you into?’ She calms by nerves as she seems to say, ‘I already know of a gentle Saviour. He’ll not pass me by’. Pass me not, O gentle Savior, Hear my humble cry; While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by. Savior, Savior, Hear my humble cry, While on others Thou a...