Thatched House

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." (Isa. 20: 31)   A Compass is a navigational tool for finding directions. It is particularly important for sailors at sea. At sea with no land at sight, looking for directions will truly be a challenge. Even if you start at the port in the right direction, the waves of the sea will have turned the ship within no time. And for a long sea voyage, a slight change in angulation can take you to a very different destination. You won’t find many travellers at sea to ask for directions. One can be lost at sea with no trace of dry land and all resources on board running out. This is an uneasy illustration as I have never been at Sea myself. I hope what I said is fairly accurate. But we all have seen a Compass somewhere. Some people have it on their wrist-watches or car dashboards. Adventurers carry it with a map in the city or thick jungles so that the...

I've been thinking that I will write a book one day. After I reach 45. But if things go as planned, there will be a book published this winter. I should have given it more time. It needs more editing. But how much editing? If I have to keep on editing, it will go on and on. There is no end to editing. So, I have handed over the manuscript to the publishers (Heritage Publishing House, Dimapur). Now, it is at their mercy. Dr. Wati Aier has been very kind to write the foreword. He was very generous.Will the chapters be able to live up to the foreword :-) I don't know how people will receive it. Some will agree, some will disagree with me. That is something we have to live with. We should be firm but not stubborn. It must be a wonderful feeling to hold your own book with your own hands. But better still will be, when a stranger meets you and says, 'your book spoke to me', or 'you wrote what I have been thinking'. There is no reward for guessing what...

If a family member is sick, you would like to look up the internet to see what it says. You type in some key words in Google and you will find several pages of web links, directing you to a lot of useful websites and some not useful ones. You ask for a second opinion from your family relative doctor. You search for experience of other people who have suffered similar ailments.    Patient experience is gaining importance in informing how best to deliver health care. In the UK, patient experience is being researched to guide the National Health Service. It is acknowledged that most patients now search the internet before or after visiting a doctor. Even if an old patient may not be tech savvy, there is a younger family member who can do so for her. There are also online discussion forums and chat rooms where patients are communicating with each other about their disease condition. There is a suggestion that doctors may refer useful websites to a patient in the consult...

Sent to Morung Express, Nagaland Post, and Eastern Mirror for publishing   This is not my first choice topic to write in a newspaper. Some people have already written very well on it in the local dailies. But there is no response from the concerned authority on the questions put forth. Therefore, I will be simply repeating what some people have already pointed out. If you are a driver in Kohima, you probably have felt at least a feeling of uneasiness about the parking fees being collected in Kohima. You get unanimous opinion in casual conversations that something is just not right. It is not that Kohima drivers have not driven in other cities and do not have the experience of paying taxes. It is also not the amount of rupees 10 which the vehicle owners find too much an amount to pay. It is something deeper; it is a question of right and wrong, about doing something rightly or wrongly. Is parking fee in Kohima for the public good? There are toll taxes along the highway...

N.T. Wright: The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is This book by N.T Wright (New Testament Scholar and professor at St. Andrews) is better than I expected. This is not a proper book review by the way. And I’ve read it just once. It is a small book packed with valuable insights on the person of Jesus. Jesus? Haven’t we known all there is to know of him? Not really. Why should we study him in detail anyway if we believe what he says? Wright takes us into first century Judaism: being still in exile although back to their homeland from exile, waiting for a messiah (not a purely spiritual sin-forgiving Christ as we think), how Jesus understood his vocation ( The chapter Jesus and God is a tough one), the resurrection as new creation (and not simply that it means you can now go to heaven), post-modern critique of arrogant enlightenment and Wright’s critique of postmodernism itself-to appreciate but also go beyond it and to come out on the other side. The Chapter, ‘T...