Unanswered prayers

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I am sure it has happened to many of us when we've been praying for something incessantly but still found God not granting that to us. Does it mean He is not even listening to us? I don't think so. I am beginning to see that His not answering is an answer in itself- a resounding NO, which we are mostly not prepared and willing to accept.

Yesterday in the Bible study I go to, one of the girls said that she feels that the things that God is not giving to her are really her wants and not needs. However, even our needs He may not provide us at the time we think is right but when He knows its the most appropriate. Until then what you have on your hands is a seemingly endless wait in which you tend to battle with questions.

Questions about our future often plague us. You may even seem to be lost in the woods. As living creatures we are prone to be lead by what we can see, hear, or feel. We find it easier to base our belief on something tangible. It would take a lot to stop oneself from turning to a person who gives you the impression that he can "tell" you all. It is in exactly such blurriness that God wants us to hold on to our faith in Him. This requires us to trust in the Lord leaving aside our anxiousness and apprehensions. Such a conviction only comes when you love with all your heart, mind, and soul. Then we too will be able to say like King David:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
I fear no evil, 
For You are with me;
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
(Psalm, Chapter 23, verse 4)

So today let us pray that we may no longer be afraid of the unknown that is lying ahead.

What goes into a great marriage - Part 1

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Last Sunday at our church service the sermon was on the ways to have a great marriage. In our pastor's words a marriage is like a garden which needs careful tending. He gave us ten practical instructions based on his 23 year old marriage. In this post I am going to talk about five of those points based on what I heard during the sermon with my own thoughts mixed in.

(1) Motive
In India they say if your children are married then they are settled. For some girls marriage means security. Others consider it to be their fairytale ending. Romantic movie dialogues give the impression that it is a way to complete oneself and a key to finding happiness. Our Pastor however, equated this to a form of idolatry as you are putting a person on an even higher pedestal than God. If you do feel that there is a part that is lacking in your life then you should look to God to satisfy it. What then you might question is the purpose of marriage. A Christian marriage is the coming together of two persons to serve and honour God and it is meant to be demonstrative of God's love for the world. Just as the vows that my husband and I took at the altar said, a marriage is a commitment

to love, comfort, honour, and keep (your spouse), for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, so long as both shall live.

Rightly so it should not be entered into lightly.

(2) Be thankful
Living together for years can bring in a sense of overfamiliarity. It is very easy to take the other person for granted. With time you are no longer shy or intimidated to say or do things as you were in the beginning of the relationship. After a while your focus may shift to noticing all that is wrong in your spouse. This can obviously build up resentment in your heart and cause you get angry. In such a scenario it is very important to remember to recognise the good qualities your spouse has, to acknowledge the efforts they put in daily, and to praise him/her for the support and comfort they give you. Our Pastor suggested writing your spouse a letter or saying a prayer specially for your husband/wife to remind yourself why you fell in love with them in the first place. Philippians, Chapter 4, verse 8 also tells us that we should meditate on

...whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise.

(3) Lean on God
Last year I had posted (see here) how we tend to wrongly believe that we can achieve anything by our own efforts alone. In a similar vein in a marriage when couples face difficulties they are inclined to resolving their issues by themselves. While we are (correctly) willing to use different resources available to us, such as articles on the internet, self help books and therapy to fix everything by ourselves, we are reluctant to ask God or may be we even forget that He is in the picture. I believe that if there is one being who will not judge us for our weakness but love us all the more, then that is God. So when the going gets tough follow what Proverbs, Chapter 3 says:

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.

(4) Ask for help
A question that was raised in this week's Bible study was "Why do married couples find it difficult to ask for help?" Personally I feel after marriage your problems are no longer just your problems as there are two lives which are now intertwined. While social networking sites are great at connecting with friends, they also tend to give a false sense as if everybody else is having a wonderful life. How then are you supposed to feel comfortable reaching out? These days the one spot I am quite at ease is perhaps our church. I have come to realise that it is not just a place of worship, but also a safe haven where anyone can go to though broken spirited and tired with struggles and still be accepted. For some it is not shame but pride that comes in the way of taking help. Mostly we want to be independent and are wary of taking advice. In either case, not drawing upon somebody else's wisdom could prove detrimental in keeping a marriage. So if you are shying away from friends, talk to the elders in your family. Sometimes it is just a matter of understanding that the difficulties that you are going through are not unusual and can be overcome.

(5) Fight fair
For starters I don't think any marriage can be conflict-free. I have previously written a post (see here) on the fiery aftereffects of anger and how to douse them. Hurtful words indeed have a habit of lingering on long after they have been uttered and can be devastating to a marriage when they are added to a list which is being constantly renewed and reviewed. This makes it all the more necessary to hold oneself from saying anything that could be regrettable. Taking time out and getting away from the situation at hand could help you gain perspective on why you are fighting. Ask yourself if you are simply trying to win a point over your spouse. Our Pastor advised couples to not exaggerate during arguments and avoid beginning sentences with "you never" or "you always". Something that I will surely remember from the sermon is him telling that the most important words in a marriage are not "I love you" but "May be you are right". So be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. (James, Chapter 1, verse 19)

How love should be

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It is that day of the year when love can be literally found all around us - in the meaningful cards and beautiful flowers, in the first confessions of hidden feelings, in the vows taken for a life together, in the celebrations of what you have, and in the sad remembrances for some who lost. But love is not about what you do on Valentine's Day but how you are with your love every day. Verses 4-8 in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13 (see here) provide the best description of what is love. Using these as a guide I have written this short poem.

In love be willing to endure and be gentle

And do not ever be resentful

In love be humble and be modest

And do not be to others insolent

In love be selfless and be slow to anger

And in your heart do not keep things bitter

In love do not revel in the sinful ways 

Instead exult when truth reigns

In love take on whatever life may bring

Without your trust even once through it floundering

In love always stand firm and always hold on to your belief

Your love should be such that it does not cease

Satyamev Jayate (6): Haule Haule… song

Bikhrey tootey tukde saare judh rahe hain


Dheere dheere, haule haule

Betuke se sur woh saare mil rahe hain


Dheere dheere, haule haule

Aainey ka dhundhlaa chehra khil raha hai


Dheere dheere, haule haule

Nanhisi ek jaan ne apna bachpan khoya

Khauff ki maili chadar odhke soya

Bebas, akela, bezubaan, chupchaap royaa


Barson se yeh behte aansoo tham rahe hain


Dheere dheere, haule haule


Khul rahi aankhen jo ab tak nam rahi hain


Dheere dheere, haule hauley

Aainey ka dhundhlaa chehra khil raha hai


Dheere dheere, haule hauley

Chura ke khud se aankhein main har pal jiya


Zahar jo usne ghola maine woh piya


Chuppi ke aadh mein chipkar usne jurm kiya


Zubaan par laga woh taala khul raha hai


Dheere dheere, haule haule

Meri nahi koi khata ye pataa chala hai


Dheere dheere, haule haule

Aainey ka dhundhlaa chehra khil raha hai


Dheere dheere, haule haule

Ram Sampath has both given music and lent his voice to the song Haule haule… which he performed at the end of Episode 2 of Satyamev Jayate. Svati Chakrvarty has penned the lyrics describing the pain and suffering and the long road to recovery of a child who has been sexually abused. Below I have tried to translate the above lyrics in English for those who do not understand Hindi.  

Scattered, broken pieces are all unifying

Gently gently, slowly slowly

Those meaningless notes are all intermixing

Gently gently, slowly slowly

The mirror's faint reflection is blossoming

Gently gently, slowly slowly

A little life has had its childhood lost

In a sheet dirtied with fear, covered he slept

Powerless, alone, voiceless, silently he wept

Since years these flowing tears, are ceasing

Gently gently, slowly slowly

Eyes that were moist till now, are clearing

Gently gently, slowly slowly

The mirror's faint reflection is blossoming

Gently gently, slowly slowly

Avoided I facing myself, every moment that I lived

The poison that he stirred in, it I sipped

Hiding behind a garb of silence, the crime he committed

The lock which was on the lips is unfastening

Gently gently, slowly slowly

That nothing is my fault, I am this realizing

Gently gently, slowly slowly

The mirror's faint reflection is blossoming

Gently gently, slowly slowly

Satyamev Jayate (5): Child sexual abuse

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Following the heart tugging first episode on Female Foeticide of Satyamev Jayate (see all posts about the tv show here) I was awaiting what Aamir Khan and his team would have for us in the second one. Would it be as effective and eye opening?

Theme of the episode
The show started with Aamir Khan saying how special children are for their parents and how much protective the latter are for the former. He went on to share his own concerns and worries for his children. The audience comprising of young parents were asked to guess the percentage of children in India who are victims of child sexual abuse. Different people made estimates of which the maximum number was 10%. So when Aamir Khan revealed that according to the findings of a research carried out by the Women and Child Development Ministry in 2007 53% respondents (across different parts of India in both rural villages and urban cities) reported to have undergone child sexual abuse it left everyone shell shocked. In the light of this staggering information the question of how safe our children are was brought up.

The stories
To break myths such as (i) children are most safe at home, (ii) only girls are sexually abused and (iii) the effect of what happened in one's childhood does not affect the future, many victims came forward to open up about their stories.

         Cinderella Prakash told how when she was just 11 years old her mother was in the hospital. Taking advantage her being alone at home one of her parent's friend, a man old enough to be her grandfather, one day came home on a pretext and sexually abused her. Hearing her account of the extent of abuse and her feeling of disgust at her own self at that point, was deeply disturbing. From them on she would try to run away whenever this man would come to visit her parents. Cinderella further, revealed that it was just four years before that she actually told her parents of this incident. She urged those who have suffered or are suffering from child sexual abuse to break the silence and vent out.

        Harish Iyer a grown up man now, was raped multiple times by a relative when he was just 6 years old. The abuse continued until he became 18. In this long duration of pain and suffering there were two occasions when he tried to tell his mother. But both times he was too young to be able to express himself clearly. Even when his mother understood, on the show she regrettably admitted, that she did not know how to respond as it was a family member who was involved and kept silent on the matter and didn't take any action. Harish said that it was like he was trapped in a cycle and continued to give in as his uncle would threaten him, until one day he mustered all his courage and said a resounding NO to the man.

       Ganesh Nallari, a fashion designer, recounted how he was abused by his uncle from the age of 5 to 17 years. What happened in the past affected his future life so much so that that it was hard form him to form relationships. While breaking down he expressed that He held a grudge against God but that he was trying to forgive his abuser as only then he would feel free.

What is behind the silence?
Anuja Gupta, who runs an organisation called RAHI which provides counselling to victims of child sexual abuse, described what is really going through the child's mind: the victimised children, though  young, can gauge that something wrong is happening but think that no one will believe them and worse still instead of the abuser they even might be held responsible for the ghastly act. Anuja further opined that parents are ill prepared for such situations and so for the children in her own words "silence is a kind of self preservation". Further the silence could also be a part of the abuse due to the direct or indirect threats they may receive from the abuser.

          Anuja most importantly outlined the different steps parents must take when a child approaches them:

1. Believe in the child
2. Infuse confidence in him/her
3. Apologise for the abuse happening on their watch and
4. Take a step to put an end to it. 

Through the example of a case where a 2 year old girl was being abused by her grandfather, she illustrated how if the abuser is someone from within the family one could hold a meeting of all the relatives and openly confront the person in question so that the act is never repeated.

Unmasking the abuser
Dr. Rajat Sharma, a psycologist by profession, who has in his research talked to prisoners in jail on charges of child sexual abuse was asked to help identify who an abuser can be. He revealed that such people normally have no guilt, treat the child as an adult and believe that the kid enjoys the experience. In his view such culprits carefully mark their target and plan their actions. They normally have charming personalities and are able to win over the confidence of the children, parents and even neighbours. Though in India we give a grave significance to our children respecting the elders, he wisely expounded that we should rather tell the children to respect behaviour and not age.

Turning it around
On the bright side we were introduced to an agency called CHILDLINE India (click link) which is the world's largest children's helpline reachable by the number 1098. The service is available 24 hours a day and they come to the chid's aid within an hour.

At the time this episode was aired there was no stringent law against child sexual abuse in India. There were many loopholes where insertion of a body part into the mouth verses a vaginal penetration was not considered a criminal offence. Nishit Kumar of CHILDLINE narrated their long 10 year struggle, because of such gaps in the law, in bringing to justice two ex-naval British officers who on the pretext of running a shelter in Mumbai for homeless children forced them to perform obscene acts. He highlighted the great need of sensitivity by the police, medical staff and lawyers in treating the victimised children during the entire investigation process.

Action
At the end of the episode Aamir Khan conducted a short workshop (see video here) with a few kids in the age group of 5-10. He asked them if they knew what was danger and what did they identify safety with. He informed them about the three danger points in their body that no one should touch, not even a doctor in the absence of their parents. In a friendly way he made the children remember a set of three actions to carry out if someone touched them in those danger areas - (1) scream loudly, (2) run away and go to a safe place and (3) go to the person they trust most and tell them what has happened. He finally suggested that parents carry out this workshop with their kids once every six months.

My comments

Soon after the episode the Parliament of India passed the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Bill. So things seem to be looking up. As taken from Wikipedia:

"The new Act provides for a variety of offenses under which an accused can be punished. It recognizes forms of penetration other than peno-vaginal penetration and criminalizes acts of immodesty against children too. The legislators tried to draft a gender-neutral Act, but failed, using the pronoun 'he' in the description of various offenses. With respect to pornography, the Act criminalizes even watching or collection of pornographic content involving children. The Act makes abettment of child sexual abuse an offense. It also provides for various procedural reforms, making the tiring process of trial in India considerably easier for children. The Act has been criticized as its provisions seem to criminalize consensual sexual intercourse between two people below the age of 18."

While there may be others, the only film that I have seen to sensitively talk about child sexual abuse is Monsoon Wedding which released 13 years back in 2001. It rightly captured everything that this episode of Satyamev Jayate talked about:

• the abuser being a well respected family friend who has always helped them in their hour of need
• the young girl trying to push away the abuser 
• the long silence for years on part of victims
• the disbelief, laying the blame on the victim and initial non-response from family members when the truth comes out. 

Amidst the wedding festivities the father figure (Naseeruddin Shah) of the victim first feels helpless but finally confronts the abuser in front of all the family saying: "These are my children and I will protect them even from myself if I have to". This is the rule that all parents should adopt.

In India we are mostly close knit families and the worry of what people might say is often a great influence behind our inactions. However, in matters when a child's safety is at stake such paralysing thoughts should be quashed. It is important to realise that there are certain occasions where silence is definitely not golden.

Like Ganesh Nallari there must be many other victims angry at God, some may have even turned away from Him completely and others might have taken the wrong path. One of the victims interviewed, Nazneen said that to forget the pain that she suffered she took to drugs and alcohol. It is therefore, imperative that these innocent victims are given all the love, care and confidence that they need so that they learn to stop hating themselves and to distrusting everyone around them.

Sometimes those guilty to have broken beautiful spirits may go unpunished by our laws, but what Jesus Christ says is in store for them is quite frightening:

"But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." (Mathew, Chapter 18, verse 6)

Trial and error (6): Chicken meat ball curry

I have to admit that during Christmas vacations I took it real easy. There was more ordering in of food and little of proper cooking. The snow storms that struck the city, also struck my enthusiasm. But with the new year not being so new any more and my birthday a week away I seem to be getting my drive back. So I thought of trying my hand at something I had made a long time back: Chicken meat ball curry.

There are two reasons that I have shied away from this one up until now: (1) the first time that I did make it I remember the meat balls broke when cooking and (2) the high standards that my husband holds with respect to this dish. He has grown up eating this delicious lamb meat ball curry which his aunts make. But the recipe is really intricate. So as a start I decided as usual to find an easier route.

How I did it?
I have been following Bong Mom's CookBook blog for a while. To be honest I love her writing, the stories that precede the recipes. Plus, the photos of the dishes do give confidence that she is good at what she does. Searching through her repertoire I found this post: http://www.bongcookbook.com/2009/06/kofta-curry-and-then.html and followed the instructions without deviating much. As I did not have cashew nuts and yoghurt I left them out.

Notes on cooking technique.
What is interesting is that Bong Mom's Cookbook tells that you can do the koftas (meat balls) three ways. You can fry them and serve as a starter, make them into a curry or use to make a pulao. I tried the first two and in both cases the meat balls came out nice and soft. In the meat balls mix along with coriander leaves I also added some mint leaves to give it a tangy taste. Though it wasn't mentioned I used 1 egg for binding. I have to admit that I added less salt in the meat balls. This was worked as far as the curry was concerned because the meat balls absorb the saltiness from the gravy when left standing. But it did leave the plain fried koftas wanting.
       
       I first made the meat ball mix and refrigerated it. While it was in there I began working on making the gravy. As the onions, tomatoes and ginger-garlic need to be cooked and cooled first before blending into a paste, by the time I was done 45 min had gone which was the more than the minimum time (30 min) for the meat balls mix to marinate.

My verdict.
Given that it was rather cold in the evening when I made this recipe it did not take me too long to cook it. I do intend to make it again with one variation of adding coconut milk. I think it will make it tastier.

Here is the final photo after much of the meat balls had been devoured:

Meat balls in curry and as an appetizer

We are in another year

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As per tradition I should have written a post on the last day of 2013 marking the first anniversary of Write Around the Corner. But loads of work thanks to my project review mid-January, an immediate and opposite reaction to go into inertness following its completion and the desire to keep myself warm inside a quilt in this winter weather, held me from blogging my thoughts into words. And before I could help it, here I am already 25 days into the new year.

Looking back there were some promises that I had made when 2013 had just started. They were:

To communicate more with those I care for. 
To write on this blog regularly.
To take time out for doing the things that I used to like to do.
To increase my enthusiasm for cooking.
To reduce my complaint reports to a minimum.

Reviewing myself I scored in a few, failed in a couple of them and interestingly accomplished a thing or two that I hadn't even listed. The curious reader might wonder what are then my plans for the remaining 340 days? Honestly they are pretty much the same as above.

If you were to read that post of mine (see here) then you will find me relying solely on "my will" to achieve my goals. I have come to realise that it was highly audacious of me to have said so. Reading Chapter 4 of the book of James of the New Testament one November morning is what shook me up, as its following verses say:

13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit";
14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
15 Instead you ought to say "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that".
16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

So, this year there is going to be one big difference. This time while making every effort towards arriving at the end results that I desire, I will also entrust those very desires to the Lord's will.