ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Fifty–Somethings Living and Dying in India:
PART II...Death by Electrocution

One of the many dangers of living in India is the lack of grounding for electricity and the way appliances are wired. [And, by the way, if by chance you decide to ground an appliance - and are able to make a successful ground connection - you may end up being the grounding connection for an entire neighborhood!] I have been shocked by our electrical appliances more times now than I can count!

The first was the most powerful and came from sticking my right arm into our washing machine to adjust the clothes - which were off balance during the spin cycle. Now you need to know, the machine was turned off (I’m not that dumb at least) but I was barefoot so the shock went all the way up my arm and it remained numb for several hours. I seriously thought I might not ever be able to paint again (a sad thought indeed). Now I know to wear rubber-soled flip flops when I do laundry and stick a plastic pole into the machine before I put my arm in. This has at least reduced the severity of the shocks!

Another culprit of multiple shocks is our electric water cooler. There is something about mixing water and electricity that certainly makes for a hair-raising experience. It is especially exciting when you add the fact that this appliance is used continually all day long and sits next to the sink, which happens to be the only place with the right sized plug. You hear about and read in the paper, horrible stories of many women dying in the kitchen, and now I have a better understanding of how and why!

There are many other kinds of shocks one can suffer from here in India, especially outside of the kitchen and the home in general. These shocks often don’t relate to touch at all but can hit hard when you first arrive – shocking sights like the tattered and very young begging street children, the huge automatic machine guns carried by the policemen, the far too many people lumped under their blankets sleeping along the cold, hard sidewalks, the orange hair and evil-looking black eye make-up on your Hindu auto-rickshaw driver, or the auto-rickshaw ride itself in Delhi traffic!

Not all shocks have ill-effects. It could be the shocking tastes of your first sherbet drink (tastes like perfume), or your first bite of sweet paan (a flavor packed party for your tastebuds), or your first over-the-top sweet piece of burfy (a type of candy)!

It could be the shocking smells of rotting garbage left in huge piles along the road, or the open sewers and roadside urinals, or the cow dung caked on the bottom of your fancy new sandals!

It could be the shocking sounds of the low-flying jets every 7 seconds overhead, or the ear-piercing horn of the huge Blue-line bus headed straight at you, or the soft high-pitched whine of the young mother begging for milk for her unconscious-looking baby.

I am finding that after living here for a year, many of the things that first shocked me about this culture are now seeming commonplace. The danger in this is to become callous to the shocking things that are difficult to understand, overwhelming in immensity, or too painful to bear the thought of. It’s easy to feel that I am just one person and so how can I make a difference in these situations anyway?

Again I am learning to die – to die to my selfish need to protect myself from experiencing shock and pain. I need to feel the same shock and pain that Jesus feels when He sees children being malnourished, neglected, and suffering from abuse. The same shock and pain He feels when He sees injustice and corruption in the police force and in political leaders. The same shock and pain He feels for the oppression of the marginalized in society.

Sure, I am only one person, but I serve a creative, infinite, all-knowing and seeing God who will gladly show me ways to “make a difference” if I will just lay down my will and take up His.