At The Indian Christian Mission Centre in Salem, Tamil Nadu, we have just begun testing all 2000 children and 500 staff for HIV/AIDS. One of the first to test positive is the girl I have sponsored for several years. In my personal devastation at this news I wrote this brief poem:

… THEN CRY

If you can not or will not pray,
Then cry.

I will not pray, but
I will surely cry
For a lovely twelve-year old girl
Just now coming into womanhood,

Who does not yet know
That she is HIV positive, and
Who would not yet understand
That she is in the first stage of AIDS.

She knows
That she has a persistent cough
That she has been to hospital
For tests and x-rays.

Tuberculosis, which is all around us here,
Has taken advantage of her
Weakened immunity.

She has AIDS.

Perhaps I should rage.

I will not pray but
I can surely cry..

In response to the estimate that we will discover as many as one hundred children who are HIV positive we are making plans to open a hospital for AIDS children with two hostel/hospices, one for boys and one for girls. This will enable these very special children to stay for the rest of their lives at The Promised Land, the beautiful campus of their orphanage, their home.

The cost of this project will be US$100,000 for the hospital and US$50,000 for each of the hostels. I hope that this cost will be met by members and friends of my home club, Emerald City Rotary.

I will be back in the United States in about a week to set about the task of raising the money for our special children in south India.

Last evening here in Khajuraho Baba-ji took mahasamadhi (in Western thought we would simply say, “He died.” Here, we Hindus believe that he did not die but simply passed into another realm of existence.) Today is a somber day here in Khajuraho. All stores and offices and most schools are closed. Thousands, perhaps as many as one lakh (one hundred thousand) have come to pay last respects. I received Baba’s last darshan (glimpsed his body, was in his presence) this morning, then I made token participation in the preparation of his samadhi (burial) place.

Baba was born about ninety years ago in Lalguan, a nearby village. Early in his life he renounced everything and came to live in a crude little jhopri (hut) in front of the Matangeshwar (Shiva) temple where he spent his life sweeping the temple steps and walk and platform and abusively rejecting any attempt on anyone’s part to treat him as a holy man. His simple needs were taken care of by the Gautam family (my family here) and others.

Though Baba angrily rejected any attempt to show him any reverence he has been treated as a great sadhu (holy man). Miracles have been attributed to him. One day a very sick man was brought to him. He hit the man with the broom with which he was sweeping the temple steps. The man’s illness instantly left him. On another occasion an airplane was experiencing difficulty landing here. Baba waved his broom at it and the plane came safely to the runway. From then until now that airline captain has come to take Baba’s darshan whenever he is in Khajuraho. My best friend’s infant son had a fever. Baba touched Gajanand’s forehead and the fever abated.

A huge procession has just now passed my hotel. Baba’s body was taken first to his home village then the basti (old village) then through new Khajuraho. Now his body will be buried near his small jhopri. The bodies of holy men such as this are not burned. In coming weeks a suitable samadhi shrine will be built over his burial place.

This evening to honour Baba no gongs were rung and the conch was not blown at the Matangeshwar temple.

Your man in India, WarrenHall Crain

A bit over a week has gone since my first despatch. I’ve spent time with Rotarian colleagues in Jhansi and celebrated the sixteenth birthday of a friend in Orchha. Then a bus trip I’ve taken often – soon train service will be established to Khajuraho and I’ll no longer have to endure those four plus hours on an ordinary Indian bus.

Back home in Khajuraho I’ve spent a whirlwind time greeting friends and family. Lunch most days with my best friends and their four children. We wait for the two younger girls outside their school and walk home together. Dinners with other friends. A quick visit to the school where I will be teaching in August. Some prodding of the president of our provisional Rotary club, urging him to move along toward getting this club chartered. His mind is elsewhere these days. As is mine. I’ve come to India this time especially for his wedding two weeks from now.

Rahul is a civil engineer responsible for the maintenance and renovation of our magnificent temples here. In these past few days he has shared with me some of his vision for the main temple complex which is breathtaking as it is and will be surpassingly beautiful when all the major renovation is completed and the lake in the middle of the complex is restored.

Please do come and visit us here in Khajuraho some time

Your Man in India, WarrenHall Crain

It is good to be back in my India – my 25th return, as marked by the 25 at the beginning of each despatch. This is to be a brief time here – to attend a couple of weddings, to move ahead the process of chartering the new Rotary Club of Khajuraho/Rajnagar, to visit the girl I sponsor at the Indian Christian Mission Centre and to visit the chairman of Group Study Exchange for Rotary District 3201, the district with whom we will have an exchange in 2009.

A very long flight on a full airplane brought a new friend – a Christian professor now retired in San Diego and coming to teach a three day overview of Old Testament history in Khatmandu, Lucknow and Colombo – three weeks in three south Asian countries. We arrived to an overburdened immigration hall in the Meet and Greet area. I was able to help my friend find the person meeting him and then to take a taxi to my usual hotel where the staff greeted me as an old friend.

A short night’s sleep brought me to the new day here in unusually chilly Delhi (temps down near freezing). A fine hot shower, breakfast in my room then another cup of chai at my favorite tea stall next door. Then off to sort out several challenges to my mobile phone. All’s well now. (Call or text me at the same number 011.91.930.539.5610.) Several phone calls to family and friends here. So many people greeted me and welcomed me home here in this huge city. A fine latte at COFFEE DAY downtown Delhi and a swift trip to the next stop on our world-class metro brought me back to my hotel, lunch at a small restaurant next door (lentils and chapattis for eleven rupees) and “early to bed…”

A very long night’s sleep and I am ready to check out in a bit and catch a late morning train to Jhansi.

Stay in touch with these despatches – or by e-mail or phone.

Marite Butners, my colleague in Emerald City Rotary, joined me for my last ten days in India on a planning mission funded by a Volunteer Service Grant from The Rotary Foundation.

We toured some of the great sights of Delhi, then took the train to Jhansi, where I have been teaching at The Second Session School of Christ The King School. We plan to support the children there with a strengthened scholarship program.

A day in the town of Orchha included a tour of The Jehangir Mahal, built by the King of Orchha about four hundred years ago to honor a visit of the great Mughal Emperor Jenahgir, father of Shan Jehan, who built the Taj Mahal. The emperor, and his wife Nur Jehan ("The Light of the World"), stayed in this magnificent palace (much bigger than the king's own), only one night. That day also included a visit to a family so poor that they had only one chair in the house -- the one one which I was sitting to take the picture.

We had decided not to go to Agra, site of The Taj Mahal, because of heavy rioting there the day before. So Marite is determined to return to India some time soon.

In Jhansi we met with the Rotary Club of Jhansi Fort and toured the Second Session School and the lovely little school of S.K. and Anupama Mishra. We hope that the Mishras will apply for a Volunteer Service Grant to come to Seattle to plan for a Chalk Boards to Computer Screens (CB2CS) project soon.

Then Khajuraho, where we had dinner with members of the Rotary Club of Khajuraho/Rajnagar (provisional). We hope to charter that club in early December when a group of visiting Rotarians will be in Khajuraho on a National Immunization Day tour(http://rotary5030.org/ProgramsProjects/crain.php).

We also hope (perhaps in December 2008) to bring twenty laptop computers to the Raja Balwant Singh School, where I have been teaching, as a Computers for the World (C4W) project.

Now we are back in Seattle. I will be bringing a small group to India in late November on a tour culminating in the 9 December National Immunization Day, when our group will be in Khajuraho. Please look at our itinerary and join the group if you can.

I have been in Khajuraho part of every year for the past fourteen years and have been wishing that we had a Rotary club here. I’ve talked with people in various Rotary positions in two different districts, urging them to establish a club here. Earlier this year four senior Rotarians came to Khajuraho from the nearest club, the Rotary Club of Satna – a two and a half hour drive.

We met with several prominent people in Khajuraho and a spark was ignited. The Resident Director of the Khajuraho Office of the Archeological Society of India, Rahul Tivari, a man who has become a dear friend, began recruiting prospective members. Rahul and another prospective member and myself then drove the two and a half hours to attend a meeting of the Rotary Club of Satna.

This past Sunday noon we held the first meeting of the Rotary Club of Khajuraho/Rajnagar (provisional) at the Hotel Siddharth in Khajuraho. Those on the dias (see the picture) were Satish Jain, president of Satna Rotary, myself, founder of the new club, Vinod Goel, member of Satna Rotary and New Club Formation Chairman for the district, and Rahul Tivari, Charter President. In addition to those four there were two other senior Rotarians from Satna and seven other prospective members. We also have a list including nine others who are ready to join. So, the district has authorized us to meet as a Provisional Rotary club.

During our meeting a group of tourists came along. One of them, seeing our banner came in to tell us excitedly that she had been a member of Rotaract in Florence, Italy, and that she was joining a Rotary club there .

We will be meeting as a provisional club until we have twenty committed new members at which time we will petition Rotary International for our charter.

The next scene in my dream is our gala charter night which I hope we will hold on Polio Sunday, 9 December 2007, when an NID team from District 5030 will be with us in Khajuraho. YOU ARE ALL INVITED.

As a Rotary volunteer, I am teaching English this month at Christ The King Second Session School in Jhansi, right in the middle of India. Christ The King (CKC) is Jhansi’s largest and best private boys’ school. Several members of Jhansi Fort Rotary are products of this school, now successful professional men prominent in the community.

The Second Session School is a cooperative program of the Jhansi Fort Rotary Club and CKC School. Our purpose is to provide for a token fee a quality education (KG through class 5) for students from families with income less than Rs. 3000 per month (about US$2 per day – well above abject poverty but still very low income). We currently have 113 children enrolled. Our entire faculty is four teachers, all but one working with more than one grade level. Crowded into three classrooms (four after lunch when the regular CKC students are dismissed).

As a global citizen who knows what a fine classroom looks like in our better schools in the US, or even what a classroom looks like in some of our poorer inner city or rural schools or at some private schools here, I long for decent educational facilities for my children here. For Deepshika and Rahul and Nazia and Azharuddin. Yet what we have is what you see in this photo of some of our Upper KG students. As you might not be able easily to decipher this jumbled picture let me spell it out in words.

These children work at school desks (yes, KG here is no children’s garden – it is school-work) attached to benches. Several desks are missing so children do their work on the back of the bench ahead. The bench, besides the three students, also has to give space to the “bastis” (book-bags). Students must open their Maths (we do not call this “Math” here) texts to page 95 and copy problems into their Maths “copy” (notebook). There is inevitably a bit of pushing and shoving for space, but very little complaint. Our children are doing their school-work and learning well under severely adverse conditions. Each classroom is lit by one “tube light” (bare fluorescent tube). Very crude blackboards at the end of the rooms. Many desks broken. Peeling paint on the walls. Our children deserve better.

Marite Butners of my club (Emerald City) is joining me here in a few weeks on a planning mission funded by a Rotary Foundation Volunteer Service Grant. We’ll be looking at various possible programs and projects in several parts of India, including some being spearheaded by Federal Way and Mercer Island clubs. Perhaps …………….

A Matching Grant project to upgrade seven classrooms here. All desks repaired or new desks provided. Age/size appropriate desks for KG and younger students. Walls repainted including Hindi and English alphabets in the younger classrooms. New fine chalkboards. Better classroom lighting. This might be a project of one high school in our district in partnership with CKC school, and Jhansi Fort and Emerald City Rotary Clubs. Each partner to provide some of the needed funds, with possible matches from the local Roman Catholic diocese, Rotary District 5030 and the Rotary Foundation.

It might be. As my children used to say, “We’ll see.”

On a lighter note, on Sunday the Rotary Club of Jhansi Fort took me to a picnic at Waves Water Park (a bit smaller than Wild Waves) – about fifteen club members plus fifteen Annes and fifteen Annettes. A delightful time was had by all – especially those of us who came down the water slides. Yes, that’s me in the picture.

And on a darker note, we hope it will rain. We’ve had only fourteen inches so far this year. Should be twenty-five by this time late in the rainy season and forty for the year. If we have little more or no more this will be the fourth year of severe drought here in central India.

I’ve been in India for two weeks now. Nearly four days of that time has been spent in comfortable travel on India’s trains. I’ve attended the installation meetings for Rotary clubs in Meerut and Jhansi. I’ve visited friends in Bangalore – a vast overburdened hi-tech city. I’m recovering from a brief bit of illness. I’ve conferred with our travel agent as we make plans for another NID tour in the push to end polio here. I’ve conferred by phone with the Charter President of the provisional Rotary Club of Khajuraho/Rajnagar. I still need one more signature here on another Volunteer Service Grant request.

Here’s a bit of poetry I wrote a few days ago describing my spirit state here in India:

THE PEACE BEYOND UNDERSTANDING

Beneath the myriad frustrations of daily life here in India I live always in a state of profound peace – a peace, a joy, an assurance which nothing can shake.

I rail against the frustrations – a broken railing on the stairs to our nearly new and gleaming Metro, no hot water in my hotel room shower, a room phone which will not connect to room service, overwhelming crowds at New Delhi Railway Station, the badly potholed street at the very entrance to the station, ramshackle seats in the seventeen-year-old rail coach, and on and on. Even as I rail against these I am upheld in a profound peace which few know.

Jesus of Nazareth lived always in this peace, even as he lashed out in anger at those who were despoiling The Temple; yes, even as he faced the agony of his death.

Paul the Apostle, after his encounter with Jesus, lived in this peace. He called it a peace which is beyond understanding.

Mohandas Gandhi, whom we call Bapu (Father), found this peace in his life strategy of satyagraha (truth force).

Very few Americans find this peace. We are too caught up in the quest to succeed, to achieve, to accumulate.

Sadly, for I love and revere him fiercely, I believe that Brother Martin, though he had a dream, never found this foundational peace.

This nation, my chosen and beloved India, showers me daily with blessings. The greatest of these is profound peace.

Om. Shanti. Shanti. Shanti!