May: to Live, Preach, Work, Write & Drive in India

To Live

It’s been a merry month, has May. Merry and humid. While the temperature has been in the bearable low-forties, the humidity has pushed that to feeling somewhere in the low fifties. Even the locals are finding it hard. Intense, violent thunderstorms shake the evenings up with intimidating god-like wonder, sometimes bringing heavy, vertical rain which brings children out into the streets seeing who can get the wettest while their mothers stand in the doorway frantically waving a hand and goading them to come back in. Yes, this is not the ‘Indian Summer’ of the UK but a true Indian Summer.

The month of May is similar to the month of August in the UK – it’s the month of school summer holidays. Exams have finished and everyone leaves for their travels (usually going to various places where extended family live). Pastors Martin and Beena are travelling all across the USA, visiting family and making contacts, preaching etc. I’ve never known two harder working people. While they’re away I’m looking after their house, doing some little bits of cleaning, arranging the books on the shelf and (Beena, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry…) eating the dairy milk.

To Preach

As the pastors have been away, however, the church has had two people to do the preaching – the wonderful Vernon, and me. Yes, coming to India has seen a massive change in how I see myself. Sometimes people call me ‘brother’, sometimes ‘uncle’ and sometimes ‘pastor’. Martin once told me in 2017 that being a pastor is simply caring about people – preaching is just an extension of that. The early church founders didn’t go to Bible college and their sermons didn’t have 3 points and an ‘altar call’, no, they were just people discussing thoughts they had within their little community, almost like the way an office is aglow with conversation on a Monday morning after Game of Thrones had been on the previous night. My heart is full with love, excitement, inclusivity, beauty and light – life. So I share with the church about all of that. Preaching makes me nervous but not in a morning-of-P.E.-day kind of way, it’s a nervousness of taking on something new, big and exciting. I feel myself stepping into a new wide-open space.

To Work

May is a quiet month. Most of the kids from the homes have gone to visit existing family members – the senior boys home, where I’m normally based, is down to a headcount of nine. It’s been a blessing specifically for the senior boys home who have had a changeover in the staff (“house-parents”). Until now it’s been a home full of teenage boys looked after by one man. Because of this deep need for staff, it’s been a very difficult time. But the dynamic dramatically changed when a family was brought in to look after the boys – a loving unit of husband, wife and two children. Respect is flourishing and the nine boys who have stayed all summer have made the transition for this family easier.

Teaching music has gotten underway during summer. Now that the school exams are over, the kids that have stayed at Bethesda Life Centre have had the chance to dive into learning an instrument. I have some keyboard students, some drum students, some guitar students and even a 15 year old boy who wants to learn how to sing. I’m flattered he thinks I can even sing. Most of them have been really getting into learning music, but one boy in particular has shown incredible progress.

Max, like a few of the kids, has no parents or grandparents – BLC is fully his home. He plays acoustic guitar in the band and can sing. During exam season he was badgering me to teach him keyboard, and now that he has finished his exams and the home has a keyboard, I’m able to teach him. So far he’s had 4 weekly lessons and can play confidently with both hands with great rhythm and understanding of chords. Every week I set him a new task for homework and every week he’s completed it and done extra experimenting and learning for himself. I’ve never had a student work so hard with so much inspiration. His inspiration is infectious. Today I will not only be going to teach him about 7^th chords and start a new project with him, I’ll also be going to listen to him play me the first song he has written himself. I’m overwhelmed. Max is finding life and love and energy and passion in music – it vibrates and resonates from deep in his soul. So to the people who have sponsored my living in India with emotional or financial support, Max is discovering life and you have made that possible. I wish you could have been there to see how excited he was to tell me that he had written a song. I will bring you more on that personally at a later date. Until then, I thank you.

To Write

While it’s been quiet, I’ve had chance to work on my writing and composing. Living in India has made every part of me open up and come alive and I’ve never had so many ideas in such a short space of time. I’m hard at work creating an album and so far I’m in production of 10 of the 12 songs which I hope to feature on it. I used one of the songs – Rainfall – to open up my first preach, making it not only my first preach but also my first solo gig. Ha! I felt like Ed Sheeran, only bald and not as talented with an acoustic guitar. The album will involve some of the kids from BLC and all the proceeds will go to BLC as I’ve never seen my music as being for my own benefit. One of the songs is called How On Earth and involves a bridge sung in Hindi (thanks to my buddy Pratik Kore for checking my translation). It’s a big anthemic ballad with a simple melody for its short chorus and bridge, and verses that explore the theme in greater detail and with a little more syncopation and melodic movement. The usual. But we rehearsed it in band practice last night and the team got a good hold of it. We’ll be doing it in church soon where we’ll see if it sinks or swims. I’ll be detailing more about the album in a later blog entry.

To Drive

Which leaves me with the subject of driving in India. Hahaaaaa! Hilarious times. In order to live in India, one needs transport. It’s not the UK with its rigorous transportation network, for example there are only two main train stations in the entire state of Goa and the buses are unreliable and stop running at 8pm, which means if you want to go out for dinner, you’ve got to have your own transport or try and jump on the back of someone else’s. Martin and Beena have kindly and generously lent me the use of a car. It’s a small Maruti Alto and is normally used for BLC errands – perfect for getting around – but getting around is the challenge in India. ‘Getting around’ usually involves avoiding the dogs lying in the middle of the road, the herds of cows slumbering down the middle of the road, the people walking in the middle of the road, the drivers stopping to talk in the middle of the road. One day I came across a long line of traffic on a main road and when I got to the source of the jam it turned out that someone had blocked off half of the road with paving stones they had dug up at the front of their house. They hadn’t thought to store the stones in their garden or against the wall. To the outsider, all of this seems like chaotic lawlessness. There is ‘law’ in place, it just belongs in the brain of the individual and between individuals, where there exists an understanding of space and priority – an unwritten law. In a way it’s more natural, but because drivers and pedestrians (including animals, who strangely seem to adopt the behaviour of human pedestrians) don’t abide by a written law, it requires a sixth sense, a hyper-awareness of space and behaviour. It’s wonderful and I love it. And I forgot how much I love driving. Especially around cows.

Sidenotes:

• Yesterday I drove to the capital city, Panjim, and had breakfast and went shopping where I bought 2 kurtas. I’ll take some pictures soon.
• Martin and Beena, I miss you and I’m sorry I ate that huge bar of Dairy Milk. Please come back.
• I discovered an amazing recipe for Keralan beef stew. Come to Goa and I’ll make you some.
• If you feel compelled to give to help me teach kids like Max, you can do so via this JustGiving link or send an email to hello@willadammusic.com and I can provide my UK bank details.