In Jammu and Kashmir

We flew from Jaipur early Tuesday (Feb 7) morning to Jammu via New Delhi.  My nephew, Andrew, whom I had never seen before, was waiting for us at the airport in his car.  He took us though the mountainous terrain further north to his home in Udhampur, a garrison town.  After reaching Jammu our cell phone lost its connection and we couldn’t use the internet using my Tata Photon postpaid card, all due to border security precautions by the military.  The winding roads through the mountains, deep gorges on one side and higher elevations on the other, a feast of scenic beauty to our eyes, was somewhat scary and treacherous, especially so when Andrew had to share the road to on-coming traffic.  A four-lane highway is being built between Jammu and Srinagar, but we’re too early to enjoy a ride on it.  Lot of trucks with heavy loads going towards Srinagar and beyond, at even higher elevations, can be seen parked on the side of the road waiting for the roads to clear off from the previous day’s heavy snow fall.  It took two hours to get to Udhampur, a distance of approximately 35 miles from the airport.

This was the first time in 25 years we saw my aunt Saramma, now 84.  She is staying with her daughter, Shimona and her family.  A former professor of history and politics at a college in Kerala, Saramma now spends her time 2,500 miles away in the north with her daughter, enjoying her grandchildren, Andrew and Christina and teaching young women in the neighborhood conversational English.

Aunt Saramma recalled stories of my early childhood.  She, being an younger sister of my mom knew a lot about my mom’s illness and her subsequent death in a sanatorium at the young age of 32.  At the time mom died, I was 4, my brother was 7, and my sister was hardly a year old.  It was this aunt and another aunt who no longer lives, who were the ones who took care of us during mom’s illness and immediately following her death.  It was nice to be able to spend some time with her and learning about my mom’s family and relations.

Last time when I saw Shimona, she was in grade school, now she is a 46 year-old Christian missionary working with her missionary husband Pastor Santhosh.  Their ministry is called Kashmir Evangelical Mission (KEM).  Their motto is “reaching the unreached and telling the untold.”  In the early days, they faced opposition in doing this work in Udhampur, a predominantly Hindu community.  However, today their work is prospering in this community as well as throughout this mountainous Himalayan region.  Susan and I had a chance to visit one of the prayer meetings in the house of a newly converted parishioner. As Santhosh was away in Delhi on business, Andrew took us around to places in the immediate vicinity.  It was a wonderful visit.  Though I am not much into conversion of people to another religion, I believe in transformation.  KEM is truly transforming people into a new way of living.  The Christian Church is growing as a result of their work in this part of India unlike in Kerala, where ironically, Christianity came first.