Jugar

There’s a word in Hindi to describe the kind of highly pragmatic, resourceful, problem-solving that keeps India running from day to day.  An English speaker might call it “jerry-rigging,” or use “McGyver” as a verb to approximate the same meaning, but the truth is that there is really no English equivalent for the broad scope of “jugar.”  A few real-world examples are probably the best way to explain:

Jugar is a teenage guy plugging a leak in our water drum by scraping off pieces from a waxy bar of soap and applying it to the hole in the plastic like putty.

Jugar is fitting 14 adults into a three-wheeled taxi during rush hour—even though two passengers are without a seat and one of them is mostly outside the vehicle hanging into traffic—because there’s no other way for everyone to get home. 

Jugar is a man somehow making a living by painting monkeys as leopards and peddling them through residential neighborhoods as entertainment.

Jugar is someone transporting a live goat across town by slinging it across their lap on a motorcycle.

Jugar is a family opening a restaurant even though they don’t have a building, a sink, or a stove, and yet somehow managing to keep up with business by cooking over a wood fire inside of a handmade mud oven, seating customers under the same tarp that will shelter the whole family overnight.

Jugar is converting a cycle rickshaw into a school bus to carry 10 or more children to and from class each day.

Jugar is making chai with salt instead of sugar because you can’t afford sugar but you still need to serve your guests tea.

Jugar is our friend finally succeeding in receiving the college diploma she has rightfully earned– without paying a bribe– by overturning a corrupt official’s desk in frustration after months of unsuccessful visits.

Jugar is the mobile store man repairing our phone by scrubbing the hardware with paint thinner and a toothbrush after we accidentally dunked the whole thing into a cup of hot tea.

Basically, jugar is finding a way to accomplish what is necessary in spite of any logistical, natural, or bureaucratic barrier that may present itself, and India survives on the determined, implausible, ingenious improvisation of jugar every day.

Is that enough?

          I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the frailty of truth, love, and beauty in the world. Those are the underdogs, compared to the powerful, evil systems that run most things. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about why Jesus describes the Kingdom as a mustard plant, or yeast working its way through bread dough… slow, subtle change that eventually transforms the whole. I’ve been thinking about what it means to have faith. After journeying all this way with Him, I don’t think I could ever come to doubt the existence of God (been there, done that). But I’m coming to see that faith has to do with a lot more than believing in God’s existence or His power. For me, the essential question is whether, in a world of so much suffering, the Kingdom will actually come. Do I believe in resurrection? Not just Jesus’ resurrection, but the restoration of all things, the redemption of all that is evil and broken, the new creation growing out of the old? Do I believe that God has the final victory and will make all things well, even though I see so few signs of hope in the present?

I suppose that our decision to move into a slum was a huge act of faith in the first place. It was a choice to live in hope that God will bring transformation, and a declaration that we are so convinced of that inevitable change that we are willing to stay here until it happens. I know that as they struggle with hunger, sickness, abuse, and systemic injustice, a lot of our neighbors feel hopeless about life ever changing. But today it occurred to me that in Mark chapter 2 when that paralyzed man was lowered down to Jesus through the roof of a packed house in Palestine two thousand years ago, it was because of his friends’ faith that he was healed. Who knows whether he was feeling confident in that moment of whether he would be healed or not, but his friends were certainly taking some drastic action on the assumption that he would be.  Perhaps his own mind was ablaze with fear and skepticism, but that mustard seed of faith from his friends was enough. And I wonder if maybe that can be the kind of faith that we hold on our neighbors’ behalf here. If there are even just two people out of the thousands in our neighborhood who believe that transformation is possible, is that enough? Is that the mustard seed that can grow into a wild, vibrant mustard plant and take over the garden? I’m living on the assumption that it is.

A new year begins…

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view from the train window, somewhere in Madhya Pradesh

 

          We rang in the new year on a cold railway station platform in the middle of the night, waiting for an 11 pm train which finally arrived at 2 am.  An overnight train and an all-day bus ride later, we found ourselves in a small town in the hills of Madhya Pradesh, where we spent the next four days praying, resting, and venturing out into nature to hike. It was a welcome reprieve for our souls: sunny days in the wild under the big blue dome of the sky, instead of the cold, grey days we had been having in the city, with the clouds hanging like a low ceiling over the rising smoke of plastic and wood fires our neighbors were lighting everywhere to keep warm.  After experiencing so much of the ugliness and grime of the world, we needed to sit in a garden, surrounded by trees and flowers and birds that reminded us there is beauty in the world.  We needed this quiet, peaceful place to pray and think about God and suffering and resurrection and what it all means for us now, living in the world that is groaning for the transformation that is still out of reach.  We felt truly rested after our time there.
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a view from one of our hikes

 

          But on another cold platform at another train station on our way back, we came across a baby lying on the floor, seemingly abandoned. The shop owner who was standing within inches of the infant carrying on his business vaguely told us upon inquiry that the baby belonged to someone vaguely “over there”. We couldn’t see anyone, and after having ascertained that this guy actually had no idea who the parents were or where they had gone, we took the shivering infant into our arms and wondered what to do next. People seemed surprised at this, and other bystanders began to offer bits of information about a “husband and wife problem” and an argument during which the couple had left the baby and gone outside. Apparently lots of people had seen what happened, but no one had felt responsibility for the child lying helplessly on the cold ground while they bought snacks, sold bottled water, or sat waiting for their trains.  A moment later, a woman in a sari came hurrying down the platform. “Oh, that’s her,” the shop keeper motioned vaguely. As she approached, we saw that blood was flowing down the side of her head and dripping onto the platform.  Too shocked to think of anything to say, I wordlessly handed the baby to the bleeding woman.  Too embarrassed to look anyone in the eye, she wordlessly took him and walked back in the same direction from which she had come.  “Yes, husband and wife problem,” a man standing near me re-affirmed.  “No,” I retorted. “Husband problem.” We were sickened by the collective passivity of everyone throughout the situation, and by the total lack of compassion for either mother or child. Going outside could only have meant that this woman was probably beaten on a crowded street instead of in a crowded train station.
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weekly market in town

 

          Back home, we found our community much as we had left it nearly a week before, except much colder. There is beauty here too, in the warm welcome of our neighbors, some of children’s excitement at our return, and the invitation to drink hot chai around an open fire in our friends’ room.  But temperatures are dipping into the thirties at night now, and some of the animals (not to mention people) aren’t faring too well. There was a cow on the alleyway behind us who could understand Hindi and tell the future. Well, we never quite figured out whether she truly had some strange ability or whether her handler had somehow trained her how to respond appropriately to pretty much any yes or no question you can think of, but she did seem to know more than the average cow. This week two cows, including that strange creature, have succumbed to the cold. And this whole story would just be a bizarre side note if it weren’t for the fact that two families depended on those cows for their livelihood and will now be scrambling to find work in the midst of a cold season during which much of the community’s other work—furniture making and recycling collection—drastically slows down anyway.
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natural beauty was everywhere

 

          Life here is just so full to bursting that within the same day you can find yourself laughing with abandon, hot with rage, struck with curiosity or wonder, and later sad enough to cry (and maybe you do). This week was a little slice of everything, with the confusion, the disappointment, the joy, and the downright strangeness all thrown in together, the way real life always is.
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mother monkey crossing the road with baby in tow