Used copies of the books

Today our professor showed two famous books and said that they are the basic books for his lecture and recommended to buy them. They are expensive ones and the automatic suggestion I made as usual was that to buy the used copies of it online. I have already bought books in good condition from Amazon. It cost really reasonable and we get it sometimes for unbelievable prices. What difference that makes when we read the same matter in a used copy or in a new copy of a book? As I did suggest to my new colleagues at the university, they gave a stare at me. What does that mean? No idea… Sorry, coming from a third world country but a fast developing one, I am used to buying used copies…………Any problem? May be the capitalistic thinking may not allow such a move as it may not support the one who produced it. With all respect to the publishers, I would go only for a used copy. I belong to a class created by the world which does not belong to the belief system of spending ‘just’ when I have an ‘unjust’ pocket which is sometimes empty. Knowledge is knowledge without anything less if it is attained from an old or a new one. Let all those who are lucky and ‘blessed’ to eat soup with gold and silver spoons pay for the loss I made to the publishers of those books which I bought and which I will buy in the future after a worthy use.

Indian or African, any thing.......

So these days I miss someone, or someone’s sound.  On last year when I did not hear anything from the down stairs chapel at midnight, I found early morning that the brother who did offer mass with Br.Niklaus every ‘night’ was lying dead. From this week I don’t hear again the voice that made me awake halfway my sleep. Yes, Br.Niklaus left the friary to the nursing home for the old. I used to go to bed late at 00.00 every day and almost every day by 2 or 3 or 4 he began his celebration of Eucharist very loud. Since my room is just direct above the Chapel for the sick, and since it was all a wooden roof separation, I did hear loud his strong hard base voice. It was a very loving disturbance which never evoked in me a feeling of irritation. Niklaus is 97 years old and he believes in celebrating Eucharist every day without fail and he did that till his last day in Luzern. He did speak with me every week many times and almost every day. We were together here in one community for more than two years now and my only complaint is that till the last day I failed to convince him and make him remember that I am an Indian and not an African Capuchin. After repeated efforts once he did introduce to a group of his five family members that I am a student from Africa. On that day I decided to be an ‘African’ only for Niklaus till he left us to Schwyz Pflegeheim. After all it doesn’t make any difference to get identified to a continent. It is good to be a ‘transnational’. ………… I miss you, Niklaus

family physician

Is family physician a luxury? How many families have a family physician? Anyway I have one now. Today I went to the family physician as I had to. Why? Nothing special but a pimple caused me to suffer. In India I could wait as see the pimple to naturally subside and accept a defeat against attacking me. But I am no more in India. So what is the result? I had a one hour long counseling and he did measure my blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol level, body weight, height, pulse, etc. and so many which I did not understand and never did in my life in a very detail manner and he gave all the results in a computer program and the result did shock me. I am 10 kilos overweight. He asked me to reduce enjoying Swiss gastronomy and to walk every day. I need a Pedometer now. To have a family physician for every family and to let regularly examined is really a part of luxury. I did never have one in India. This sort of examination once in a while and some disciplining in life would help all to maintain a healthy life.  In India I never heard of such health counselors. I used to think that those with big bellies are the strongest ones. So funny was my thinking. So a family physician who does a health counseling regularly and who does a steady examination in regular frequency can help people live long healthy. This can be a good idea to implement in the Indian mission stations and to help the poor villagers gratuitously and in turn they live long. After all, a long life is god’s blessing. So says proverbs 4:10 “Listen, my son, accept what I say, and the years of your life will be many.”