We have just returned from a short family holiday in India’s North East state of Meghalaya. Getting there and back took 48 hours by train. Each way. The villages are nestled on steep forest slopes and on the grassy tablelands. Each has a prominent church spire and a football pitch with pigs and chickens roaming freely. With our four children we walked and talked through the tangled forest and swam in clear blue and green rivers. There were waterfalls, limestone caves and living root bridges. The litter was minimal and the sky was blue.

At Mawsynram we strolled through the ultimate farmers’ market. Women draped in tartan shawls sold silvery river fish and strange yellow eels. Other stalls held crowded baskets of the orange betel fruit, alongside the knobbly spikes of yellow pineapples, green bitter gourd and purple tree tomatoes. No branded or pre-packaged products in sight.

A resolution I have made for 2019 is to notice and savour what is hopeful around me. There are highly inequitable social structures and damaged environments throughout India. Of course, the betel nut habit in Meghalaya causes high rates of oral cancer. Yes, there was still lots of litter. Literacy rates are very low. The behemoth state of India still imposes unfair structures that limit self-determination for the indigenous Khasi and Garo people. Yet this visit to Meghalaya encouraged me: there was plenty of health in the ecosystems and communities in Meghalaya. My travel brochure-like opening paragraph is me paying attention to the positive.

Jumping now to a wedding I attended a few weeks ago.

The waiter proffered a tray studded with a novel appetiser: tandoori braised pineapple, grilled and lightly spicy. All the waiters at this high-society gathering were dressed in dapper red waist-coats, topped with perky black newsboy caps. Two colleagues from our community mental health team, Jeet and Samson, were congratulating each other on having received the invitation to this wedding when one of the waiters stopped to introduce himself: “Namaste Jeet, do you remember me? I am Raju. I was in the Nae Disha (new pathways) youth inclusion group 18 months ago.”

Jeet remembered Raju, and all the boys in that group we had run. They had all struggled with addiction and substance abuse.

Raju shared more of his story. “That group made a really big difference to me. We had to take time to think about what we wanted to change in our lives. And then in the group we were talking about how to make a plan and break it into small steps. So, at that time I decided I needed to get a regular job and stick with it. Somehow, I smartened myself up and started job hunting. After some months working at a very simple place, I was offered a job here at this wedding venue. I realised I could only keep the job if I stayed clean. I’ve been working here for over a year now and I’ve stopped using. I am so thankful for that programme and for this change in my life.”

We all felt encouraged. There are so many complex forces that seem to work against the people we work with. The unfair landlord who refuses to supply water to the rented shack of a needy family, young women pulled out of school before they have finished Class 10 and the moonshine traders who ply strutting young men with cheap booze. Raju’s story inspired all of us to keep doing what we do.

Today I walked back from the bazaar through shoals of discarded plastic and pushing through it were vigorous green plants catching the winter sunshine. Daily there is grim news, but I am looking forward to 2019 and noticing the shafts of sunlight that continue to break through the smog. It has started well. 

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 234 February 2019: 32