India – a country of contrasts

I’ve returned from my trip to India. I spent about 10 days visiting about 10 different cities, towns and villages in the state of Andhra Pradesh (AP). It is was a tiring trip of visiting the families of “members” of our church who are working in Singapore, eating, preaching to pastors’ groups and the general public, long car rides and overnight train trips.

Andhra Pradesh is on the east coast of India. Its capital is Hyderabad – a city with a grand history of great kings (“nizams”) which is presently one of the “hi-tech” cities of modern India. During my trip, I had the privilege to spend much time with Indians from both the high-tech generation and the villages.

Firstly, I must say that our Indian hosts were most gracious. They did their best to take care of all our needs – I’ve never been so “spoilt” in all my life. They did not allow me to carry my bags. They made sure that I sat in the front-seat of the car. They would not even allow me to help myself to the food – each dish was lovingly served by the host on my huge metal plate (which was the size of a family pizza). I felt like a “nizam”!

Secondly, I must say that there is no food that is as tasty (and difficult to prepare) than Indian food. I may be biased in my opinion because Indian food has always been my favourite cuisine since my childhood. Even breakfasts were elaborate meals of different types of “bread” (“dosa” or “thosai”), rice-cakes (“iddlis”) and fried lentil patties (“vadais”) with a dazzling array of accompanying sauces (“chutneys”). Each meal was a feast fit for a sultan. I thought I’d previously eaten most varieties of Indian food but at each house/church I was served something new.

However, what strikes me most about India is the huge contrasts – between the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, and the cities and the villages. There are parts of Hyderabad that resembled any modern city in the world and there are parts of Hyderabad (just a short way away) that seemed unchanged from the times of the nizams.

My luggage was “lost” on check-in in Singapore and I had to buy some clothes. I was brought by my hosts to a fancy department store to get a pair of pants and shirt for my preaching assignments. When I saw the prices of the pants and shirt I decided to “recycle” the pants and shirt that I had slept and lived in! The prices were more than what I would ever pay in Singapore or anywhere else! Needless to say, my hosts insisted on paying for the pants – which costs an average white-collar wage-earner almost 2 weeks of wages!

Though the disparity between rich and poor was striking, what struck me most was the huge disparity between the “spiritual needs” of the high-tech Christians and the village Christians. The former lived in a fast-paced world and the latter lived in a “timeless” world. The former worked in offices that served Western organizations (and therefore their work-day was tuned to US time) and started work at night and ended in the morning.

However, almost all Indian churches in AP seemed to cater to the needs of the village-Christians rather than the modern Christian.

This disparity of needs troubled me greatly because unless the needs of the modern generation of Indian Christians are met soon, this generation may be lost to the enticing world of technology!

Please pray that God will raise up men and churches to meet the needs of this new generation of Indians!