The Chains of Freedom
In chains yet ‘Free’
(Freed by Chains)
Dr.Chinkholal Thangsing
Soon after I left the medical college to work as a physician at the mission hospital in a little town known as ‘Lamka’ equipped and raring to go caring from the sick and the needy with varied experiences in internal medicine, dermatology, STD and Leprology. I chose to be in family practice and was with this in mind that I completed senior residency as a house physician in those two specialties. The work at the mission hospital was extremely challenging and once you begin to work it was amazing how this little town could come up with so many different and baffling diseases. We work almost twenty four seven and got to handle and tackle all cases you can imagine from pediatric ailments to geriatric complications. I soon immersed myself from morning to night with medical rounds early in the morning and the outpatient department and scheduled operations and the night rounds and attending to emergencies round the clock. It was not surprising for soon four months just flew by and the chilly winds herald the coming of the winter. We all love the winters - for it is time to enjoy the fruits of labor, it a time of harvest, holiday making and a season to make merry. The month of December being a special month the ‘Christmas’ month indeed.
The hospital soon decorated for Christmas and the soft sounds of Christmas carols can be heard in the town. The singing and practice of Christmas carols started early December already. The effects of this special occasion have sent a different mood in the hospital as staff utilized their spare time decking up the hospital. The special excitement this holiday brought us was a special visit from overseas visitors who came to join us for Christmas. Mrs. Mawii has been excited too to be able to spend the Christmas in her native place. Soon invitations came pouring in for her requesting to share the message of love, hope and salvation. After finally deciding to accept the invitation from one of the many drug de-addiction and rehabilitation center to share the joys of Christmas to the inmates. It will be a new experience for me to join these inmates at the center.
Early that morning dressed up formally for this special occasion we went to the center which has many visitors from friends’ well wishers and families of the ninety young people presently undergoing various stages of rehabilitation at the center. The iron doors creaked and sung open to our knock and we were welcome by the staff of the center, ushered us to the special hall build with a huge decorated pine tree ‘the Christmas tree’. We were given a guided tour in the bamboo huts with tin roofs. Each of the room bare of walls except on the outside and many has chains near the end of each bed and rusty locks hanging from them. The rooms has a mud flooring well cleaned and layered with cow dung, one thing stood out was the rooms were speck and span. The end of the compound has a chapel build by the inmates and volunteers from the community. We were greeted by broadly smiling young boys aged from nine years to thirty nine years and more. It is hard to think that these smiling young people are hardened drug addicts hoping this is the end to the habit. Well, it has been for many of them the beginning of a new life where they hope to discover the power within themselves to help them overcome their habits.
We walked in the hall build for this occasion and what I saw shook me so badly that I fear that they will see the tremor within me. I saw in the front row were over thirty of the inmates all chained from one wrist to the other and from one ankle to the other by chains. I saw from among them two of my high school classmates looking up towards the raise platform constructed for the VIP invitees. As I sat down they looked at me and frowning trying I believe to recollect and revived their memories as to where have they seen me. Well, that doesn’t take long for they waved smiling broadly as they chains made clinking noises. Their excitement to see an old classmate was as obvious as they continue fervently to wave and I responded automatically waving at them while feeling terribly lost and numbed of feelings. It was exceptionally remarkable as to how truly warmth feeling arose from such encounter but then I was already reeling in my mind as the olden days at school traveled through you mind. I was recovering from this shock when another old school mate walked around and tapped me in the shoulder and say ‘merry Christmas’ and he was another friend from school, he was not in chains for he had been long enough at his center that the chains had already come off. I later learnt that with each passing month to unlock one ring of the chain and soon by half a year they could easily move around quite easily as the chains are loosen enough for them to walk.
The proceedings and formalities, introductions, reports just went by and I came out of my trance like experience when I heard the familiar voice said ‘we will now have begin the worship service’ and they haunting melodies of the self composed songs rent the air. They held their hands high and moved them from side to side oscillating with the sound of hundred ‘clink, and clanks from the chains’. “ Lord, I lift up my hands….:” they cried in unison and the tears that streamed down their cheeks did draw tears from many eyes that included mine as I felt the hot watery drops trickling down my cheeks.
The chains were the last resort and instrument to help them kick the habit, to keep them off drugs, keep them from sharing needles, keep them from sharing the HIV virus – though many of them already have them in their veins, keeping them alive, giving them ‘FREEDOM’ in those chains.
(Freed by Chains)
Dr.Chinkholal Thangsing
Soon after I left the medical college to work as a physician at the mission hospital in a little town known as ‘Lamka’ equipped and raring to go caring from the sick and the needy with varied experiences in internal medicine, dermatology, STD and Leprology. I chose to be in family practice and was with this in mind that I completed senior residency as a house physician in those two specialties. The work at the mission hospital was extremely challenging and once you begin to work it was amazing how this little town could come up with so many different and baffling diseases. We work almost twenty four seven and got to handle and tackle all cases you can imagine from pediatric ailments to geriatric complications. I soon immersed myself from morning to night with medical rounds early in the morning and the outpatient department and scheduled operations and the night rounds and attending to emergencies round the clock. It was not surprising for soon four months just flew by and the chilly winds herald the coming of the winter. We all love the winters - for it is time to enjoy the fruits of labor, it a time of harvest, holiday making and a season to make merry. The month of December being a special month the ‘Christmas’ month indeed.
The hospital soon decorated for Christmas and the soft sounds of Christmas carols can be heard in the town. The singing and practice of Christmas carols started early December already. The effects of this special occasion have sent a different mood in the hospital as staff utilized their spare time decking up the hospital. The special excitement this holiday brought us was a special visit from overseas visitors who came to join us for Christmas. Mrs. Mawii has been excited too to be able to spend the Christmas in her native place. Soon invitations came pouring in for her requesting to share the message of love, hope and salvation. After finally deciding to accept the invitation from one of the many drug de-addiction and rehabilitation center to share the joys of Christmas to the inmates. It will be a new experience for me to join these inmates at the center.
Early that morning dressed up formally for this special occasion we went to the center which has many visitors from friends’ well wishers and families of the ninety young people presently undergoing various stages of rehabilitation at the center. The iron doors creaked and sung open to our knock and we were welcome by the staff of the center, ushered us to the special hall build with a huge decorated pine tree ‘the Christmas tree’. We were given a guided tour in the bamboo huts with tin roofs. Each of the room bare of walls except on the outside and many has chains near the end of each bed and rusty locks hanging from them. The rooms has a mud flooring well cleaned and layered with cow dung, one thing stood out was the rooms were speck and span. The end of the compound has a chapel build by the inmates and volunteers from the community. We were greeted by broadly smiling young boys aged from nine years to thirty nine years and more. It is hard to think that these smiling young people are hardened drug addicts hoping this is the end to the habit. Well, it has been for many of them the beginning of a new life where they hope to discover the power within themselves to help them overcome their habits.
We walked in the hall build for this occasion and what I saw shook me so badly that I fear that they will see the tremor within me. I saw in the front row were over thirty of the inmates all chained from one wrist to the other and from one ankle to the other by chains. I saw from among them two of my high school classmates looking up towards the raise platform constructed for the VIP invitees. As I sat down they looked at me and frowning trying I believe to recollect and revived their memories as to where have they seen me. Well, that doesn’t take long for they waved smiling broadly as they chains made clinking noises. Their excitement to see an old classmate was as obvious as they continue fervently to wave and I responded automatically waving at them while feeling terribly lost and numbed of feelings. It was exceptionally remarkable as to how truly warmth feeling arose from such encounter but then I was already reeling in my mind as the olden days at school traveled through you mind. I was recovering from this shock when another old school mate walked around and tapped me in the shoulder and say ‘merry Christmas’ and he was another friend from school, he was not in chains for he had been long enough at his center that the chains had already come off. I later learnt that with each passing month to unlock one ring of the chain and soon by half a year they could easily move around quite easily as the chains are loosen enough for them to walk.
The proceedings and formalities, introductions, reports just went by and I came out of my trance like experience when I heard the familiar voice said ‘we will now have begin the worship service’ and they haunting melodies of the self composed songs rent the air. They held their hands high and moved them from side to side oscillating with the sound of hundred ‘clink, and clanks from the chains’. “ Lord, I lift up my hands….:” they cried in unison and the tears that streamed down their cheeks did draw tears from many eyes that included mine as I felt the hot watery drops trickling down my cheeks.
The chains were the last resort and instrument to help them kick the habit, to keep them off drugs, keep them from sharing needles, keep them from sharing the HIV virus – though many of them already have them in their veins, keeping them alive, giving them ‘FREEDOM’ in those chains.
posted by TouchofHope at
1:42 PM
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