Tag: charity

The Story of THE MEHMI PRESS

04.06.2024

THE MEHMI PRESS:

https://diaryofaloneman.home.blog/

This is a story of one man, from the lowest castes of India, from the rural poor in India, from a working class background, an ethnic minority. A man rejected for no good reason from the Higher Institutions of learning in this country despite a PhD, top publications in journals and a published book proving that he is an expert in his studies. A man with no network. No helpers. A man that works seven days a week and then studies in the mornings and the evenings for an Art History degree. A man with nothing but a laptop. And a free WordPress website. This is the story of a dream of a free, Open Access Press that became a reality. A Press whose books are read or visited every single day. A Press that spreads knowledge about Hindi films and Indian culture, art, fiction, non-fiction. A Press whose mission is to share the gift of decades of reading, learning and writing with the world.

Because books are not money. Books are not commodities. Knowledge is not a commodity. Books are love. And knowledge is love. For the people. For us.

The attainment of knowledge is not for the ego. It is for the community. It is to be shared.

This is the story of a revolt against capitalism, ego, conformism, control, marginalisation and racial subjection. This is the story of genuine freedom of thought. This is the story of anarchism. This is the story of THE MEHMI PRESS.

I have been writing poetry and stories since I was six years old. Maybe even before. It has been my ambition to be a writer for as long as I can remember. Other people think about money, status, fame. I think about writing. That is how I gauge how successful I am in the world – by my contribution to the world of thought and the world of letters. I have been published in student newspapers, in academic journals, in poetry magazines, in the academic press, in social media sites. I write tour scripts in museums. All the different types of media. I have kept a blog site to share my ideas and thoughts.

But, despite that, there was a hunger. I needed something more. I needed something that was my own. Something uncensored. Something where I could express the spirit of anarchy and revolt. Something that could capture the thinking of the revolution. One man against the entire world of injustice. One man against the world of money and its fire of ignorance. One man against the same voices, the same people, the same thinking, the same bullshit. The voice of the Untouchables and the marginalised.

One day, I watched an Indian film ‘Super 30’. It was about Anand Kumar. He was a brilliant mathematician. But he could not accept the offer to go to Cambridge University because he was poor. And so, he started up a movement of free education in India to help poor students get into top universities. He did it with nothing. Except for his brains.

And then, I started thinking about Nietzsche, who wrote what he did without an audience. And Kafka, who never even published in his lifetime. Only his friends read his work.

I realised that I had to forget my ego. To become free, I had to shed the validation of other people and their thoughts about my writing. I had to forget about money. I was going to model THE MEHMI PRESS on Anand Kumar’s model. All you need is your brain. I had the basic necessities: a free WordPress site, internet connection and a laptop. And, I had something more than that: about four decades of experience as a writer.

I didn’t learn book design. I had desktop publishing software – how perfect did I need these books to look? I could do a bit of digital art. The rest was all stuff that I had done before when I wrote and published through all of those places.

So in 2023, I made the move. THE MEHMI PRESS was born.

How successful is THE MEHMI PRESS? It is read basically every single day. Although no one talks about my books and no one tells me about them, people are reading them. Most of them are perhaps people that I know. That is what is most likely. But I do not know who is reading these books. There are no reviews. No comments. No one ever tells me about reading my books. But they are read constantly. So, THE MEHMI PRESS is a success.

Without time, help, friends, connection, a network, any form of love, THE MEHMI PRESS has triumphed. With all the problems I have faced over the past two years, THE MEHMI PRESS has triumphed. Because it is the voice of the counter-culture. Because it is the voice of hope.

If you shed money, shed ego, shed selfishness and greed, if you shed external validation, you can have a genuine, authentic and pure voice. You can have something of your own. If you have ideals, you can create a new space for the people and the community.

THE MEHMI PRESS is dedicated to the Dalit Community, the Untouchables, the lowest castes in India. THE MEHMI PRESS is dedicated to my mother, the immigrant woman from a poor background. THE MEHMI PRESS is dedicated to my grandfather that told me the stories and shaped my life for learning. THE MEHMI PRESS is still in its infancy. There are many voyages to go on yet. Now, I do not have time. But there will be more books in the future. And better books.

As I say, before I start every voyage in this life, Jai Maa Kaali! Minoo tere Shakti didi! (Hail the Dark Mother! Give me your power!)

A Phoenix Tells the Tale of Her Rebirth: A Patient’s Notes by Madeleine Channer

“A Patient’s Notes” is the soaring voice of the phoenix as it returns from fire and death to regain its former life, power and glory. Like the phoenix, its author burned in cancer and essentially died to give birth to this short, former nurse’s autobiography. The moments that flashed before the nearly departed’s life are here arranged and presented to form a story of healing, hope and enduring legacy. As the title suggests, the book is concerned with illness and its effects on life and its meanings, for all of us who are patients of this suffering world.

Continuing the theme of healing, the sales of this book written in the genre of the Christian medical memoir provide funds to the Diospi Suyana Hospital in Peru. The name of the hospital means to “Trust in God” in the Quechua language. It is because of this noble mission that I have decided to write this book review, rather than the fact that Madeleine Channer is perhaps one of my best and most intimate friends.

Madeleine has dedicated the book to her beloved father, Lesley Francis Cole, who did not manage to escape the tearing talons of cancer that she managed to evade. In terms of structure, the narrative is initiated by the primary scene of the original patient, the father with terminal cancer and his demise. From this tragic, traumatising moment, Madeline then shows how she builds a life dedicated to healing sickness. Finally, triumphantly, Madeleine’s own struggle with cancer is overcome with the help of those around her and the modern advances in medicine. A cruel contrast therefore motivates the work: the luckily present are compared to those unfortunates of history that did not live in the healing world of today. Those unfortunates who had to say goodbye to us for want of the proper care and knowledge. However, the contrast is also an inspiration: the war that Madeline has fought throughout her entire life against disease and cancer on behalf of patients like her father has resulted in victory.

What makes the book relevant to the historical moment and cultural trends is that Madeline had her recovery in lockdown, just as the world recovered from Covid and its effects. We share the relief and sense of wholeness from the broken years of the pandemic, the exulting sense of survival against the odds. Again, the celebration of the healing profession that the book espouses is a sentiment that has overwhelmed the world and England in particular, with its National Health Service. What adds something extra to this concoction is that the author is one of the upstanding citizens from the old generation, someone who has seen and lived through it all. So we hear things through the voice of those that have built the society and the community of care around us.

The constant theme of the book is adversity and its overcoming. Madeleine writes that hers was a precarious childhood where she was subject to emotional destabilisation and a corresponding lack of self esteem. The solution that the young Madeleine found to this state was the power of prayer, with its promise of change and renewal. She saw Christ as a model to aspire to, particularly as Christ the healer and the master of living. Several other heroes who were Christian saviours of the sick are also mentioned as inspirations: Florence Nightingale, Father Damien, Dr. Albert Schweitzer. The book is therefore a good example of what it means to have an enduring role model and how this can change the course of one’s life, as one tries to live up to the demands of becoming the figure that we idolise. The role model provides organisation and structure for living amidst the chaos of being and ultimately leads Madeleine to become a Christian saviour of those suffering in her own right, one of our most valuable members of society. Christ (and her father’s terminal illness) leads Madeleine to nurse Quechua Indian patients above 10,000 feet in the Andes.

Madeleine writes:

“How do we want to be remembered? What do we leave behind us? The kindness and diligent care provided by those involved in the great work of healing will echo for good, beyond time and into eternity”.

It is because Madeleine was one who nursed the sick and poor the we respect and love her all the more, and she will always be in our thoughts and memories. She has caught that good echo of healing with this well written, engaging and stimulating book, which moreover, brings in donations for the sick and poor of this world through its sales. Even if one is not in the faith community, the book is interesting in itself as it sheds light on the trials of one that sought to do good in the world despite all the set backs that life can throw at us. I was very happy to read and review o the book, and not just because Madeleine is my very good, very supportive, very perfect friend. Rather, it is because the book is the voice of the phoenix that has been brought back to her full beauty, after joining in that restless, oceanic sleep which haunts our being and time.