Cloud Messenger

In many ways, my friend Karen Trollope Kumar is like another daughter. She is in the same age group as my kids, and over the decades of our friendship, as I've followed the course of her life, and the lives of her husband Pradeep and their children Sonia and Raman, I've felt sometimes as if I am part of her family and she, Pradeep, Sonia and Raman, are part of my family. It is a warm, loving, and privileged relationship that I treasure almost as much as I treasure the family ties that bind me to my children and grandchildren. 

Karen is a gifted writer, perhaps in part a genetic endowment (she is descended from Anthony Trollope); and my friendship with her originated in part through my admiration for her writing. As a Canadian medical student (at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia) Karen went to Lucknow, where she met a handsome young Indian physician. After a 4-year courtship, conducted like Wendy's and mine, largely in letters back and forth, Karen and Pradeep were married in India, in a traditional Hindu ceremony. After their marriage they practised for about 11 years in rural clinics in the Himalayan foothills. Throughout their years in India, Karen wrote to me often, beautifully written letters about their life and work.Then they came to Canada, and Karen joined the McMaster University family practice department. She wrote her MA and a PhD in medical anthropology, on her work in India. Then, encouraged by me and others, she wrote a lovely memoir, Cloud Messenger, about her life and work in India.  Throughout several drafts of this book, I've offered occasional advice and suggestions which Karen has generously acknowledged in the published book which has just been produced by Friesen Press. I'll be promoting this book, and doing my best to boost sales.