Volumes might be written on the atrocities and absurdities of wizards,
quack doctors, and the hideous usages of native midwifery. The ministry
of Christian physicians comes as a revelation to the tortured victims.
The scene is a ward in a Christian Hospital for women in South India.
The patients in adjacent beds, convalescents, converse together.
"What's the matter with you?" says Bed No. 1 contentedly. "My husband
became angry with me, because the meal wasn't ready when he came home
and he cut my face. The Doctor Miss Sahib has mended me, she has done
what my own mother would not do." Said another in reply to the question,
"The cow horned my arm, but until I got pneumonia I couldn't stop
milking or making bread for the father of my children, even if it was
broken. The hospital is my Mabap (mother-father)."
"What care would you get at home?" chimed in another who had been
burning up with fever. "Oh! I would be out in the deserted part of the
woman's quarters. It would be a wonderful thing if any one would pass
me a cup of water," she replied. From another bed, a young wife of
sixteen spoke of having been ill with abscesses. "One broiling day," she
said, "I had fainted with thirst. The midwives had neglected me all
through the night, and, thinking I was dying, they threw me from the
cord-bed to the floor, and dragged me down the steep stone staircase to
the lowest cellar where I was lying, next to the evil-smelling dust-bin,
ready for removal by the carriers of the dead, when the Doctor Miss
Sahib found me and brought me here. She is my mother and I am her
child."
An old woman in Bed No. 4 exhorts the patients around her to trust the
mission workers. "I was against them once," she tells them, "but now I
know what love means. Caste? What is caste? I believe in the goodness
they show. That is their caste."
Words profoundly wise!
On the slope of the desolate river among the tall grasses I asked her,
"Maiden, where do you go shading your lamp with your mantle? My house is
all dark and lonesome,--lend me your light!" She raised her dark eyes
for a moment and looked at my face through the dusk. "I have come to the
river," she said, "to float my lamp on the stream when the daylight
wanes in the west." I stood alone among tall grasses and watched the
timid flame of her lamp uselessly drifting in the tide.
In the silence of the gathering night I asked her, "Maiden, your lights
are all lit--then where do you go with your lamp? My house is all dark
and lonesome,--lend me your light." She raised her dark eyes on my face
and stood for a moment doubtful. "I have come," she said at last, "to
dedicate my lamp to the sky." I stood and watched her light uselessly
burning in the void.
In the moonless gloom of midnight I asked her, "Maiden, what is your
quest holding the lamp near your heart? My house is all dark and
lonesome,--lend me your light." She stopped for a minute and thought and
gazed at my face in the dark. "I have brought my light," she said, "to
join the carnival of lamps." I stood and watched her little lamp
uselessly lost among lights.
_Rabindranath Tagore._