CHAPTER 1 COUNTRY OF THE
BLIND
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ON THE DAY I took charge of the Indian jungle hospital in Bamdah, its Santal aboriginal nursing orderlies garlanded the departing doctor-in-charge with marigolds; while Hindu patients - more practically minded - waylaid him as he walked to his waiting car, and prostrated themselves at his feet, begging him as their 'father' not to abandon them to my young hands. The year was 1931, I was twenty-three, newly qualified and felt their fears might well be justified. "New doctor - new graveyard", ran the proverb . "Agood deal of general surgery is done - anything that comes along," the departing chief had smiled encouragingly on my arrival. But it was mainly an eye hospital, restoring sight to some thousands of blind people a year. "About two thousand cataract operations a year - thirty a day in the busier cool season", he added casually, making it sound like a factory assembly line. An ophthalmic surgeon at home might take ten years to do as many, and when later some heard of my marathon, they gave me a sideways look and were frankly disbelieving. The task ahead was unusually challenging as eye surgery is a uniquely delicate and intricate skill, of which medical students were taught nothing. The hand-over period was only six weeks - a hopelessly short time - but the chief was in poor health, and his furlough overdue. To crown all, the hospital was without trained nursing staff and extremely basic, quite unlike anything I had seen before. The assignment would nowadays be considered rash or even desperate, but at that time - before the days of the National Health Service in Britain - opportunities for specializing were few, and private means necessary to survive the long lean years till one succeeded a reluctantly retiring specialist. So some sought surgical experience farther field, where and when it was offered. Even so, this was an unusual first post: a two year locum in sole charge of a large mission ophthalmic hospital, which excluded only 'cure of souls'. Why I was offered it remains a mystery. I do not remember any medical man on the selection board. Perhaps there was no other candidate, or fate was taking an odd hand in shaping my career. India had four million blind, but less than a dozen State ophthalmic hospitals all situated in urban areas, leaving its 700,000 villages practically uncared for. Yet most of the blindness was due to cataract, which could be dramatically cured by operation.
The Eye Hospital This explained the popularity of the jungle hospital, originally meant for the Santals themselves, but now attracting from all over northern India patients of every caste and creed, who forgot their prejudices in their common need and allowed themselves to be tended by the 'untouchable' aboriginals. As they pressed around me I sometimes felt I was living in a 'Country of the Blind' whose inhabitants became people to flee from. As my chief's car disappeared in a cloud of dust, I suddenly realized he was returning to the outside familiar world I had left behind, that I was alone in a Santal village for an indefinite period, cut off from companionship of friends, without telephone, radio, or knowledge of the local languages; while the nearest solitary European was fifty miles away across a bridge-less river. I lay in a long, sloping cane chair on my bungalow verandah, lit a cheroot, and recalled all that had happened to bring me to that moment of truth. I had arrived in Calcutta laden with text books on operative surgery and mostly the wrong clothes. |
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May 1931 Bamdah PO, by Simultala I had no qualms about landing in a foreign country,for I knew I was being met at Calcutta, although by whom I did not know.It turned out to be one Willie Somerville who was teaching science at the Scottish Church College and whom I had met at Edinburgh University. Calcutta was the next largest city to London in the British Empire, with one of the finest squares in the world and a business quarter full of fine buildings and traffic as busy as you find anywhere. It was tennis tournament day at the college and I met a lot of people and was made very welcome.It was my first experience of colonial life and being waited on by Indian bearers serving tea and hovering in the background all the time. A Miss Knott asked me to breakfast next day, which rather took me aback. It was quite a normal time to entertain. We had a very jolly time and I was asked back to tea! I met Miss Ritchie there whom I had known slightly at Edinburgh too and was taken by her to the cinema which boasted "Air Cooling Apparatus" . It was curious to feel the chill air as one went in. The cinema was half-empty and those that were there were all Europeans and mostly men. All this social life was a complete contrast to what was to come, and the isolation and loneliness I was to experience for the next two years. The next day I had to do some shopping to kit myself out. The "Princes Street" of Calcutta was called Chowrunghee. Soon the time came for me to travel up-country to my destination, Bamdah. It was over two hundred miles to the North-West of Calcutta and entailed a train journey of two days and two nights, to a stop called Simultala then a dusty journey by car to Bamdah sixteen miles to the Southwest. Indian trains and
train journeys are an experience. There was 1st Class (for wealthier Europeans),
2nd Class (for Anglo-Indians, less wealthy Europeans and educated Indians),
Intermediate Class (which constituted most of the train), and 3rd Class,
which was unspeakable. A fifth alternative was to travel free on the outside
of the train, clinging on for dear life, though it was possible to travel
free inside the train if you had a few annas to tip the train staff. I
traveled Intermediate, ignorant of what was ahead of me. |
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Setting out on my journey, my host daunted me with his frank, "I hope you'll manage it good luck.….you'll need it", farewell. The railway stations I
passed through had been crowded and chaotic. All India seemed on the move, or
just camped there, with no clear idea where they were going; village wedding parties,
pilgrims, holy men smeared with ashes, prisoners shackled to police, Afghan
tribesmen armed with knives, petty officials, and numerous others spilled on
to platforms at each station to wash hands, bodies and mouths from tanks
marked 'Water for Hindus', or 'Water for Mohamedans'. What about water for
me? My khaki-clad chief had met me at the wayside station of Simaltala (in Bihar), which had no sign of a town near it, and pointed out to me a number of blind people who also alighted. He told me Anglo-Indian railway guards knew the hospital well, and often collected casual blind found on trains, dropping them off at this station. Sixteen dusty miles by car completed my journey, crossing two dry riverbeds, and passing through tall poplar-like groves of Sal trees, sacred to the Santals. At last the wilderness opened into pleasant parkland, and I caught sight of the white bungalow with deep, shady verandahs, where now we headed.
The car drew up in front of a path strewn with the white-gold blossoms of the Pagoda tree, to which the French adventurer Plumeria had been directed in the eighteenth century when in search of riches. Told to 'shake the Pagoda tree by moonlight', he had found only a carpet of golden petals. My own luck was to prove no better. A second tree, the Palas (or Flame of the Forest), whose leafless branches were in full scarlet bloom, made a bright show in the surrounding jungle. Yet strangely its individual flowers were ugly, sometimes likened to a bloodstained claw. Hindus offered them in place of blood sacrifices to their god Kali. During the first short
weeks of my surgical initiation, I found myself responsible for a number of
non-medical duties, which gave variety to life, but sometimes became 'the
white man's burden'. I was 'Inspector' of sixty village night schools, which
received a Government grant and were aimed at reducing illiteracy. I was
Manager (in my study) of a co-operative bank aimed at keeping the Santals out
of the hands of moneylenders, and general Ombudsman (on my verandah) in case
of disputes, sometimes bloody. While idly reflecting
that some people make much more use of their toes than we do , these thoughts
were interrupted by the arrival on my verandah of Mongra Tudu, the head
Santal hospital orderly, a shadowy figure in white, his dark face and skin
scarcely visible in the flickering light of the lantern he carried.
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Honored Doctor Sahib, Having heard your good name for cataract operation, I send to master 40 blind people from my village. Please to give sight. Your obedient servant, Ram Das.
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A cook and helpers to nurse and feed the patients were also sent, together with bags of rice and cooking utensils....
This unexpected addition to an already crowded hospital, intended for my predecessor, was now my responsibility; a challenge with a vengeance. When I asked Mongra Tudu to allot them a shady area of the hospital compound in which to camp, he seemed to hesitate, then changed his mind. I learned later that Ram Das had sent a similar blind party the year before, and that when the patients had returned to their village able to see again, he had sent a second letter. In this he had asked to be recommended for inclusion in the next King-Emperor's Honours List for his charitable deed. There was nothing like trying.
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