“Although by katchi abadi standards, Grax is better than many others, the village has many social, physical and civic deprivations. During one of our visits, the community health worker expressed concern about a girl who appeared ‘mentally disturbed’. She lived about a mile from the centre. We went to visit her at her house.
A small cordoned-off area with two small rooms, a small area for the kitchen and a toilet with open drains constituted the ‘house’ of 75 square yards, perhaps a little more. The father of the girl was unemployed, the elder brother suffering from some sort of ‘mental imbalance’. A number of semi-clad children were milling about — presumably brothers and sisters. Their only source of income was a buffalo.
The health worker was right. The girl did appear unwell, “for the past three years,” her mother told us, “since the birth of her son”. He died a month after being born. The girl talked to imaginary voices, was frightened of others, and laughed to herself. She had run out of the house many times. Unable to afford medicines or have her treated on a regular basis, the family kept her tied to a tree. The result: badly infected wounds with pus and blood oozing out from both ankles.
Long abandoned by her husband — older than her by many years — she now lay on straw matting in the corner of one of the two small rooms, oblivious to her surroundings. She appeared not to have had a wash in weeks. I tried to engage her in conversation but she looked past me, and I was unable to penetrate her secret world. I asked the mother the girl’s age. “Fifteen…,” she said; the words echoed in my ears.” — [Dawn]
Mercy, light, peace, deliverance for the unnamed child.