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Bamdah PO Via Simultala, EIR India Saturday 28 November 1931 Dear
Alex I
have addressed this letter home, as I expect you to be there on its arrival,
and as this is my last opportunity of getting my Christmas mail off, it must
include the other members of the family. I
write in Camp with Dr and Mrs Kitchin. Tisri and Bamdah are 30 miles apart. We have “met half way” and thus contrived a
meeting we would not otherwise have managed.
It is pleasant to have a rest from hospital and patients flourishing tickets,
and cataract patients that pour off every bus twice daily. I kept it a dead secret that I was going
away yesterday afternoon in hospital.
If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have had a moment’s peace for a couple of days
before going. The last few days I have
again been doing between 30 and 40 operations a day, and when patients come
to report to me before going home, I often don’t recollect ever having
operated on them! Weather
is now so delightful that I cycled here in the afternoon sun. Bushwedik is an outstation
of Tisri, flat country, less wooded and less pretty
than Saloia (the Bamdah
outstation), but charming nevertheless.
The voices of children herding the cattle reach me as I sit here, and
I have just walked through the Santal village
nearby, surrounded and almost hidden by 12 foot high crops, and yellow and
orange blossoms. There are one or two
Christian families who have built a mud-hut school (also used as church) on
their own initiative, and hacked out a road – where it was absence – so that
the Kitchin’s car could come all the way. |
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Last
night when looking at my Statesman (daily paper) two non-Christian Santal herdboys aged about 5
and 7 came up to wake the Sahibs. The
point of this story is that these were aboriginals, very young and as primitive,
as you will find anywhere. Looking at
the back page one said “Pictures, pictures!” (in
Santali). As it happened there was a
photo of Gandhi on the steps of 10 Downing Street, and without thinking, I
pointed to it and said “Gandhi”. To
our astonishment, he was tremendously interested, saying “G-ndhée, G-ndhée”, with a funny
emphasis in the last syllable, and called some of his friends to see the
picture again. We asked them and they
had all heard of Gandhi, but knew nothing about him. Many thanks for your letter. I have omitted to bring it with me, and so
must write from memory. I was most
interested in the Sterling newspaper interviews, and wondered at first if you
had developed a crisp journalistic style, but as you say in your letter, I
came to the conclusion that it was the reporter’s work. You seem to have made a good impression
with the local EIS lecture, and I look forward to getting the printed
copy. I hope you are now amassing
testimonials for a principal teacher’s job.
You should stand a good chance, being well in with a lot of the ‘high heid yins’. Thereafter I expect to hear of you
contemplating marriage. Ament that I am continually being asked by the more
well-to-do patients and by Indian Government officials who come my way as to
whether I “am allowed to marry” – as if I were a blessed monk, or
something! When told that this is not
so, they wish to know why I’m not married, what year I will marry and always(!) what my salary is. When I am vague about this, they only think
me a more extraordinary person. I
invariably find, even amongst men of some education, the doctrine that it is
a sin not to have a girl married once she has reached puberty, because
without marriage she is being exposed to dangers which, “since she is only a
woman”, she cannot be expected to resist herself. Coupled with this, it must be remembered
that, in India – unlike home – the female population number some millions
less that the male. |
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In
order to “book” a wife, a proportion of the males must therefore procure
their wives from the next generation ie marry
little girls. And even if the little
girls’ parents are fond of the child, the dowry they must give may be
reasonable, and they may not get a chance like it later. That seems to me to have a good deal to do
with Child marriage. Many
thanks for the “Apple Cart”.
It’s a pity I have it in the Complete Shaw volume, but I can
carry yours about more easily, or will send it back if you think you could
give it to someone else. It is a thin
book and it is no trouble to post it.
I send you by this post a number of short plays by Richard
Hughes etc. He was at one time a
missionary in Bengal. The booklet has
headings rather like a textbook but is very reasonable. I apologise for the smallness of these
gifts, but the Bandah PO does not undertake foreign
parcels and I cannot trust the Simultala PO to
stamp things properly for me, unfortunately.
It is 16 miles away too. I was interested to hear that Alex Law was
“permanently gone on Jessie Low”. Did
you not mean Mammie? Jessie must be about 8 or 9 years younger –
but perhaps he believes in catching ‘em young and
licking them into shape! I have had a prime “row
in Bandah just before coming here, and am glad to
be away for a day or so. Some days ago
I had a request from a lawyer for the Hospital Cataract Op Register
for December 1927, in order to prove that a man, now deceased, had had a
successful cataract operation then and was therefore able to sign a document
after that date. On examination of the
register, I found the papers concerned torn out, and also ten
corresponding pages of the old Admission Register. I also got indisputable evidence of two men
who came a few days ago, and settled with Bismath
the Head Compser.
about this – with a ‘greasing of palms’. It is of course a criminal offence to interfear with the course of the law like this, and after
typing out the evidence of all the witnesses, I was fortunately coming on
here, and so could get Dr Kiklinus’ advice. He agrees with the gravity of it and I
shall suspend Bismath for two months. You have no idea what discipline amongst
simple people like this means. The
whole family will come in tears and wail at the bungalow – then of course
they will appeal to Dr Kitchen, whom happily I have consulted and to Dr Dempster and Dr Macphail. With best wishes for
Christmas and the New Year. It doesn’t
seem a year since I left home – nothing like it. Yours affectionately Wilson |