Poor, Degenerate Humanity at Kalyan, India
By M. D. WOOD
I AM so profoundly impressed with the sad condition of the people of Kalyan that I feel I must tell you about them. When I go to the railroad station, I am often hindered from crossing the bridge that leads to the cars, first, by an old man with a broken leg, sitting on the ground. He looks at me in a most pitiable manner, and says: “O, sir, I am so needy! please give me a pice.” I am in a hurry to catch the train, and perhaps have no pice to spare, so I feel compelled to leave the needy man without aid. Before I get onto the first step of the bridge, I meet a blind woman with nothing but dirty rags on her back, and a scrawny little waif astride its mother’s hip, nursing for its life from an impoverished breast, while a half-grown, sad-faced girl, who leads her poor mother with a bamboo stick, puts out her hand toward me and says: “Give me something; my mother is blind, and I am very hungry.” A twinge of pain goes through my heart, and I push my way up through the motley crowd of dirty-clothed Hindus and Mussulmans and get to the middle of the bridge. Here sits a blind Hindu, screaming at the top of his voice, and banging together a pair of cymbals. He calls out the names of the Hindu gods, and at least pretends that he is very devotional. He, too, is in dire need, and must rely upon the sympathetic charities of the passers-by. With a sigh of relief, I get through the long line of men and women, my fellow passengers, to the train, and find my seat in a third-class compartment. It is hot and dusty, the crowds of people shut out the fresh air, and I am restless for the train to start. But before the train has time to pull out, a young Mohammedan with but one arm, walks up in front of my carriage window, pulls up the sleeve of his shirt, and presents to me the ugly scar where once he had another arm. Doubtless he suffers no pain, but his pitiful look and sad voice appeal to my heart. I am so thankful I have the use of both my arms! By this time I cannot resist, and so I give what I feel I can afford. While in the city of Bombay, at the doors of the shops and offices and about the public markets and at the street-car crossings, I am constantly surrounded by a throng of beggars and cripples, the halt and the maimed, all crying for pice. I look at them in pity. I wish I could help them, but I cannot. One daily used to such sad sights and pathetic sounds may scold them off and to one side with harsh tones, as to a brute. At times they touch my feet and step in front to prevent my progress. They are so unclean and unkempt that one dreads their slightest touch. At another time I leave my bungalow for the Kalyan market, but long before I get half-way there, I pass a camp of very poor people, who live in low grass huts. Half a dozen or more of their naked little boys and girls rush out after my carriage. They chase after me in the dust of the street, slapping their empty little stomachs and crying for pice. I confess I wish I had all those children. I would put them in school and teach them their letters, and how to work so they might not always remain so poor. Just before I come to the main street of the town, I see a poor sick man lying on the ground, with scarcely a cloth on his long, lean body. He, too, is a poor beggar, and has the mark of a Hindu. I wonder why those well-dressed grain merchants near by do not see their brother’s condition and seek to help him. Then I remember that it takes more than stores of goods and wealth to learn to give to the needy. It takes the love of God in the natural heart. And now I am quite a way up the main road of the town, and not far from the public library. There they sit in a long black row, just like crows huddled on the limb of a tree, men and women together. I see them there every day. They have photographed their faces on my memory, and I can never forget them. Their fingers are all gone, toes eaten off, faces puffed and swollen. O, how loathsome and unclean their appearance! In hope of a bakshish, they all cry out, “Salaam! O, sir, salaam!” But I must not throw money to them. Even the copper coin would become contaminated with the seed of leprosy. For these, my friends, are the lepers of the East. They are found everywhere in this hot country. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations. So on I go. But two rods away sits a young woman against the wall of the municipal office compound. She has no nose. The leprosy has destroyed it, and is eating out her very life. With ugly stumps for hands, she holds them up to my view, and in most unnatural, guttural tones13cries out, “Please have mercy on me, and help.” Did I not see several young children beside those lepers?—Yes, I did. And now they are “untainted,” they say. But how long can they remain so, while they live, eat, and sleep with such wrecks of humanity? There are so many of them, too! Who can care for them all? They will fill the ranks in the long line of the march to the grave. But O, what a wretched existence! But I must get on to the market. The street becomes narrower, and it is not without difficulty that I drive through the crowds of people. The water-pots and baskets on the heads of the passers-by make it almost dangerous driving, so I constantly cry out, “To one side!” But behold! beside the road in this crowd of people and in this narrow place, are two full-grown brothers. Their faces are so puffed out of shape everybody knows they are begging lepers. They, too, are looking for sympathetic hearts to help them. Thus I press through the multitudes. Old men and women, blind, deformed, ragged, sick, and diseased,—the streets are lined with them. The sun is hot; the dust blows on them, and on us, too. We are all huddled together in the same street. But He who sent us here will care for us till our work is done.