Issue 15 - 31 May

There’s no keeping a good woman down.

This the story of Lalanbai Kadam. She lives in Jamkhed, which is where I met her. I was so moved by the story she told me, that I thought it merited a whole page. And so here it is... a story that tells us all that if a woman wants to, a woman can.

Lalanbai lived in want, but asked for nothing. Her job was to clean out the animal waste from the house of her village ‘patil’, and sweep his house and do other odd jobs. For this she was given two dry ‘bhakris’ a day, and when they remembered, a sari, for a special occasion or festival.

Sometimes, they forgot to give her her food, but she managed nonetheless, “there was no justice for people like me”, she recalls, but “there was no argument either”.

The 1971 drought hit Jamkhed badly, and Lalanbai found herself in dire straits. Coincidentally, the ‘sarpanch’ approached her with an offer. Would she volunteer for a project that would help empower her to look after the health of the village?

She had no learning, but something inside made her agree, despite her feelings of inadequacy. With another woman, Sarubai as her fellow student, Lalanbai started attending classes.

“Everything was darkness, I could not comprehend anything being told,” and so she sat, face covered, mute and blank. Even the “good doctor Arole” was baffled; “how can we teach someone who won’t even show her face?” he asked his wife, and Lalanbai felt she would be free again.

But Dr Mabel Arole “insisted on letting me try to learn for another two months.”

Finally, her persuasion and gentleness worked, and Lalanbai began to open her mind. And her mouth. “I began to listen, to answer questions, began to feel even I could be something.”

From being someone “used to having things thrown at me”, she found the staff treating her with respect, “like I was a human being”.

Her skills grew, and her reputation with it. And one day, a family that used to “throw leftovers to her” called her for a delivery.

She asked them if her touch would not make them impure, but they said as long as she kept her sari from touching anything in the house, it was okay. Following her instructions, and even letting her feed the mother-to-be with her ‘impure’ hands, the family watched as Lalanbai effected a safe delivery.

To reward her, the mistress of the house searched for a broken cup to give her tea in. As she hunted about, her son, a lawyer, came in. When his mother told him she was searching for a cup that could be thrown away after the ‘untouchable’ drank from it, he got angry. “She’s not a low caste woman,” he proclaimed, “she is a ‘doctorini bai’, and has delivered a child safely for you. Give her tea in one of our cups or don’t give it to her at all.”

LalanbaiI decided not to drink tea that day, but the incident got her much respect and reputation, and in the next six months, saw her delivering 24 babies.

Soon after, she decided she did not have to collect animal waste at the ‘patil’s house any more. “I was not afraid any more, I had faith in my abilities and in the fact that I was worthy of respect.”

And that is how I got to meet her, as someone who headed the list of health workers who make the Comprehensive Rural Development Project work the wonderful way it does.