Its dark outside and I am some 20 kms away from the national highway and 100 kms away from the life that I know. Somewhere in the interiors of Uttar Pradesh I am headed to a small block known as ‘Shivgarh’. It is so called because it is the home of the worshipers of Shiva the lord. My decision to go to Shivgarh was based on an impulsive decision to know rural life. I am born and bought up in cities and this offer to work with the people was too tempting an offer.
When I told my dad that I want to go to Shivgarh, his only remark was the place where there is no network…I wonder what tempts you to go there? I did not know what to say, and I still do not know why I have come here. I hope time will tell.
Its day 2 and I already have this urge in my gut to just pack my bags and run, run back to life, its so strange I do not consider living here as life. In the midst of nowhere, I am stuck with people who I don’t know. All those eyes observing me as if I am alien form a Spielberg film. This is the same country I have known for so many years, through my geography and history books and I have so many times felt an Indian. But still living here under the surveillance of the local people makes me feel this is some different place, some other era.
The feeling of wanting to runaway is subsiding and the peace of this place is growing in me. The cool mornings and the pleasant nights and the starry sky seem to reassure me that my decision to come here was not so bad at the end of it all. My training has begun and what I am learning in the so called professional environment is so drastically different to what I have studies so far. Today I had gone to Siwan, one of the most difficult programme areas and was waiting for this woman named Parvati to deliver her first child. In Shivgarh most of the women are named after the various forms of Parvati the wife of Shiva, giving it a feel as if Shiva existed somewhere nearby and all the women that we saw were some or the other way his wife. The labor had started yet the baby did not seem to push, it was not any complication but was just taking time. This was my first time and I wanted to cherish every bit of it, but the stink inside the saur was making my stomach sick. The woman had been locked in here since last night and we came in around 4 in the morning to see how it happens. What is done to the child and the mother? I had read so much about deliveries, seen documentaries where the baby slides out of the woman’s body mixed with blood and vernix. The excitement was increasing my craving for a smoke, but the daima had said that the baby was due anytime and so I did not dare move. Oh yes, smoking here is a pain, women are not seen smoking cigarettes only the older women in the house smoke hukka that too never in front of the men, unless she was the head of the family and to a certain extent influential. Suddenly the saur came alive and the women started running around. The water seemed to have broken and the baby was making its way out.
Time to give a little data here: in Shivgarh close to 90% of the child births take place inside the house. The houses in this part of the region are either made of mud or of bricks depending on the economic condition of the family. Inside the house there is a room that is used for storing the grains that the farmers grow. It is a room, interior in the house with no windows, only one door which has been decorated with tulsi and fire is burning outside to keep the evil spirits out. This dark room turns into a delivery room when the women in the house are expecting a child and are taken inside once labor begins. This is the time when the saur is said to come alive. Parvati too has been brought here last night when her mother in law felt that the baby was due anytime. Now standing inside this closed room with three other women and my notebook I feel strange. This is also a way in which children can be born inside a closed dark room with no windows and lots of smoke to keep the evil spirit away. The smell of urine, sweat and the cries are filling my stomach. I am thrilled and saddened at the same time. I don’t know what I was feeling, I too would have a child one day but to have it here like Parvati was beyond imagination.
Ok the moment that I was waiting for was taking pace now, the daima asked for some hot water and the mother in law started massaging the bulged belly with some oil, mustard oil. She was putting pressure on the belly with an experienced hand and asking Parvati to push, push hard. Parvati was squatting on the floor, in tears and pain and trying to push. At that moment she seemed brave to me. Much stronger and braver than her appearance suggests. The air inside was becoming hot and damp, the door was now closed and the women oblivious of my presence went about their task. The dai was rubbing the inside with oil and saying that it will help the baby to pass out soon and everyone was waiting for the baby to slide. Finally in the midst of a lot of screams I could see the tip of the head and the bulging mouth of the mother from where the baby was jutting itself out. The daima with her experienced hands was trying almost to pull the baby out. Finally the head popped out neat and the pulling was easier due to holding space. The baby was patched in red and white, the blood and vernix. The stench had now become unbearable, but that one sight of a live body coming out of another was unforgettable. I had seen a cow and a goat deliver before but nothing was as spectacular as this. The woman was still in pain and was still squatting. For a second I thought that there could be another baby, but then no it was the placenta that she was waiting for. The umbilical cord was been gently massaged down so that the placenta would drop. After about some 5-7 mins, the placenta came out. An ugly sight, of blood and cord. Parvati finally lied down, the worst was over. The news of the baby had traveled out of the door while I was watching it come out into this world. The baby was a tiny little girl and now preparations had begun to bathe the child and some discussion was going on as to whether they should bathe the child or sponge it as they were told by the intervention team. The mother in law wanted to bathe the child as otherwise she was not able to hold a child that was stinking so bad. Parvati oblivious of all this was in a trance of receding pain. She was made to drink a home made protein drink with ghee in it to recover from the blood loss. And I was trying hard not to faint. I was an observer in the saur, and as quiet as those mud walls. But I had the urge to pick the baby from the floor and hold it against my skin. All this while the poor thing was lying on the floor and wondering (if at if she was capable of it) that where the hell was she.
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