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En route to a prayer meeting

Das Maddimadugu

The Hyderabad streets are like a melting pot under the glare of the midday sun. The narrow streets get crushed under the moving vehicles. The people and the buildings are coated with a fine dust that rises from the wheels of the endless stream of traffic, and my children can easily tell that I have been to the old city when I return home in the evening.

“Sir, give me 10 rupees.” A beggar stands in front of me, balancing what looks like a human form in his outstretched arms. “I need money to buy medicine for my dying daughter,” he says urgently.

I look at him, and then at the deserted street. No bus is coming to take me to the prayer meeting 10 kilometres away.

“Please, I beg you!” he cries. I look at the almost lifeless form in the man’s outstretched arms. The girl is dying. The flies are already swarming around her face. She is covered only with a loincloth, and her matted hair is hanging down. Surprisingly, I notice no sweat on the child’s face. It is so dry.

“I have no money to give,” I tell the man, trying to divert my eyes from the child. I have only 10 rupees, which I must save for my bus ticket. If I give the money to this man, I will have to walk 10 kilometres, and I will never make it to the prayer meeting. I know the rule that pastors should never miss a prayer meeting without a reasonable explanation, and I have little reason to give my money to a stranger and miss my appointment. A bus turns the corner. It throws a cloud of hot dust in my face.

“Sir, please save my child’s life!” The man lowers the lifeless form below his waist and slowly, gently lays it at my feet. I feel awkward. The limp form touches my feet. I get goose bumps. Without intention, I look at the child, and I notice a bead-like necklace around her neck. Village people always wear something around their necks.

The man notices me looking at the necklace, but he says nothing. I do not know what to say. I gently but firmly instruct him to remove the girl from my feet.

I must hurry to catch the bus or I will miss the prayer meeting. The bus swings around the corner, and I lunge forward to jump into the moving vehicle, but the man blocks my way with his outstretched arms. This time there is no child in his arms.

“Sir, take this,” he pleads. He is holding what looks like a bead chain. “Buy this, and give me 10 rupees,” he begs. Then I recognize the bead necklace from the child’s neck. “She is dead. I need the money to bury her.” His voice chokes.

Tears stream down his cheeks. We both walk to the place where the body is lying. I kneel beside her and hold her lifeless hand in mine. Already the ants are beginning to gather around the corner of her mouth. Nature has a way of smelling death long before we human beings do.

“You should not have done this,” I say to the man, holding the necklace in my palm. “It’s made of beads.”

The man looks at me indignantly. Even in his grief, I sense a raw uncontrollable pride in his voice. “It is made of pure pearls,” he explains. “It was a gift from my grandmother to my mother, and it was passed on to my wife. My wife put it around my child’s neck before she died in childbirth. The child protested vehemently when I removed it from her neck.”

I kneel down beside the huddled body of this grown man who is overcome by uncontrollable sobs. I thrust the 10-rupee note into his clenched fist. Out of the corner of my eye, through the mist of fine red dust, I see the bus move away from the curb. I slowly pick myself up, stretch my legs and begin the 10-kilometre walk.

Das Maddimadugu is director of Village Evangelism and Development Association, a Christian ministry he and his wife Doris started in Hyderabad, India in the early 1990s. They operate several schools, have started a Christian fellowship in a stonecutters’ community and seek to free children in bonded labour. This article is reprinted, by permission, from Mennonite World Conference’s Courier, Fourth Quarter, 1999.

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Last modified May 26, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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