The Odyssey of Community Service: A Personal Reflection

Presented at the 2008 Magsaysay Awardees' Lecture Series,
Magsaysay Center, Manila 1 September 2008.

Dr. Prakash Amte

It is indeed a rare honour and delight to be a part of this august gathering as an awardee today, when the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation completes fifty years of invaluable service and contribution to promotion of humanist culture. The irrepressible urge and the concern for civilisation has always been the motivating force that the Foundation showcases today. Ecstasy is mine to be a petal of the Asian rose that was planted fifty years back by the beautiful, visionary mind, Ramon Magsaysay. I take this opportunity to congratulate the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation for the long and successful innings. Their unflinching support (in cash) has strengthened our hands to do the kind of work we have been doing.

As the West looks upon Asia as a force to reckon with, it is our proud privilege to remind ourselves of the legacy that shaped our life and civilisation, which is on the brink of perishing. Whether it is war or violence, environmental decay or political anarchy, collective greed or religious fanaticism, the odyssey of civilisation has frightening dimensions. It is easier to talk about these issues over a cup of coffee or a glass of beer in air-conditioned conference halls and even offer solutions with unassailable equanimity and forget everything with the sinking of the sun in the evening. Action is not the responsibility of the great academicians. To be frank, the deafening cry, 'Preserve or perish' is a warning to reckon with more urgently. Today's gathering is an exception and unique in senses more than one. It is the coming together of people who rooted themselves in their chosen field of work for years and never felt the need to talk about it. For a person like me, nothing can be more difficult than being called upon to say to you what I have done. For me, things are easier done than said. My moorings lie in this domestic culture I was brought up in.

The Descent

I come from a family that believed in action more than in words. My beloved father, the late Baba Amte, himself a Magsaysay Awardee, has been my inspiration all along. Action, destructive or constructive, presupposes a fearless mind. My father (who was called a 'fearless man' by Mahatma Gandhi later) played with adventures all his life. Adventure was not a fashion but a passion, a way of life for him. Vikas, my brother, and I were brought up in this culture. The first home to remember was a hut with thatched roof on the outskirts of the village of Warora. Obviously, we had no friends to talk to or play with. Exploring the surrounding forest was our only fun and it cost nothing. Unlike other fathers, Baba exposed us to dangers from early childhood. We had lessons in the dignity of labour at an early age. My father and mother worked hard; did all the menial jobs gladly ever since they decided to serve the leprosy patients. As kids we were silent observers of their acts of compassion. As we grew up we shared the work, daily domestic chores, without being asked. Having turned his back on ancestral property (Baba was the son of a landlord) financial crunch left no other choice but simplicity, whether in dress or diet. Thus, fearlessness, simplicity, compassion and love of labour became our second nature. I believe that you can choose only the first thing and the rest follow automatically.

The Beginning

Lok Biradari Prakalp (People's Brotherhood Project) is an offshoot of Maharogi Sewa Samiti, Warora, a trust founded by my father, better known to the world as Baba Amte. We were completely unaware of the fact that a chance visit to the dense forest of Bhamragad in Gadchirolli district of Maharastra in the early seventies along with Baba would ever crystalize into a centre for intergrated development like this. It was set up in 1974.

My elder brother Vikas and I were in our early twenties then and Baba was nearly sixty. We had just appeared for our final examination in medicine and were waiting for our results, dreaming of careers as aspiring doctors. We were on a holiday and yet to decide what we would be doing in future. One fine morning, during the month of December, Baba thought of taking the members of the family for a picnic to this place, Bhamragad. We had never heard of this place before. Probably his intention behind the picnic was to expose both his sons to the lives and culture of the tribal people in this region. Two hundred and fifty kilometers away from Anandwan, our home, was quite a distance then in the absence of sturdy vehicles and roads. The stretch of last eighty kilometres showed no signs of a road or of any feet ever having travelled there. That was Baba's idea of a picnic!

Baba had surveyed the land and selected a spot from where a river ran at a distance of two and a half kilometres. The location was picturesque. The confluence of three rivers provided the backdrop to Bhamaragad, lending it the charm of an unravished bride. Teakwood barred the entry of sunlight. The streams girdled around it like a python. We watched everything anxiously. Small figures popped up from behind the trees, dressed in colourful feathers and beads of stones. We camped there underneath a tree and during the next two days explored the area by visiting different tribal villages, trying to interact with the local people and get acquainted with their lives and culture. However, we could not communicate with the people. They were very scared and reluctant to talk to us, and in fact would run away and hide in the nearby forest as soon as we entered their villages. We could only observe them from a distance. They had no clothes on, except for a small piece of cloth to cover the private parts. Most of them were undernourished and the children had potbellies. We were stunned. It was a different world altogether. The response was the same in every village we visited. The thought that some people can live in this condition in the same country from where we came sent tremors down the spine. The night before we left the area, we assembled by the fireside, the winter being very severe, and discussed our experiences during the last two days. Baba's restlessness surfaced in no time and he shared his views on this dream project with us. After having worked for the leprosy patients for some years he now wanted someone to accept the challenge to start a project for this community and try to give them basic amenities like healthcare, education and teach them farming. Seeing Baba's enthusiasm at that advanced age, I immediately volunteered to join him as soon as he started the work there. That, in due course of time proved to be the turning point of my life.

We went back to Anandwan. We had cleared the finals. Soon we joined Nagpur Medical College as interns. After a few days, Baba reminded me of my commitment and asked me to apply to the Government of Maharashtra for a piece of land in Bhamragad region to start a project for the Madia Gond tribe. We had to put up with delay in the administrative procedure, typical of the bureaucracy. After three years we finally acquired the land in December 1973.

I always tell people that I am obliged to the Government of India for the delay. A very interesting and equally important thing happened in my life during that period. I got acquainted for the first time to Dr. Mandakini in 1972. She was doing her post graduation in anesthesia in the same college. We fell in love and soon got married in December 1972. Mandakini willingly agreed to join me in running the project for the tribal people in a remote area. Had the government sanctioned the demand for land earlier, I would have missed the chance of meeting my partner and perhaps would have remained a bachelor forever. The reasons are not far to guess. This area remained cut-off from the rest of the world during the better part of the year, due to a number of rivers criss-crossing the route. There were neither roads nor electricity; telephone or any other means of entertainment were unheard of. We did not even have a house to stay in. No sensible and loving parents of any prospective bride would have allowed their daughter to marry me. The joke apart, I must say that she has stood by me in every venture.

In late 1973, when I was busy with my post graduation in general surgery, the project was launched. In March 1974, when I realised that Lok Biradari Prakalp, was badly in need of a doctor, I decided to leave my education halfway and took charge of the project and Mandakini joined me soon thereafter, not before resigning her job as a lecturer in Anaesthesia in Nagpur Medical College. Baba was very happy to see both of us joining the project and happily went back to Anandwan. There were four more voluntary workers and a few cured leprosy patients to help us clear the forestland in order to build our houses there. I must say that every venture of our family has been an attempt to fulfil an inner urge. There wasn't much of planning in advance. We never mulled over unknown problems. An impulse took us to the woods and we went on working and sorting out problems as they emerged. In our world there never was room for calculations in advance, of profit or loss. We busied ourselves with work and allowed the thoughts to pass by or left them for the rest of the world, as you may say.

When we joined the project, they had already constructed two temporary tin sheds-one to store food grains and another served as community kitchen-and a small thatched hut for us to live in. On the practical plane there were a lot of hardships to face but we were mentally prepared for all of them. Come what may, we will stay here, we told each other. We had already prepared ourselves for all kinds of difficulties. What we had not anticipated was the lack of cooperation from the local tribal people. Initially, nobody turned up to give us a chance to serve them. We waited for them in a hut, the sort of clinic. They had never heard of anything about modern medicine. All they depended on was a village priest (a witch doctor) in almost every village, and he was the only source of relief for them for every health problem. We had to coax and cajole them to bring patients to our clinic. We combed villages on foot. The first priority then was to learn the local language (Madia dialect). Without that, communication was next to impossible.

Our ventures with the first patients were an education for us. I still remember our first critical case of burns from a nearby village. A ten-year-old boy had been suffering from epilepsy and slept close to the fire in order to protect himself from the biting cold. He had no clothes on. He started getting fits in the middle of the night and fell into the fire and was badly burnt. With their local tribal medicines, the wounds could hardly be healed but caused infection instead and there were maggots in the wounds. We expressed our willingness to treat him. The boy's parents had lost all hopes of his survival. However, they agreed to bring the boy to our open-air clinic. Till that date, the local people had never taken any antibiotics and to their surprise, our medicines, coupled with clean, sterile dressings, cured him within a month. For us, more important than the cure, was winning their faith.

The second successfully cured patient was a victim of cerebral malaria, a medical emergency. He was carried on a makeshift bamboo stretcher, from a place as far as twenty-five kilometres, all of his carriers walking barefoot all the way. He was unconscious when they brought him to us and had already started getting convulsions. At that time, we had no facilities for any investigations and it was difficult to diagnose the problem. All we could depend upon were the symptoms. There was no time to waste, nor anybody else to consult. It was the test of our knowledge and skill. After a brief discussion, we agreed on a probable diagnosis of cerebral malaria and started an anti-malarial treatment along with other life saving measures. Fortunately for us, the patient regained consciousness on the third day and later went back to his village walking, carrying his bamboo stretcher on his own shoulders.

This augured well for the project. Tribal patients started trickling in with a variety of health problems such as malaria, diarrhoea, dehydration, severe anaemia, tuberculosis, pneumonia, bone fractures, complicated cases of maternity, vitamin-deficiency disorders etc. It was quite challenging for us to treat all these ailments without any investigation facilities and very little personal experience in treating such ailments. What added to the problem was the people's ignorance. They had seen medicine tablets for the first time in their lives and would gulp the whole weekly dose at a time, sometimes along with the paper in which they were packed or wrapped in. They were careless with these or tampered with them. We started maintaining the records ourselves. These amount to thousands in huge piles now.

Winning the people's faith by curing as many as possible was our topmost agenda. Luckily, most of the patients were cured. However, some of them could not be cured or saved in spite of our sincere efforts. Patients from such villages stopped coming to our clinic. We really felt guilty about it. But as the success rate maintained an upward curve in due time, the number of patients increased. When a serious patient was admitted to our clinic, we would not rest at night and attend to him throughout the night in the candlelight. Besides diagnosis, sterilization of equipment, treating multiple fractures and serious injuries from bear bites posed real problems.

Though Mandakini was a qualified anaesthetist and I had left my post-graduation in general surgery halfway, patients with all kinds of ailments started approaching us and expected to be treated with success. Referring a patient to any specialist or a well-equipped hospital was out of the question, due to lack of communication, transport facilities, and funds. Moreover, people had no clothes to wear and did not understand any of the languages spoken outside their world. We had no alternative but to treat them ourselves by referring to various books on medicines. We tried whatever equipment we had and treated them locally as much as possible. We started treating cases of fractures, dental extraction, ENT problems, conducting deliveries, performing emergency surgeries and even performing cataract operations. We had noticed that blind patients were being deprived of food as there was already a scarcity of food and they had to die a slow death by starvation. The law of 'survival of the fittest' worked here. Our first case of cataract surgery was a success and more patients started coming in for surgery.

Then there was the case of a complicated maternity. A woman on her way to our hospital had severe labour pains. With a long way to walk and before they reached the clinic, she had delivered the baby halfway. Only an arm of the baby had come out while rest was still stuck inside. We had to ask the relatives to choose between the mother and the baby, as it was impossible to save both of them. They opted for the mother and the baby had to be sacrificed in order to save her. Fortunately, the relatives of the patient showed enough understanding of our helplessness. I am now happy to say that the same lady came to us the next year, this time well in advance of her due date of delivery and went back home with a healthy baby.

Our Journey with the Tribal Communities Growth

Today, we have a full-fledged and well-equipped hospital treating more than 40,000 patients every year, free of cost. Patients from more than 1,000 villages spread across three states- Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhatisgarh-an area of around 200 square kilometers visit us. The hospital remains open for twenty-four hours treating all emergency cases. We are also assisted by our son and daughter-in-law, both of whom are doctors. After twelve years since the inception of the project, my friends and relatives became curious about our work and some of them visited the project and the surgeons amongst them offered their services to help the tribal patients. As such the annual surgical camp was started and about 50 surgeons and anesthetists from the Rotary Club of Nagpur visit Hemalkasa every year and perform all kinds of operations in our hospital for free. Except for heart and brain surgeries, they perform all other operations. The number of operations they perform in only two days is about 150 but we do not have so many beds, hence the patients have to stay outside the building, in the open ground. Since we take all the pre-operative care and sterilise all the instruments and the dressing materials, there has not been a single case of post-operative infection in the last twenty years.

After having gained complete trust in us and our treatment during the first two years, people now started sharing with us other problems such as exploitation by government officials and forest contractors. In order to help them, we brought the people from different villages together and wrote a joint complaint letter to concerned authorities. Fortunately, the officers took prompt action and suspended the corrupt officers. This served as a lesson to new officers who took charge subsequently. Exploitation was reduced to a considerable extent. These were temporary solutions. Something had to be done to prevent the problems from arising. Only education would offer a permanent solution, we thought.

Lok Biradari Prakalp started a residential school in 1976 for the tribal children, and along with formal education we tried to create among them awareness about their rights. Our volunteers went from village to village to convince the parents to send the children to the residential school. Since this was a totally new concept, they were reluctant to send their children. We had to convince them considerably, and initially we could get only twenty-five students from ten surrounding villages-and that too with a great difficulty. In the course of time almost half of them ran away. If a student disappeared in the evening, we had to send a volunteer to his village on a bicycle to see that he or she had reached home safely. After two years the parents and the children liked the atmosphere of the school and the dropout rate was reduced considerably. From a modest enrolment of about twenty-five students and two teachers in 1976, it has now blossomed into a full-fledged residential school with six hundred and forty students and seventeen teachers. Three members of the current teaching staff are former students of the school itself. The school imparts to its students, formal education along with vocational training, like bamboo and metal craft, tailoring, farming, horticulture and also computer education. It also instils awareness about their rights and a sense of pride about their culture. My own sons and daughter were educated in the same school and they were the only non-tribal children to be educated there. Almost 90% of the students that graduated from the school have returned to serve their own community. Some have gone ahead to become teachers in other schools, others have set up shops in their neighbourhood, some have become policemen, forest guards and some have returned to Lok Biradari Prakalp as volunteers. A more noteworthy achievement of the school is reflected in the fact that five students have gone ahead to become medical practitioners in addition to a dentist, a veterinary doctor and two lawyers. There is no field that they have not excelled in. In the field of sports, the tribal boys are at their best in athletics; as many as twenty to twenty five students participate at state level and around two to three at national level competitions each year. Mind you, they have no formal coaching or training of any sort except encouragement from their teachers.

Initially, these tribal people used to practice shifting cultivation, due to which both productivity and production levels were low. Food was scarce and malnutrition rampant. Hunting was extensive but yielded very little since the animal population had already decimated. In an effort to wean the tribal people from hunting, we began carrying out crop demonstrations in those villages from where our students came. Seeds of high yielding varieties of paddy and some vegetables were distributed among the villagers. They are now slowly adopting new, improved agricultural practices and techniques.

Traditionally, the tribal people had their own councils of elders to settle their own disputes. But after the police appeared on the scene, they started approaching policemen for this purpose. This gave the police department an opportunity to exploit the poor, uneducated tribal people. Since 1980, we have been successfully conducting an informal court called Lok Adalat (People's Court) at Lok Biradari Prakalp itself, where people with disputes of all varieties, except murder, come for amicable settlements, and the disputes are resolved in perfect concord with their tradition and custom.

Drinking water was always a problem in the area and almost the entire population in the area depended on river or stream water; at times they had to fetch water from a distance of two to three kilometers. It also posed a health problem. Then we requested the government to provide for bore-wells in all the villages. Since the maintenance of hand pumps was difficult for them, we offered our services and in next few years the hand pumps were regularly maintained by us personally in 80 villages. Later on we trained senior schoolboys who took over the repairs of the hand pumps.

Hunting was the chief source of food among the tribal people. In fact when we arrived in 1973, the forest was eerily silent. Not a bird could be heard, not a monkey could be seen swinging from trees. The tribal people in their quest for food had hunted down almost all that could be eaten, from birds to snakes, literally. In addition, blind faith coupled with superstitions like witchcraft meant that animal sacrifice was necessary to please the gods and to protect oneself against spirits. Some animals were killed and their carcasses were hung in doorways or on the outskirts in order to ward off evil spirits. Judging the gravity of the situation, we started a wildlife orphanage by convincing the tribal people to spare at least the hunted animals' young ones. We would ask for the babies and give them food grains in exchange for the orphaned animals. The orphanage now has a great variety of animals. Some of them, like the giant squirrel, belong to endangered species. The orphanage is aptly named Amte's Animal Ark since animals confirmed as enemies live together, like the leopard and the dog or the hyena and dog, etc. It is a unique menagerie of animals, birds, snakes and reptiles, from domestic pets to wild animals. Tribal people, who once feasted upon them, have now begun appreciating their beauty. Tribal students in the Lok Birdari Prakalp school take care of more than fifty animals that are housed in the orphanage. Now hunting has almost stopped and it is heartening to see the growth of the population, be it birds, beasts or other wild animals.

Those Who Supported Us

The growth of the project set up in 1974 with three small huts, serving as both residence and hospital, was made possible because of active support from our parent institution, Anandwan, our lifeline. Baba, my mother Sadhanatai, and Dr. Vikas along with a number of workers from Anandwan had taken all pains to regularly provide the project with all the necessary food items, medicines, as well as material and labour for the construction and development of the project. Swiss-Aid stepped in to help in 1976. With their generous help, Lok Biradari Prakalp could construct residential quarters, a hospital building and the school buildings. Later, Oxfam and Action Aid offered to meet the recurring expenses of the project for nine consecutive years (1978-1987). Dr. Jagannath Wani from Maharashtra Seva Samiti Organization (MSSO) of Canada came forward to build residential quarters for doctors, girls' hostel and an additional school building with twelve classrooms. Mr. Gul Asnani from the USA helped us through Rotary International's matching grant of medicines for the hospital for five years. The numerous visitors, friends and well wishers have helped the project by donating generously.

Mr.Guy and Dr.Greet Barthelemy, who had worked with Dr. Schweitzer in the early fifties, visited the project in 1992. They were moved to see the similarity of conditions at Hemalkasa and those in Africa where Dr. Schweitzer worked. And when he received the Nobel Prize in 1954, the Prince of Monaco released a postal stamp in his appreciation. This French couple went back and appealed to the Prince of Monaco to publish a postal stamp to honour us, and he agreed to their suggestion and published the stamp in our name in 1995. This helped win more friends from both abroad and home.

I must say the project would not have flourished without the dedicated support from all my colleagues who resigned their jobs and joined this project. Amongst them are Vilas Manohar from Pune, Gopal Phadnis from Nagpur, Panchals from Marathwada and Jagan from Nanded. We could clear all the snags with the active support from our dedicated ground crew.

A Final Note

How do I perceive the world? Friends, there is no dearth of the young wasting their time, money and energy in hedonistic orgies; there is no dearth of recklessly ambitious young careerists shut up in their cells of personal excellence such as engineers, doctors, scientists, I.T. professionals and the like. In today's knowledge-based society marked by cut-throat competition everyone is busy getting ahead of someone. What is missing in this 'madding crowd' is brotherhood, a sprit of fraternity, a sense of belonging. 'As wealth accumulates men decay', said Bernard Shaw and rightly so. We must do something to prove him wrong before it is too late. And it is not difficult. We need only the will, a strong will, a force from within and the courage to translate it into action. I am far from being a pessimist. I have faith in my father's creed, 'Care and Share', 'Charity destroys, work builds'. It guided us at every stage. I have abiding faith in the youth of the world, too. The future of the world rests in their hands. We need a few more dedicated workers with honesty of purpose to build a human community where people live in harmony and peace. The first step in this direction is to build bridges between the haves and the have-nots, in every sphere. Be a leveller to scale new heights of unadulterated joy, which is yours if you care.

Thank you.

By Dr. Mandakini Amte
Medical Officer, Lok Biradari Prakalp

Presented at the 2008 Magsaysay Awardees' Lecture Series,
Magsaysay Center, Manila 1 September 2008.

For any woman to be a partner in the pains of her husband's doings is not a new thing. But to be a partner in his honour and award and for the world to recognise her humble contribution is indeed a rare pleasure. I am glad that this pleasure is mine today. I express a deep sense of gratitude to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation to have conferred this honour on me and for giving me space and time to voice my feelings on this auspicious occasion of its golden jubilee celebrations.

As I walk down the memory lane to gather glimpses of our partnership in life and work, I wonder whether I can ever separate the two. It is true that I had never thought seriously of doing any social work before I met Prakash. I had nothing of the stuff of which he was made. He was Baba Amte's son and I came from a middle class family with nothing unusual to be distinguished by. The circumstances in which I was brought up hardly left any space even for ordinary adventures. Study of medicine was the only common ground that we shared. I never knew that it would make the difference that it has made today.

It was my good fortune that my mother insisted on my taking medicine despite my father's opposition for financial reasons, though valid in a sense. My elder sister was already engaged with medical studies and it would have been beyond his capacity to bear the cost of our education. But my mother, as all mothers do, sensed my strong urge to study medicine and convinced my father to allow me to join the medical stream. We had our share of fun during our college days. After completing graduation, I decided to proceed for post-graduation in anaesthesia. At that time Prakash too was doing his post-graduation in surgery in the same college. We happened to meet for the first time in an operation theatre. Gradually our friendship blossomed and soon we realised that we were meant for each other. We decided to get married as our ideals too matched. In December 1972 we got married. That year was marked by a severe famine in our state. It was a simple wedding without any razzle-dazzle, any pomp and show. No sweets were served in the wedding feast. However, we were happy to receive blessings from all the inmates of Anandwan, a home for leprosy patients, and from a number of dignitaries from all over Maharashtra. We did away with all sacred rites. Soon after our wedding we left for our destination of life, the virgin forest of Bhamragad.

Before marriage, Prakash had laid before me his plan to work for the tribals in the remote forests of Central India. I agreed instantly as the idea of doing something for the destitute touched my heart. I had seen the forest once before, only as a tourist, enjoying all the amenities of a wild life sanctuary. Visiting the forest as a tourist is one thing; making a permanent home there is another. Choosing to live in the wilderness was certainly not a romantic adventure especially when it was to be a lifelong commitment. The fury of the elemental forces such as extremes of climate, floods, the wild animals of all kinds was frightening enough but it could not deter us. More challenging was the discomfort of being cut off from the civilised world for most of the year. We had to start from scratch. There was no electricity, no arrangement for drinking water, no sanitary blocks, no roads, let alone the other comforts such as a telephone, a radio, or friends to talk to. I realised what I was in for. But this did not affect my determination to work here. It was not the case that I had not seen poverty before but what I saw here was worse than poverty. Looking at the condition in which the Madias were living, it was difficult to call them human beings. Our brothers and sisters, our fellow Indians were living a life no better than that of savages. Our domestic pets lived a better life, I wondered. Dumb struck, I was trying to read this side of the jungle-book. Every page had a revelation, an epiphany that sent shock waves. Now, I realised why

Prakash had decided to work in such a remote place. I was convinced that this is where our knowledge as doctors could be put to the best use.

In December 1973, when my father-in-law, the late Baba Amte, started this project at Hemalkasa with the help from his team mates, the cured leprosy patients from Anandwan, I had finished my post-graduation and was working as a full-time anaesthetist at the Government Hospital. Prakash was yet to finish his post-graduation in surgery. But after hearing that Baba had already started the work there, we could not wait any longer at Nagpur. Prakash left his post-graduation halfway and headed for Hemalkasa. I too resigned my job and joined Prakash.

From Nagpur to Hemalkasa was a journey, arduous enough in terms of gaps in culture, facilities of communication and transport. Our first home, a hut with a thatched roof that was covered with a plastic sheet to prevent water seepage was ready. But the inmates of the jungle would not leave us alone. Rats, snakes, frogs and a variety of insects had already perched wherever they could find space in this false ceiling. They would often fall down on our bed. The surrounding forest was infested with insects, poisonous snakes, reptiles and various ferocious animals. Prakash and I were the only married couple in our group. There were no women to talk to except for an elderly lady who used to work in the common kitchen. The grocery for the entire year used to come from Anandwan during the dry season, as there were no bridges on the rivers. Many a times, Sadhanatai, my mother-in-law, would accompany the volunteers from Anandwan with all the necessary provisions. Often, she had to abandon the vehicle midway and cross the rivers and walk the rest of the distance. During the entire year we had to manage with reserved stocks. We had to make do with just rice and dal most of the time. Vegetables were a luxury for us during periods of isolation. We had no choice other than to eat potatoes and onions. We never complained since there was no one to turn to. Taste did not matter as there was hardly any choice. I did not have to cook but checking the stocks was my responsibility.

We learnt to take all this in stride. However, what we could not take was the indifference and distrust shown by the natives, the Madia, towards us. We had given up everything to come here and work with these people and they were not ready to even consider the services we were offering to them for their own good. It was a test and trial for me; causing a momentary depression since I was totally unprepared for this. But I did not let this dissuade me from my promise to Prakash. I had decided that I would not complain. Moreover, our marriage was not just a contract. It was a bondage of love, and everything between us, a matter of love! His love for work became my passion and his compassion, my inspiration. His honesty of purpose coupled with an amazing capacity for silent endurance moved me to stand up and take on anything. He would go anywhere and to any extent when the heart cried and I walked by his side unhindered. Neither Prakash nor I ever liked to speak about what we did because we did it for our pleasure. It was enough for us to see the faces of the tribals beaming with joy when they went back from the clinic.

At the earlier stages, it had been a matter of treating a community for physical ailments, yet things were not easy. This community was totally ignorant about modern medicine. For them, the cause for any disease was the curse of god or black magic practised by some evil souls in their community. Initially, they would not turn up at the hospital that we had set up. Whenever we visited their villages, they would look at us suspiciously but with curiosity too. If we ventured any closer, they would get scared and run away into the forest. This experience was discouraging for us but we did not give up. Instead, our determination grew even stronger. Slowly, we started moving in the villages on foot in order to communicate with them. Looking at the half-clad adults and naked children, Prakash first gave up superfluous items of clothing and started wearing only a vest and half pants. I gave up wearing warm clothes during winter. This was one way of winning their confidence in us by minimising the gap in our lifestyles. We proceeded further to learn their language with the help of the forest officials and vendors who were residents of this area for a number of years. We even prepared our own dictionary of the Madia words. Now we can effectively communicate with them.

Health is of utmost importance in one's life. As doctors, we had an added advantage. Our medical knowledge helped us gain the trust of these people. This jungle was swarmed with mosquitoes. Thus malaria was rampant here. Most tribals were undernourished. Being a primitive tribe, they had their own blind faith. Milking of cows was considered a taboo. They resorted to shifting cultivation, which provided them with hardly enough of food. They had to depend on forest produce like tubers, fruits or the animals they hunted. A full square meal was beyond imagination. Because of their under nourishment their immunity was at its lowest. They would fall easy prey to various ailments such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhoea, anaemia, various infections, skin diseases, etc.

Once we won their trust, patients started frequenting the hospital. Our hospital was in a hut, our equipments and experience too was limited. However, we were expected to treat all kinds of patients. We were not trained to tackle all kinds of obstetrical emergencies. We could handle normal pregnancies and deliveries with ease. However, only complicated deliveries were brought to us and normal deliveries were conducted at home. Many times we could not save babies as they would bring expectant mother too late to us. The life of the baby had to be compromised often to save the mother as there was no blood available, nor were we trained in performing caesarean section. Later we started storing blood bags or in an emergency, one of us would volunteer to donate. As most of the deliveries were conducted by the traditional birth attendants at home, the mortality rate of pregnant mothers was high. In the absence of the mother and due to the taboo on milking a cow, life of the new-born was also in danger. We started taking care of such babies and after two to three years when the baby could eat normal food it would be returned to the family. Interestingly, my presence at the hospital as a doctor proved to be a great relief to the female patients especially when they came to consult for gynaecological problems. They could share their problems without any inhibitions. Sometimes they shared family matters with me too.

The changing panorama of the beauty of the landscape was awe-inspiring but the dance of death was breathtaking at times. Once there was an epidemic of cholera in the area during monsoon. We treated nearly 300 cases in a span of three to four days. Many could not make it to the hospital due to floods. Some of them reached the hospital in a serious condition and we had to helplessly witness the deaths of 15 of our patients. I can still remember the day when a woman brought her two-year-old son in a serious condition. He responded positively to our treatment and improved by the next day. Soon she was in a hurry to go back. We were puzzled and greatly annoyed at that. On questioning her about the need to go back so early, she started weeping and related to us her sad story. Her husband had died of cholera the previous day and she was on her way to the hospital with two of her cholera-affected children. The elder one had succumbed on the way. She just covered him with some twigs and leaves and continued her journey to save the younger one. Making sure that he was safe, she now wanted to go back and cremate her dead child. We were left dumbfounded. Deeply moved by her plight we could do nothing but sympathize with her. At this juncture, we realised how little we had accomplished and how much more was yet to be done.

I must put on record that despite all adversities, the tolerance shown by these people is commendable. I would like to narrate to you a case of a ten-year-old girl. This girl hailed from a village, fourteen kilometres from our hospital. She had climbed on the roof of their hut to dry the Mahua flowers. She slipped and fell flat on the compound made of bamboo. The sharp edges of the bamboo sheared through her abdomen and pierced her insides. As she herself pulled out the bamboo, her intestines popped out through the gaping wound. She came walking to the hospital accompanied by her father. She had covered the intestines in a cloth and was holding them in her hand. We were rendered speechless and stood aghast at the terrible sight. She was courage and endurance incarnate! We rushed for immediate surgery under local anaesthesia. With our treatment she recovered within eight days. She did not receive any Bravery Award for the courage she had shown. But we did learn something from her; we learnt how to endure.

The village folk had to travel long distance even for minor ailments which, if left untreated, could become serious. We thought of preparing a paramedical force that would treat people in their villages for minor ailments. So we trained some of the tribal youths, handicapped persons and cured leprosy patients. With their help we opened eight health sub-centres in the remote areas where simple ailments like fever, diarrhoea, dysentery, minor injuries, etc. could be cured at the local level and serious cases could be referred to us.

It took twenty long years for electricity to reach us. Today, we have equipment like an X-ray machine, ECG and sonography machines and a pathology lab to assist us in our diagnoses. We have also started a TB Diagnosis and Cure centre and a centre for dental check-ups. We treat about thirty-five to forty thousand patients annually, free of cost. We are now happy to announce that our son, Digant, who is a doctor, and our daughter-in-law, Anagha, assist us in the hospital. Anagha, who is a gynaecologist, looks after maternal and child health. Since there are four doctors now, we have started a mobile clinic. We visit remote villages four times a week within the radius of forty kilometers in the region, where there is no transport facility available.

Health care was the beginning of our work. But soon we wanted to empower the tribal community with education. We decided to start a school in 1976. We had to literally request the parents of the prospective entrants and coax them to send the children to the new school. We had to be extremely cautious during the harvest season as human sacrifice was a common practice here, especially of the young children. Initially, we used to impart only formal education. But after a few years, we started vocational and agricultural training. Now my younger son, Aniket, who has keen interest in modern technology, has started training young boys and girls in computer education, tailoring, and various other crafts. Education strengthened their hands as well as their minds. They are now aware of their rights and they can fight effectively against exploitation. A number of our students who have graduated from our school are doctors, lawyers, forest guards, teachers, etc. Many have joined the police force. Most of them have returned to their own villages and are working for the betterment of their community. Due to education, the financial status has improved. Now the parents themselves have become seriously conscious about their children's education.

Once they came in contact with the civilized world, they started wearing clothes. But they had to pay through noses for simple items of clothing. So I started buying low cost sarees from some government outlets in Nagpur and provided them at a no-loss-no-profit basis.

The Madia Gonds may have appeared uncivilised in certain matters but they have set an example for the so-called civilised world on the other side, something for us to learn. Despite the adverse conditions and scarcity of food, this community does not indulge in robbery or begging even now. We have not seen a single Madia beggar till now. One more thing worth appreciating about this community is that they practice gender equality in the real sense of the term. We have not come across a single rape case in the last thirty five years. There is no female foeticide. No quizzical eyebrows are raised at an unwed mother; she gets married to the father of the child. If that is not possible then the person she marries accepts her with the child. We would like to preserve this culture and take them ahead in the modern era so that they can lead a free and healthy life. The wealth of this culture is worth distributing among the members of the civilised world. It is moral decay that plagues the world and that is the root cause of all trouble.

To conclude, may I say that my odyssey began when I married Prakash. I must say that it has been a rewarding experience. Unlike Homer's Odysseus we never felt lonely. We drew strength from each other. Our faith in each other was never shaken. Our involvement in work never suffered. There were only two occasions on which I was in a dilemma. First, when my own one-year-old son, Digant contracted cerebral malaria. He had convulsions and nothing could be done. We could not provide him with specialised care. My mind was in a state of turmoil. How I wished we had stayed in the city. We consulted each other and treated him. Fortunately he survived this attack at that tender age. Later, when it was time for our children to go to school the thought that we were depriving our children of proper education pained me. While fighting for the justice of the tribals, are we doing any injustice to our own children? I asked myself. They attended the same school along with the tribal children, which was only up to primary level initially. Later, we had to send them away for higher education. There was no telephone and we used to be cut off from them for nearly six months in a year. It was hard for me as a mother, but a necessary sacrifice as a social worker. Only time proved my doubts wrong and things turned out very well for us. Our family has a long tradition of social work. I am happy that my children, too, have joined us in our work carrying on with the tradition.

Friends, we all are aware that bringing about change is not the job of a few individuals. Social work is a voluntary service. Those abusing it for easy money or publicity bring it a bad name. India still lacks the real passion for social work. However, I see a growing restlessness in the younger generation. This generation is bored of its affluence and is looking for exploring paths less travelled. The widening chasm between the rich and the poor hasn't escaped its attention. What is required is mere proper channelisation of this restlessness. The pace of change in remote tribal areas is painfully slow. The government machinery should become more proactive. Government schemes do not reach up to the grassroots level. Most officers look at the posting here as a punishment.

We are happy that our work has been noticed. The award will help in drawing attention to the condition of the neglected tribal people and spur more effective government action.

Friends, I can only say that there is more fun in walking along the path you have chosen than arriving at a destination. Arrival signifies stagnation. Keep walking. Success or failure does not matter. Thank you.