Would I pick up an old destitute woman with a broken arm who has been lying on the roadside in her own faeces for hours covered with flies?

Under normal circumstances, I would have just walked past such a repulsive sight. But that morning on 7th May 2015, I was very unsettled after seeing her lie there. 

Cycling on my usual route to buy milk that morning I saw her lying on the side of the road barely able to move. Her face was covered with the pallu of her dirty, muddied saree and she was feebly fanning away the flies that were swarming below her waist and hovering over her face with a hand towel. My curiosity got the better of me and I stopped and tried to find out from the onlookers and some of the families living there who she was. No one seemed to know. It seemed like she was from a different place altogether. All they knew was that she had been loitering around that area for a couple of days and now she was lying there. I felt sorry for her but was not sure what else could be done. And so in a few minutes I was on the road again cycling back home with the milk can dangling from the handle bars.

If you have lived in India this would not be a rare scene you encounter. Destitute people on the roadside is more common than a German shepherd on the road. Hence, after a momentary sympathetic stare and a “what can I do” thought, I tried to forget what I had just seen. But the thought about the old woman refused to leave my mind and there was already a conversation going on in my head. One part of me was saying, I should have done something about the lady while the other reminded me there was practically nothing I could have done. I thought of Jesus and my Christian responsibility while the story of the Good Samaritan kept flashing through my mind. It’s fine, quipped the other voice in my head, there are thousands of such people in the country who are homeless dying on the road side; it is not going to make any difference helping one person. But by the time I reached home, I had made up my mind. I knew I had to do something this time. I reminded myself that the old woman is also made in the image of God, has intrinsic worth and dignity and is precious in the sight of God.

I told Blodwen, my wife what I saw and she immediately said I should bring her to the hospital. That encouraged me further and so I rushed to tell my doctor friend Jeevan who lived on the same campus as us that I was going to bring the old woman to the hospital. He did not discourage me either. So there I was back on the road again, about to attempt something for the first time in my life.

She was still lying there in the same state. I quickly told the onlookers that I was going to take her to the hospital and went to hire a sagadi (a cycle cart which is used to transport goods as well as patients in rural areas). After looking around for some time, I found a sagadi but the moment the sagadiwalla saw the state of the old woman he said he would not take her in his sagadi.

So then I decided it would be best to get her cleaned up and changed before getting another sagadi. I asked some of the ladies standing around if they could help wash her. Not only were they not willing but they refused to even touch her. I was a bit embarrassed to help the woman undress and get her washed. But now there was no option left. One of the ladies said she could give me a saree and an underskirt.  So she brought the clothes from her home and some women held out the saree on the side of the road for cover. I slowly helped the woman sit up and then stand. The smell that came from her made me want to throw up a couple of times. She had a bad case of diarrhoea and she was just skin and bones. I helped her take off her clothes and poured water over her to clean up the faeces that was caked all over her legs. Once that was done, I helped her drape the saree and then went to fetch another sagadi. This time the sagadiwalla that came agreed to take her and we brought her to the hospital.

Since she was in such a bad state, we did not want her to be in the main ward where there were other patients. We made a bed for her in another room that was not being used. She was so exhausted that she was hardly able to speak. The doctors started her on IV fluids and medicines. She barely knew any Hindi and the only thing we found out was her name – Amruthma.

The first day Amruthma kept mentioning a place called Prachi. None of us had heard of that place before. Later that night, I googled the place and found out it was in Gujarat. She was probably speaking Gujarati. The next day our guess was confirmed and so we crossed the first hurdle. She was indeed Gujarati. Two of our staff knew Gujarati and they helped us understand what she was trying to communicate. She was a bit disoriented but mentioned that she had sons living in Mumbai and she had gone to meet one of them as he was unwell. She had then lost her way. She also mentioned that some vehicle had come and hit her on the left arm and that is how it had fractured.

Her condition was improving with the medication and within two days she was moved to the ward. In the meantime she was bathed, changed and fed. It was so encouraging to see many of the staff at the hospital come alongside and serve Amruthma. One of them washed her grubby feet, one oiled her hair, another one bathed her, one of them brought her food.

As the days went by, except for the fracture, Amruthma’s condition had improved. But I was in a dilemma as I had no clue how to take this forward. I had tried finding out if an old age home in Varanasi would take her in but they refused. Thoughts of starting even a destitute home crossed my mind but that was a huge project. So she continued to stay in the hospital.

Amruthma loved her tea with bread to dip into it. As I carried food and tea every day for her, many in the hospital would ask me what I planned to do with her. No plans yet used to be my reply. We kept enquiring about her family and relatives hoping to find out something that might help us help her. During one such conversation, she mentioned that her nephews stayed in a place called Veraval. Thanks again to google, I found out Veraval was a temple town where the famous Somnath temple was located. On searching further, I also found out that there was a Veraval group on Facebook with over seven thousand members. I joined the group and quickly posted details about Amruthma, seeking help from the group. But there was no response except some advice to translate the post into Gujarati and re-post it.

So days went by without any progress and we kept praying to the Lord to make a way. Then almost a week later, I got a message on facebook from someone named Nazir saying he saw my post and he would do whatever possible to trace the whereabouts of Amruthma’s relatives. What made this even more interesting is that Nazir was not even part of the Veraval group but had chanced upon my post while trying to post an advertisement on the group for the computer institute he ran. God does work in mysterious ways.

Amazing as it sounds, just two days later, I received a call from a railway policeman in Veraval asking about Amruthma. Apparently, she had been missing for five months and the complaint was under the jurisdiction of his police station. Not long after, I had a whatsapp message from him with a photograph of Amruthma and the missing complaint that was lodged there. He was excited and relieved to know she was safe and mentioned how they had searched all over to find her. Soon I had calls coming from various relatives of Amruthma to enquire about her. Her nephew called to say they would come in the next three days to take her home.

And thus, on May 21^st, her son and two of her nephews arrived at the hospital. It was indeed an emotional moment when she was reunited with her son and nephews. That was also the second time I saw her cry. The first time was when my wife hugged her goodbye that morning. . Amruthma had sat on a train on 1 January 2015 to go to Mumbai from Veraval. They had not heard from her since that day. She had lived on the road side in different places for over four months before landing at Kachhwa in Uttar Padesh.  Her son and nephews had no words to thank us.

(Amruthma with her son) (with her nephews)

And I had no words to thank my Lord for all this.

Even as they walked out of the hospital with Amruthma that day, I could not but pause for a moment and think of the ways of God who uses unworthy servants to help find a home for the lost and the wounded. But I also dread to think how things would have transpired if I had ignored that still small voice within me that morning on the 7th of May 2015.