The heat was overwhelming as we made our way to the Patna Shishu Bhavan. It took the auto-rickshaw driver a couple of attempts to find his way there. We didn't take an air-conditioned car because the streets are small in the old city and there are few cars that go there. We didn't want to arrive with any undue inconvenience to the locals. Nor did we want to be seen as the rich tourists coming into the poorer area. The great thing about auto-rickshaws is that you get to hear and see up close what is going on in the lively streets and alleys. Shayne and I took a lot of random photographs as we made our way into the heart of old Patna City. You could literally reach out and grab fruit off the vendors carts at times. There were people continually peering into the rickshaw looking at the whities with the Indian kid. Lots of smiles and long looks. And here was Neelu, happily taking it all in and pointing at things and telling us what was going on. She said to Shayne the other day about a new custom she had learnt, "Yeah, but I should know that Mamma because I'm Indian". She is very proud of where she came from and totally at ease with the place and it's demands, physically and emotionally.
The great thing about watching her in India is that she is so intriguing to the locals. They look at us, then at her then at us. They shake their heads, they laugh. They whisper to each other. Some that speak even only a little English will inquire about her story and we tell them and they go away smiling and happy. When this was first happening Neelu was a little taken aback by being talked about to strangers so openly, but she has grown very patient as it has continued with great regularity. She loves the street life. She stares straight back at India with a smile on her face. She has an easy way with the beggars and the street hustlers and all those that cross her path. She has a shyness about her at times which is wonderful to watch. She will coil around the back of her mother's legs and peep out occasionally. She will look up to me and give me a knowing little smile as I try to disengage from a persistent touter. Neelu is a great traveller.
As we pull into the courtyard of the orphanage we are all incapacitated by the heat. We peal out of the rickshaw and head for the shade of the trees in the long, cobbled yard at the side of the church. The shishu bhavan is across the yard. At the back of the church the Missionaries have a school for street children. Their noise in the heat rouses Neelu and she wants to run down and play with them. We wait for one of the sisters to wave off another sister and driver before she talks with us. Shayne is curious because normally the sisters must travel in pairs. But there is a bad flu virus and two of the nuns are in hospital and two are ill and in bed. That leaves just two of them on their feet and they are not well either. But the demands of the orphanage and the hospice attached to it are constant.
Neelu runs back and joins us. She has brought a big bag of bangles and wants to hand them out as presents to all of the street kids at the school but sister says it will cause a riot and that she should wait and give them to the women in the hospice. Neelu reluctantly agrees. Sister says come and we go into the orphanage. This is where Neelu was first brought as a three month old baby. Through these gates, under this tree, into this room. This is where Mother Teresa did her medical training. A doctor she had met said "If you really want to help the poor you must learn how to look after them." And she did. This is where her life's work really began. Neelu has grown quiet and stays very close to Shayne as we go through to the room with the children. This was the beginning of all our fates. We look at the children and talk to sister. She was not here when Neelu came. None of the sisters were. They move across the country, these women, taking their experience to each other and to the communities they serve. But there is one older carer here that knew Neelu and she is delighted to see her. We walk into the babies nursery and through the window is a small court yard that has animals painted on the walls. A monkey, a peacock, tiger too. Neelu has seen photographs of these in our album from the last visit Shayne and I made before we got Neelu and she recognizes them instantly. We go out into the courtyard to a small, multi coloured round-a-bout. Even in the stifling heat she finds boundless energy and is totally in the joy of the moment. That moment went on for quite a while....I pushed the contraption until it had gathered enough speed to satisfy her and then we watched as she went around. Turning. It was like watching a giant spinning top. A small girl moving effortless through space. My thoughts drifting back in time as I watched her. Neelu says she remembers this place. How could you doubt it? Sister Nirma Rose looks on, delighted to meet Neelu, Shayne and I and show us Neelu's old home of three months. She was transfered from here to Delhi.
We go up into the Hospice where there are many mentally and physically disabled women. All rescued from the streets around the Hospice. They are given medical attention, a bed and three meals a day. The women are usually here until they die. Some are transfered to other Missionary places. Sister tells us the story of one girl as Neelu gently pushes a bangle over a badly damaged hand. She was found on the street, maggots falling out of the wounds of mangled fingers. She was brought in, taken to the hospital and lost all but her thumb and one finger. The doctors said she would not have lived much longer once her blood was infected. She is mentally challenged and has probably been living on the streets for years. Neelu is intrigued by her story and gives her another bangle.
We made our way back down to the courtyards and through the beautiful vegetable garden, we met a women who prayed over us as we stood under the shade of the verandah. She prayed and read from the Hindi script bible and as she did she seemed to go into a kind of trance and words became long elongated sounds, repeated. Then more words, then again the long repeated sounds. When she had finished praying over us she spoke to sister in Hindi and sister translated that we were a strong and connected family and that God told her we would be happy and wise and would not want for anything. Tears welled in Shayne's eyes and Neelu held her. I cast my eyes down and nodded slowly. Meeting her eyes occasionally I sensed a deep compassion, a strange enlivened conviction to the existence of an approachable god. Tears in my eyes from her beautiful words, I thanked her for the message and said we really aught to keep moving.
And so we left. Sister gave us her blessing and some picture cards of Mother Teresa over which Neelu said she would pray. (And she has.) and we said our goodbyes and made our way to the Gurudwhalla - a Sikh temple not far away - where we prayed some more and then we went back to the hugely over-priced, mafia run, "five star" hotel. Neelu talked a little about her birth mother when we got back, how she wants her to came and live with us. If only we could find her ? And I answered as best I could. We know so little. Her birth mother's name was Krista and I swallowed hard as we talked.
