Heights of ignorance . . . cont'd

I had quite a few people asking me where the incident mentioned in my previous post had happened. 

That's the most unfortunate part. 

The incident happened at a place called Lehelehe which is just beyond Satbarwa, which is our nearest village market. 

One more incident about a family which has been branded as having killed their neighbor by witchcraft has come to light. This is also at a place which is quite close to our hospital. 

Below is the newspaper clipping. 

The family is being boycotted by their fellow villagers on the orders of the local village government (The Panchayat). 

Another example of ignorance and the 'fear of the unknown'. 

The Occult . . . And Worse . . .

Below, is a clip of a news item published in our vernacular daily last week.

The translation is as follows -

It has been reported that a certain Mr. Mukhan Ram (55 years), a resident of Dharuwa village under Kanti Police Station was paraded in the village after having his hair tonsured. Mr. Mukhan Ram is a witch doctor by profession since the last 10 years.

The Panchayat had decided that Mr Mukhan should be punished in social, economic and psychological terms. In relation to the incident, villagers reported that the wedding of the daughter of a certain Umesh Ram took place on 23rd April. Mr. Mukhan had done a certain ritual during the wedding. After the ceremony, when the girl was leaving her house to her husband’s place, she had become unconscious. The girl’s father, Mr. Umesh Ram brought a new witch doctor for further ceremonies from Belchampa, Palamu. The new witch doctor proved by his magic powers that Mr. Mukhan Ram was responsible for the girl becoming unconscious after the wedding ceremony.

Mr. Mukhan Ram’s wife got into a fight with the family of the girl after hearing this. Mr. Umesh has demanded that Mr. Mukhan Ram pay up 25,000 INR which he had to spend towards getting his daughter alright after she had swooned during after the wedding ceremony. The Panchayat has given a time frame to Mr. Mukhan to pay up this amount.

Amazing, for two reasons -

1. First and foremost – the newspaper deciding to put this into print.

2. Second – to note that we continue to incidents like these in our country. Most probably, the girl would have too tired and probably hypoglycemic after the ‘long Indian wedding’ – and that was enough for a witch doctor to extract 25,000 INR from the family towards healing her . . .

My countrymen, we can only weep for our fellow brothers and sisters who are caught up in this mire of ignorance and sorcery . . . 

The Occult

SK's parents had a very peculiar request about 4 days back. Initially, they told that they wanted to take her to Ranchi. I knew that this was not going to happen as couple of her neighbours had informed me quite early that the family was too poor to even pay the medical bills at NJH.

I called the father separately. I asked him about the request to take to Ranchi. He told me that the family was planning to take SK home to die. But, he was also going to try out some black magic – called ‘jhad phuk’ in local terms by the witchdoctor called ‘ojha’.

It was unbelievable. But, true in rural areas in third world countries. After much persuasion, he agreed to allow us to try to save his daughter.

It is not uncommon to see new amulets being tied around patient’s wrists or put along with a necklace while they are still admitted in hospital.

Couple of photographs of patients with things tied around their bodies.

IK, who was clinically diagnosed to have encephalitis - he was too sick to be even taken elsewhere. He made a remarkable recovery. If you look carefully you can see one blue colored and a white colored thing tied over his left shoulder. IK's father had quite a lot of faith on the treatment we were giving him. Then, I asked him about the reason for the extra things which used to change almost every alternate day. IK's father would only giggle in reply.

I found this tied on AS's arm couple of hours after I had admitted him. I am sure that it was not there when he had come in. Unlike what I had expected, AS was taken to the nearest medical college hospital the next day morning. But, he passed away the very next day.

It is quite rare that we see patients especially with medical complaints who does not have one of these amulets tied around their neck or wrist. Many a time, especially with snake bites, they perform quite elaborate rituals before they bring the patients for treatment.

I'm not sure of having seen such practices in any other place to such an extent as I've been seeing here. I don't know about practices in other parts of the world.