Bastar Dispatches by Narendra

Author:Narendra
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
Published: 2018-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

24

Healing a Sin

I AM DEEPLY INDEBTED to Astu, a traditional healer, for his keen understanding of the natural world. It was with his help that my own understanding of traditional healing was gradually transformed from a concern with healing techniques to a deeper pondering of the relation between healing and landscape.

I had first met him at a village during his wanderings. Since I am not good in Halbi1 and he in Hindi our conversations have at times been haphazard; nevertheless, it is rare that either has missed the other’s point. I remember my first sight of him. An illiterate man of about fifty, he was wearing a half-sleeved shirt, at the back of which was printed in bold what at one time must have been ‘IMF’ (International Monetary Fund). Upon inquiry about the shirt he said it was a banner he had plucked down from a conference he had wandered into somewhere in Baster, given to his tailor friend who made ‘this fine shirt for me’.

Ever disdainful to this day, Astu does not know what IMF is; nor did I ever tell him. He remains absorbed in his conversations and rituals with stones, spirits and snakes: all for healing the afflicted. Occasionally, he brings them up in our conversations. Like all healers, Astu does not look upon himself as a healer. He is a healer for the villagers, and spoken of as such. Healers treating through incantations rarely dwell at the heart of their village; rather, their dwellings are usually at the periphery. In a quintessential sense, his place is at the edge, mediating between the human community and beings upon which the village depends for its nurturance. Lands are deep mysteries – gods, spirits, ancestors, plants, animals, forests and winds. The healer looks upon it as his business to keep the relationship balanced and reciprocal; ensuring that the village never takes more than it has to offer back. The returning is not just material, but as much in prayers, propitiations and praise.

Sagar, an enthusiastic young man from Delhi, had come to Bastar to work with a social work group. His friend Ajay had accompanied him for a short visit before taking up teaching at the Raj Kumar College, Raipur.2 Both were attending a conclave of traditional healers of north Bastar, held sometime in 2007 at village Salehbhat.

It had rained heavily the night after the meeting. I had gone to Kanker that evening. Sagar, Ajay and a few others had stayed back owing to lack of transport. Next morning Ajay lay in fever. He was taking some pills he carried. Apparently, they were not working much. Fever kept returning. Astu was not paying much attention. For understandable reasons Ajay was relying more on his pills. Next day the fever was quite high. He had to be carried to the Civil Hospital, Kanker, 18 km away. Equipped with examination reports and medicines he was back at Salehbhat by the afternoon. By the evening the temperature had risen still higher. That the doctor’s medicine was not working was worrying enough for us.

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