Chapter 13
Chapter 13
Child-Stealing Amma
Iyer Walker, Amy, and the Starry Cluster had been working in and around the village of Dohnavur for nearly a year. They had intended to spend only three months in the area while Iyer Walker taught a small group of Bible students, but the three months had been stretched and stretched. And there was plenty to do. Dohnavur was a ramshackle little village that lay in the center of a densely populated area. From the village, the Starry Cluster fanned out through the countryside sharing the gospel message and meeting the usual mixed reactions from people. But after a year away, it was time for them all to head back home to Pannaivilai.
The trip back to Pannaivilai took them right past the village of Great Lake, from which Jewel of Victory had escaped. In the very early morning of March 6, 1902, long, long before the sun was due to rise, they were on the final leg of their journey home. (They were able to travel at night now because word had got around that the women of the Starry Cluster wore no jewelry and so were not worth robbing.) Their bandy lumbered slowly past the gates of Great Lake, and thankfully the darkness hid them from the sleeping inhabitants of the village. None of them, though, neither the Starry Cluster nor the village inhabitants, had any idea of what else the darkness around Great Lake was hiding.
Preena was a seven-year-old girl who lived in the Hindu temple house in Great Lake village. She had been given to the temple by her mother to be used as a prostitute. Preena’s father was dead, and her mother had given Preena to the temple to try to win some favor from the Hindu gods. Once, when Preena was five, soon after she’d arrived at the temple, she had escaped and had run all the way back to her mother’s house, twenty miles away. She was sure her mother would be glad to see her again. But she was wrong. To take Preena back now would be to steal from the Hindu gods, and so when some temple women arrived in search of Preena, the mother willingly turned over her terrified daughter to them. When they got back to the temple, Preena’s hands were burned with red hot irons as a reminder that she should never again try to run away.
Two years had passed since that time, and Preena had now found out something that terrified her. She was about to be “married” to the gods in a ceremony. She didn’t know exactly what that meant, but the idea filled her with dread. But there was no way to escape; she was watched all day long and locked up at night. In desperation she threw herself down in front an idol and begged to die. She didn’t die, but the next day one of the older women in the temple house told her about the child-stealing Amma. To show her how safe she was inside the temple and how grateful she should be to live there, the woman told Preena scary stories about Amma and her band of followers. But the stories had the opposite effect on Preena! She began to think there was an Amma out there who would take her away and hide her. How wonderful that would be if she could just find this child-stealing Amma! Preena would gladly take her chances with her and her band of followers rather than stay and be married to a god.
And so, the very night the Starry Cluster was passing by Great Lake village, Preena became strangely alert in the middle of the night. She sat up on her sleeping mat with a sense that something was about to happen. Quietly she crept to the door. She pushed it lightly. Amazingly, it swung open. It was never left unlocked at night. A moment of doubt passed through Preena’s mind. Was this a trick to see whether she still wanted to run away? She looked back at the other sleeping girls in the room and gathered her courage. Placing each foot deliberately, she stepped out of the room and into the courtyard. Once again she found a door unexplainably open. She looked around for any sign of the night watchman. He was not around, so she crept out of the temple grounds and into the street. She started to run, faster and faster, out of the village and toward the bridge that led to Pannaivilai. She followed the exact same route Jewel of Victory had taken when she had fled to be with Amy four years earlier. And like Jewel of Victory before her, once she reached Pannaivilai, Preena didn’t know where to go. Out of breath from all her running, she walked around until she came to the local Christian church.
She stood in the darkness outside the church and patiently waited for something to happen. After a while something did happen. Even though it was very late, a Christian woman whose name in English was Servant of Jesus came out of the church. She saw Preena and knew immediately she belonged in the temple. But Servant of Jesus didn’t want to cross the bridge in the dark and take Preena back to where she belonged, so she took her home for the night. She planned to return her to the temple first thing in the morning. But Preena would not sleep. She kept telling Servant of Jesus she would not go back to the temple and that she needed to find the child-stealing Amma.
Servant of Jesus didn’t know what to do. She knew that Amy and the Starry Cluster were not at home; they had been away for a year. Obviously, it was going to take quite a bit of effort to get the stubborn little girl back to the temple. Even though Servant of Jesus was a Christian, the thought of keeping Preena and not sending her back to the Hindu temple never even entered her mind. Sheltering a child who belonged in the temple would almost surely get her killed.
By morning, Servant of Jesus had been worn down by Preena’s nagging to see the child-stealing Amma. Even though she had told the girl over and over that Amma was away on a trip, Preena would not believe it. So at 6:30 in the morning, to prove her point, Servant of Jesus took Preena to the house where the Starry Cluster lived to show her that no one was there. To her utter amazement, a bandy was standing in front of the house, and Amy herself was sitting on the veranda drinking tea. Preena let go of Servant of Jesus’ hand and ran up the steps. She climbed straight into Amy’s lap and threw her arms around her neck. It was as if they were long lost friends. Amy didn’t know what was going on, but she knew in her lap was a little girl who needed her love. So she threw her arms around Preena and held her close. Servant of Jesus told Amy all she knew about Preena, which was not very much.
Of course, the temple women soon came to claim her, but if there was one thing Preena knew, it was that she would not go back to the temple. She stood in front of the hundred or so people who had gathered to witness the confrontation between Amy and the temple women and boldly told them she would not return to the temple; she belonged with the Starry Cluster now. After many days of harassment, the temple women finally retreated. They promised to return with Preena’s mother and get her back, but for some reason her mother would not come. No one else from the temple came back, either. And so the matter was settled, and Amy had a seven-year-old girl to teach and love.
Another event at this time brought even more happiness to Amy and the women of the Starry Cluster. It was Arulai’s baptism. It had been more than two years since Arulai had set down her water jar to listen to the Starry Cluster sing and preach on the streets of her village. Now, finally, her father had given his permission for her to be baptized. A very tolerant Hindu man might allow a female in his family to read a Bible; he might even allow her to pray a little; but to be baptized was different. To a Hindu, baptism marked the point of no return. It was the total, final way to break caste. And yet Arulai’s father had given his approval for his daughter’s baptism. Amy was truly amazed.
After a year away from Pannaivilai, it was a glorious return. The very morning Amy arrived back, God had led a small child out of the temple right into Amy’s lap. And now Arulai had been baptized with the full permission of her father. These were things Amy had been praying about for a long time. But soon afterwards, they came dangerously close to being undone.
Arul Dasan, Arulai’s cousin, had joined the men’s equivalent of the Starry Cluster which Iyer Walker had formed. After Arulai’s baptism, Iyer Walker felt strongly that Arulai and her cousin should have the opportunity to visit with their families, and so he set about making the arrangements. Fortunately, he knew one of the chief elders of the village, a man with considerable authority. The man was old now, but in earlier years he had turned to an Englishman for help with a situation. As a result, he was open to helping other English people in return for the kindness and favor that had been shown him. Iyer Walker met with the old man, who gave his word the children would be safe if they came to visit their families again.
Unfortunately, the old man had underestimated the anger of the people in the village toward Christians. No sooner had the bandy carrying Arulai, her cousin, and Iyer Walker entered the village than a riot broke out. The bandy was tipped on its side and the driver dragged out and beaten with sticks. Iyer Walker was abused and pelted with rocks. In the midst of all the confusion, the two children disappeared. As rocks bounced off him, Iyer Walker prayed hard. Without some help, it seemed unlikely that he or the driver would make it out of the village alive, and certainly not with the children.
Suddenly, everything fell silent. The rocks stopped crashing against Iyer Walker, and the sticks stopped pounding on the driver. All eyes turned in the direction of a man standing under a nearby veranda. Iyer Walker recognized the man as the son of the village elder. With all the authority of his father, he barked out orders, and amazingly, the crowd obeyed. Most were told to leave the area, which they quickly did. Then another man appeared, holding Arulai and Arul Dasan roughly by the back of their clothes. He let the children go, and they came running back to Iyer Walker. The young man ordered the bandy to be tipped back upright. Iyer Walker hurriedly loaded the children into the back of the uprighted bandy and guarded them from behind. The driver dragged himself from the ground where he lay bleeding and crawled into the front of the bandy. The young man waved them on. The driver flicked his whip, and the oxen turned slowly and headed out the village gate.
When they got back to Pannaivilai, Amy was shocked by what had happened. She had thought they had a good relationship with Arulai’s father in particular and that he would be glad to see his daughter. Amy was still learning just how much every aspect of Hindu life was ruled by caste. As it turned out, when Arulai’s father gave his permission for her to be baptized it meant he was washing his hands of her completely. Attempting to get Arulai and him to talk to each other was impossible. It would be breaking caste for him to even acknowledge he had a Christian daughter.
Fortunately, no permanent harm was done by the “visit,” and both of the children were safe. Neither Amy nor Iyer Walker knew it at the time, but both Arulai and her cousin, Arul Dasan, would play vital roles in the amazing events that were just beginning to unfold around them. All Amy knew at that moment was that she had a feeling something big was going to happen. She just didn’t know what it was.