Another Side of Mysore

Today was completely different.
Today, instead of getting up and lounging by the pool, I shadowed a Saint as she did her daily routine.

The home of the destitute

A single corridor extended from a roomy foyer with a television. Upon the Saint's entrance, the tenants transferred their attention from the program to a repeat-after-me prayer in Kannada. Caught off guard, my two fellow trainees and I quickly clasped our hands together. A touch to the forehead and blessing was administered to the more vigilant at the prayer mimicry, and one received a short english lesson.

"Jesus, I love you!" the Saint enunciated slowly.
"Jesus, eywe ou," the student offered.

It is a home for somewhere between 25-40 of the dying and the forgotten, run by 4 Sisters of some German-originated Order. The Saint continued her blessing of song and touch down the corridor as I watched faces brighten. The old, the polio-deformed, the burned, the disfigured, the aids victims. The Saint said later their time is very short in that corridor.
Peter should be an exception. At the age of 18, he became paralyzed after falling from a construction site. 3 years later, he lays on a donated waterbed watching the high turnover around him. The Saint has raised money for him to live elsewhere, but in this polychronistic culture, that might not be soon.

The nicer home of the old

Compared to the first location, the Little Sisters of the Poor home for the elderly was a resort. The 25 nuns and 25 workers kept the place spotless. The tenants were happy and well-fed. International funding plays an influence.

The home of the guilty until proven innocent

This was the hardest part of my day.
The Saint had received prior written permission to bring up to six charity workers from one of the wardens she has become friends with. Whether these charity workers were defined as being Americans, I don't know, but the Saint entered and we had to wait at the gate for 10 minutes before being allowed to enter, sans cellphones and cameras. The nervousness about our visit was understood soon after entering. After all, they wouldn't want anyone blogging to the world about their prison conditions.
We were accompanied by the female warden who signed our permission to enter. The prison contains just over 1000 inmates; she led us to the female hold, containing about 80 women and children.

Now, an aside.
The "Dowry Death Law" was enacted in the 1980s to prevent the horrible trend of the husband's family harassing the new bride for a greater dowry. When these demands aren't met, there are many cases of the bride being burned alive, allowing for another marriage and another dowry. The law states if a bride dies within the first 7 years of marriage due to the in-laws, the husband's family is to be imprisoned for minimum 7 years, maximum life. The Saint told us in many cases of natural death the bride's family has made this accusation and therefore there are many families in the prisons. Sadly, by these accounts, this replaced one tragic event with another.
Getting a trial in India can take around 5 years.
Those with life sentences or scheduled for the death penalty wear white tunics or saris.

We entered a courtyard of high, white cement walls. The ground was mostly the same material, with some shrub-ish trees interspersed. On the paved surface were sticks of incense: the warden responded that the workers get Rs. 10 for every 1000 sticks they make. I worked it out later that labor costs are just less than 0.9% of the selling cost of government incense.

There were four cells with iron-bar doors facing the courtyard, each containing around 20 inmates. Many of the women were in white. The warden opened the first cell, and we entered after the Saint. The floor space was just enough for each resident to lay a single bed mat. I swallowed hard, hardly comprehending the reality that these women faced. It didn't matter if they deserved their sentence, though I'm sure most did not. Time just stopped and I just stared.
The Saint asked everyone to sit, and then she began to sing, "God's love is wonderful..." We knew the words by now, and singing along would have been a supportive and ideal choice. A large portion of the inmates knew the song, too. I opened my mouth and joined in, however after a few unintentionally vibratic pitches I was unable to continue.
After singing, we passed out small biscuit packages the Saint had purchased. I gave two to a woman holding a child.

The home of the innocent

The final stop was the orphanage at St. Philomena's church. The Saint pulled out a tin of hard candy and handed it to me. I hoped this would make the kids like me, but it turned out the innocent needed no such bribe. This was home to 47 young boys who happily sang along to the Saint's songs, like the disfigured, elderly, and incarcerated before them. Other than the giddy, sugar-driven screams, there was something exciting about this place. Here was the less-fortunately born receiving food, shelter, and schooling; here was hope.