Page:Shubala - a child-mother (IA shubalachildmoth00soraiala).pdf/17

 upon it was their chief concern, so they plastered great heavy daubs of lamp-black beneath the eyes. Incidentally they soaked it in mustard oil. I had to plead hard to get it a bath. Their way of attending to certain necessary surgical duties demanded by a one-day's infant, is too terrible to describe.

Nor when the days of purification were over, did better chance of life await the child.

And the thing to remember is that there was no lack of love, nor was there lacking Mother instinct and intelligence.

But these things were of little avail, when set against the fact that both ignorance and custom had bandaged the eyes, and tied the hands of the women. Even should a Mother feel "I might do so and so," in the houses of the most Orthodox, there would always be some one to say, "You shall not: that is not the custom."

Shubala was absolutely ignorant about