Author: Padmasuri
Publisher: Windhorse/Prakash
Year: 1997
Language: English
Pages: 193
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0 904766 85 3
Description
In 1982 Padmasuri, an English nurse and midwife, arrived in an Indian shanty town to help establish a medical project. Padmasuri was a Buddhist whose teacher had worked at the heart of the mass conversion movement when millions of' untouchable' Hindus turned to Buddhism. Now she was to see for herself the realities of life for people whose mere touch was regarded by tradition as spiritually polluting. As a women she was to witness the further degradation of half that community, locked as they were in a blatantly patriarchal society.
Perhaps surprisingly, her response to these realities to give up nursing in favor of teaching Buddhism. This narrative charts her progress as helps her fiends discover dignity, strength, and freedom on the Buddhist path of individual and social transformation.
Padmasuri's story is crammed with fascinating insight into the lives of the world's most oppressed people. It takes us beyond the statistics of human suffering to meet some ordinary and extraordinary individuals who have begun to remake their lives.
Contents
ACTION
Miss Bennet's Bangles
Welcome to Poona
Namaste, Sister
Life is Frail
A Woman's Place
The Backward Half-Look
Holy Matrimony
REFLECTION
The Lucky Hotel
Woman on the Wall
In the Fullness of Youth
Alone in the Tushita Heaven
Where the Three alleys Meet
Through Jaundiced Eyes
FICTION
Shobha - A Story
COMMUNICATION
The Madhouse at Phaltan
Who Let Down the Great Golden Bucket
Born Untouchables
TRANSFORMATION
The Maharashtra Express
Garlands of Marigolds
Beneath the New Moon
Open is the Going Forth
The Way to Baja
Going for Refuge
A Delightful Friendship.