Paul Brand: Helping Hands

Upon arrival at Vellore, Paul unloaded his belongings outside the home of an American couple, Jack and Naomi Carman. Jack was head surgeon at the hospital, and he and his wife had the task of welcoming new doctors and helping them adjust to life in India.

The next day Paul set to work. He was amazed at the number of people who streamed through the hospital gates seeking medical attention. What was even more amazing than the numbers of people was their diversity. Paul saw men in business suits standing in line alongside beggars in loincloths, well-groomed women in immaculate saris, and women from the countryside clad in little more than rags. Children were everywhere. It was quite a sight to behold and, Paul realized, a tribute to the vision of Dr. Ida Scudder in founding an institution that ministered to the medical needs of the diverse Indian population.

Paul noticed one man amid the crowd waiting to be seen by hospital staff. The man waited patiently in line holding up his left arm and hand as if he were a policeman stopping traffic. When Paul inquired as to who the man was and why he was holding up his arm and hand, the man explained that he was a fakir, or holy man, and that fifteen years before he had made a religious vow never to lower his arm again and use it. As a result, his joints had fused and his muscles had atrophied. A nurse explained that the man was at the hospital not because of his fused arm but to seek treatment for a peptic ulcer. Paul walked away wondering how anyone could believe that his god would want him to give up the use of his arm and hand.

Jack Carman was not only the head surgeon at the hospital but also the only surgeon, and he was very glad when Paul arrived. It was decided that Paul would specialize in orthopedic surgery at Vellore, since he’d had some experience back in London.

Paul was kept busy in the operating theater attended by a contingent of nurses and assistants. Some of the operations he performed could take up to twelve hours, and by the time he was finished, his clothes were completely saturated with perspiration. Neither the hospital nor the operating theaters were air-conditioned, and in the hot season the temperature in Vellore could soar to 110 degrees Fahrenheit and beyond. Even though ceiling fans were fitted to the operating theaters, Paul would not allow them to be used while he operated for fear that they might blow contaminated dust and other particles into the incision. Despite the oppressive heat, Paul was eager to perform surgeries.

Paul also kept busy teaching a class at the medical college on surgical techniques. And then there was the blood bank. The hospital at Vellore was growing and preparing to undertake more advanced types of surgery. Part of this involved developing a blood bank with a ready supply of blood on hand. Paul threw his energy into this effort. From his time saving lives in hospitals in London during the war, he knew how important blood transfusions were. Paul helped to devise procedures to sterilize the blood after it was collected to ensure that it did not contain dangerous pathogens, such as bacteria and the hepatitis virus.

All this was easy. The challenge for Paul and the other doctors was getting Indians to donate blood. In Indian culture, blood was considered as important as one’s life, and no one in his right mind would give away his lifeblood to save another life, even if that person was his child or spouse. The situation frustrated the doctors. A doctor would explain the need for life-saving blood to be donated by a relative of someone who needed surgery, and invariably the relatives would refuse. On one occasion Dr. Reeves Betts, a new arrival at Vellore from Boston, got so frustrated by the refusal of relatives of a girl needing emergency chest surgery that he rolled up his sleeve and called for Paul to drain off some of his own blood.

Paul immediately sized up Dr. Bett’s ploy and played right into it, putting a cuff on the doctor’s upper arm, inserting a needle into his vein, and then draining his blood into a bottle. Paul had collected a half pint of blood before two of the girl’s uncles stepped forward and offered to donate. Paul quickly collected two pints of blood, and Reeves got to work operating on the young girl.

The ploy had worked, but Paul knew that Dr. Betts or any other doctor in the hospital couldn’t keep giving a half pint of his or her blood to shame relatives into donating theirs. He came to realize that practicing medicine in India offered great opportunity to save lives and reduce people’s levels of pain and suffering, but it was not without its challenges.

Paul had been at Vellore only a few days when he took off his shoes and threw them into the closet. From now on he was going to go barefoot or wear sandals. He had done so as a boy, and now as a grown man in India, he would do the same.

As the weeks flew by at the Christian Medical College and Hospital, Paul hardly noticed the turmoil that had engulfed the northern regions of India. The country was on the verge of civil war in the north as Indians pushed for independence from Great Britain. Hindus and Muslims clashed over having their own independent nations, and protests and riots took place in northern cities, such as Calcutta and Delhi, where hundreds of Hindus and Muslims were killed. It was a bitter dispute that almost went unnoticed in the south, where things remained calm and peaceful.

In fact, the only time Paul really thought about India’s problems was when he’d get a letter from Margaret. Between stories of the children, Margaret asked questions about the wisdom and safety of their all joining him in India. Paul found this confusing, and he wrote back explaining that Vellore was one of the most wonderful, peaceful places on earth and was just where God wanted them to be. Apparently his assurances were not enough for Margaret, because in late May, just two weeks before she and the children were due to sail from England, Paul received an odd telegram: “Is it really safe for us to come now? Margaret.”

Puzzled by the telegram, Paul set out to get to the bottom of the situation. That was when he became aware of the volatile, civil war–like situation that existed in the north. When he read some of the headlines reported in the newspapers back in England, he understood his wife’s concerns. He felt crushed. Why hadn’t he taken the questions in Margaret’s letters more seriously? Now it was too late. Given the political situation that existed, Paul did not have the heart to insist that his wife come to India when all she had been reading about the country for weeks back in England had been negative. He decided that it would make more sense for him to finish out the year at Vellore and return to England and discuss the situation in person with Margaret. Reluctantly he sent her a telegram: “Better you don’t come now. I will return in March.”

With a heavy heart that he would not be seeing his wife and children for at least another six months, Paul returned to work, trying to banish thoughts of how happy he would have been to have had Margaret at his side once again. He waited for a letter from his wife, but one did not come. Then, to his surprise, Paul was handed another telegram on June 15, 1947. He hardly dared to open it. Had something happened to one of the children? He unfolded the page and read. “Onboard the Strathmore. Arriving Bombay as planned. Margaret.”

Paul let out a whoop of joy as he read the words. Margaret was coming after all! The telegram had been sent from Port Said, Egypt. Margaret was already on her way.

That afternoon Paul asked for time off to travel to Bombay to meet his family. Once in Bombay he bounded up the gangway and onto the Strathmore, eager to see his family once again. Now Paul could introduce them to the country he loved so much.

Chapter 9
A Fog Lifted

On board the Strathmore Paul engulfed Margaret in a huge hug and stood back to survey the children. “What’s this?” he teased. “A band of refugees?”

Paul had to admit that they did look like a dejected group. Christopher and Jean were covered with heat rash and boils, and Margaret looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes. Paul reached out to hold Jean, who, not recognizing him, wailed and clung to her mother.

Margaret explained that it had been a hot and arduous journey from England. The children had been sick, and Margaret was looking forward to getting to Vellore to rest.

Vellore was a grueling two-and-a-half-day train trip away. Paul was grateful that his cousin Monica Harris had been traveling on the same ship and had been able to assist Margaret with the children throughout the voyage. Monica was returning to her mission station in southern India and would be traveling with the Brands for the first two days of the journey. Paul hoped that she would assist him with the children on the journey and give Margaret some time to relax.

The train trip was every bit as arduous for his wife and children as Paul thought it would be. He noticed that Margaret found it difficult to deal with the Indians who swarmed around wanting to touch Christopher and Jean. Paul knew that those reaching out to squeeze the cheeks of his children meant well, but he was glad when Monica instructed them in perfect Tamil to stand back and give the family some room. As if people swarming around them was not enough, the hot season had begun and the furnace-like wind that blew into the window of the carriage made the ride almost unbearable.

At noon on June 29, 1947, the Brand family arrived in Vellore. They moved in with Jack and Naomi Carman until Margaret and the children could get acclimated to India and they could move into a place of their own. Soon, however, Paul could see that Margaret was still exhausted and having a hard time adjusting to the stifling heat of Vellore. He decided to take action.

“We must get you away to the hills,” Paul said to Margaret as he scooped up three-year-old Christopher in his arms. “It will be cooler there, and we can all get used to being a family again.” He could see the glimmer of relief in his wife’s eyes.

Paul arranged to go up to the hill country station of Kotagiri in the Nilgiri Hills, where it was much cooler than on the plains and where most European mothers and their children spent the worst of the hot season.

Although Margaret wanted to do what she could to help the hospital at Vellore, she had not signed on as a doctor. As the spouse of a doctor, she was free to spend time settling the children into their newly adopted country.

The Brands loaded themselves onto a train for an overnight trip west to the foothills of the mountains of southern India. Once there, they boarded a bus for the drive up into the mountains to Kotagiri. Upon their arrival they moved into a small bungalow owned by the Kotagiri Medical Fellowship. When they were settled, Paul’s mother, Granny Brand, visited them. Paul was struck by how much energy his mother still had as she spoke of the joy she found in assisting in the mobile eye clinics in Madras.

After a week at Kotagiri, Paul realized that Margaret and the children were not yet rested enough to endure the humid, rainy, hot season on the plains. He arranged for them to stay longer in Kotagiri while he returned to his duties at the hospital in Vellore. They could stay on in the bungalow if Margaret would help out at the Kotagiri Medical Fellowship, which consisted of a small hospital, a dispensary, and village clinics.

The situation was not ideal, but Paul felt much better knowing that his wife and children were only a two days’ journey away instead of half a world away. He had been living and working at Vellore for over six months and felt very much a part of the place. He could hardly wait until Margaret and the children were rested enough to join him in Vellore and they could move into their own place. In their four years of marriage, he and Margaret had not lived together as a unit.

On August 14, 1947, several weeks after Paul arrived back at Vellore from Kotagiri, news came that the British government had announced the partitioning of British India along religious lines into two separate nations. East and West Pakistan would be Muslim, and India would be Hindu. Paul hoped that this would bring an end to the political turmoil in the country, but instead it led to more violent clashes between Muslims and Hindus. Even so, with the two countries now established and independent, Paul thought it would be a matter of time before things worked themselves out. Besides, most of the violence and civil unrest in the nation seemed to bypass Vellore and much of South India.