Perfect Babies

A sign on the wall reads "19 girls and 7 boys - total 26." A room full of tiny beds. Beds full of 26 babies. Some so tiny that they should not yet be in this world on their own. So tiny that their bodies still need to be made; with lips not yet closed and noses with no holes. They are so tiny that I dare not even stand too close. I don't want to bring them any of the diseases from the 'world' which they are not yet meant to be in. There are no incubators. There are no doctors. There is just “God's Will” which to my atheist logic means natural selection without the benefit of medical evolution. Others are more fortunate – they are in a limbo – not necessarily receiving the medical attention they need but in a clean bed with nutritious food; these are the babies whose destitute mothers have brought them to Shishu Bhavan in order to give them the strength which simply is not possible when you live on the streets. The mothers which I have met look much younger than me; they also look far far too thin for the new mothers which they are. But they come to visit their growing babies, holding them and hugging them, and sometimes taking them to Mass. Waiting until they are 'strong' enough to return to their homes on the streets or in the slums. Then there are the bigger babies. Babies that were born healthy but were born with imperfections. Imperfections that might cost the already poor parents too much. A trip to the hospital? Several trips to the hospital? Problems working? Trouble for their new baby girl to find a husband twenty years from now? Babies whose family decided that “survival of the fittest” was within their power to decide and who did not take their babies from the street but left them there.

I pick up a hand. It has fingers but the fingers are one. The toes the same – skin connecting skin. The little baby enjoys my touch and giggles like a baby giggles – noisily and bubbly. One small operation will 'save' her life and give her back to the world. I ask about her parents “she has none” I am told – at least none that want her. I walk past the 'healthy' babies – the 'lucky' ones. The ones who were just given away, or left on the street, or found by police men. The babies who are physically and mentally 'perfect' and therefore (unlike Gita) have more chance of growing up outside of this orphanage and most likely outside of India.

I stand over the cot of a baby who has little chance of living beyond this month. The baby is Screaming. Tears chase each other down her cheek. I start talking to her. Trying to soothe her. Trying to tell her she is not alone. Her body is tiny. Her legs only bone. No 'baby fat' for this 'baby' is a hydrocephalus baby. Her head is so enormous she looks like she has been invaded by a force far greater than her skull can deal with. Her head has incisions down the sides to try and let this force out – this force of liquid which has swollen her head to much larger than mine. I wish she could cry it all out. Her hand is wrapped in bandages with a key for an intravenous drip. The bandages weigh her hand down, fixing it to her cot. Her tears begin to slow. Her eyes are focused on a poster above the door. It is of three teddy bears. I keep talking. “Mummy bear, Daddy bear and Baby bear” I say. Perhaps she is not looking at the poster. Her dilated iris's even seem to have sunk to the bottom of her eyes. She seems to be staring right through me. I gingerly pick up the sheet she has kicked off and place it back over her tiny legs the length of my hand. “Those legs are too skinny to be naked” I tell her. She kicks them off again. “Bye bye beautiful” I whisper to her; beautiful because of the life which is within her, which is her, which after an incredible eight months she is still fighting for everyday - Life which I wish she could feel. And then; I leave her - to the bears and to her tears.