Cotton Bark Sachets Symbol Analysis

“The morphine shouldn’t interfere with what you gave her. But we'll need antibiotics to fight the infection.” Dr. Kumar's cautious eyes explored my hands, my face, my hair. I noticed threads of silver in his dark curls, a freckle above his upper lip. “Do you really think, Mrs. Shastri, that you can cure a woman's…problems…with herbs?”

“When a woman has no other options, yes.”

“This woman would have had options.”

“She didn't think so.”

“How was that possible? She's English. She has all the options in the world. A hospital for whites, for one.”

“And if the baby's father is Indian?”

Day after day, I worked alongside her to heal women—most were children still, twenty years old or younger, bodies weak from too many births, too many of them rough. Their days were filled with worry about how to feed their brood; at night they prayed their husbands would come home from labor too tired to add to their troubles. One day Saasuji taught me to prepare the contraceptive tea. And I realized that cotton root bark could change a woman's life: she could choose for herself.

That was what I wanted: a life that could fulfill me in a way that children wouldn't. From that day, I hoarded all the knowledge my mother-in-law could give me. Let her be the rolling pin that shapes a ball of chappati. Almost overnight, my world grew large with possibility.

I shook my head. “You think it's that easy? This house took thirteen years of hard work and Yes, Ji and No, Ji and Whatever you say, Ji. You'll never have to do that if you go to that school. You have many years in which to have a child, after you finish school. […] You can be something better than a henna artist. Better than me. You can have a meaningful life.” The water was almost boiling. “Just—please help me find the cotton root bark.”

Her voice trembled. “He said I was just another cheap pair of hands to you. Your business only took off after I arrived. You told me yourself you booked more appointments now because of my henna. If that's true, then why can't you trust me to think for myself? […] It doesn't matter how hard I work, how much I do. You'll never have faith in me!”

“You’re the one who let it happen.” He frowned. “She’s your sister.”

“And your son? Who’s responsible for him?”

He turned away, studied the carpet, smoked. “Can’t you get rid of it? I mean, isn’t that what we pay you for? To take care of this kind of thing?”

[…] Of course, I’d already suggested terminating the pregnancy. But coming from Samir, it sounded heartless. Is this how I’d sounded to my sister?

I looked down at my hands, rubbed them together. “I offered her my sachets, but she said no. She thinks Ravi is going to marry her.

“Rubbish! He knows better than that.”

“Does he?” I frowned at him. “As is the king so are his subjects.” As soon as I said the proverb, I knew it was true. There had been servant girls in Samir’s past, too.

I rose from the bench, consumed with loathing for him and for myself. What light work I had made of infidelity, for him and his friends to cheat on their wives for ten years! I'd helped them discard their mistresses’ pregnancies as easily as they discarded the lint in their trouser pockets. I had justified it by treating it as a business transaction. To me each sale had been nothing more than another coat of plaster or another section of terrazzo for my house. At least when I made sachets for the courtesans, I had done so for women who had been raised to be prostitutes, who needed to make a living from their bodies without the interruption of pregnancies.

“As I've repeatedly stated in my letters, I'm most interested in learning about the herbal therapies with which you've had so much experience. Perhaps a belated apology is not entirely out of order—I refer to the cotton root bark. It's worrisome that the hill people of the Himalayas rely solely on folk remedies when they could come to Lady Bradley for medical treatment. Yesterday I saw a little Gaddi boy along the Mall with severe dermatitis, which his mother told me she'd been treating with tulsi powder. Obviously, it wasn't helping. She refused to try the antiseptic ointment I suggested, even after I volunteered to bring it for her the next day. Perhaps you have an herbal recommendation that might prove useful? Your thoughts on the matter would be most welcome…

I look forward to your next letter and your suggestions for bridging the gap between old world and new world medicine.”