Chapter XLIII
Crossing the Border
We have now arrived at the beginning of November 1913. But before we proceed, it will be well to take note of two events. Bai Fatma Mehtab of Durban could no longer be at peace when the Tamilian sisters received sentences of imprisonment in Newcastle. She therefore left for Volksrust to court arrest along with her mother Hanifabai and seven years old son. Mother and daughter were arrested but the Government declined to arrest the boy. Fatma Bai was called upon to give her finger impressions at the charge office but she fearlessly refused to submit to the indignity. Eventually she and her mother were sent to prison for three months (October 13, 1913).
The labourers’ strike was in full swing at this time. Men as well as women were on the move between themining district and Charlestown. Of these, there were two women with their little ones one of whom died of exposure on the march. The other fell from the arms of its mother while she was crossing a spruit and was drowned. But the brave mothers refused to be dejected and continued their march. One of them said, ‘We must not pine for the dead who will not come back to us for all our sorrow. It is the living for whom we must work.’ I have often among the poor come across such instances of quiet heroism, sterling faith and saving knowledge.
The men and women in Charlestown held to their difficult post of duty in such a stoical spirit. For it was no mission of peace that took us to that border village. If any one wanted peace, he had to search for it within. Outwardly the words ‘there is no peace here’ were placarded everywhere, as it were. But it is in the midst of such storm that a devotee like Mirabai takes the cup of poison to her lips with cheerful equanimity, that
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