In the Sundarbans, where distance is measured in water and delays can be deadly, a midwife’s reach can matter more than a hospital’s address.
When I arrived, Debola Mondol was securing bricks around the edge of a mosquito net in her small cowshed, pressing them down with the flat of a spade so the corners wouldn’t lift at night. The afternoon light was soft and golden, the kind that comes early in the Sundarbans, making the river seem wider and the forest closer.
She worked methodically, her hands moving as if memorized long ago. These were the same hands that, she told me, had delivered more than two thousand babies.
“I can’t sit still,” she said without looking up. “If I don’t work, my body becomes restless.”
In her early seventies, Debola measures time not by calendars but by life events—Independence, marriage, exile. She began her life as a daima, a traditional birth attendant, a few years after the war, when the country was learning to breathe again.
She estimates 54 years of delivering babies across the Sundarbans—Chunkuri, Harintana, Gholkhali, Bajua, Dhopadi—villages connected by water more than roads. In this coastal landscape, monsoons and salt-laden dry seasons make water both sustenance and threat. Rising salinity has been linked to pregnancy complications, while formal healthcare remains scarce, making experienced midwives like Debola essential.
“Earlier, pregnancies were strong. Now, with this water, women tire quickly, blood pressure rises, sometimes the child cannot survive. The water does that,” she said.
When a call comes at night, fear is irrelevant. Rivers are crossed by trawlers, sometimes in storms that erase the shoreline. Once, she rode a creaking van in heavy rain to a relative’s house near Chalna. “Dangers come,” she said. “You have to overcome them.”
Her equipment is minimal now. Years ago, the government supplied small essentials—blades, thread, antiseptic—but policies shifted toward institutional births. What remains is her experience: reading a laboring body, knowing when to wait, and when to act immediately.
“If I see I can’t manage, I take them to the hospital,” she said. The nearest reliable facilities are in Mongla or Khulna, hours away in the middle of the night. Sometimes the baby does not wait. Once, a baby was born by the roadside, under a torch, just as a hospital came into view. Debola quietly told the hospital the child was born en route—it was easier that way.
Births have also occurred on boats. Once, a girl arrived mid-tide on the Pashur River. The family, hoping for a boy, refused to go to the hospital. Debola’s improvisations are sometimes dictated by gender expectations. She described a mother intent on discarding a girl; Debola delivered a boy, hid him, and whispered the truth to the grandfather.
For her work, Debola earns little—commonly 500 taka, sometimes gifts of cloth, plates, or glasses. Today, she wears one of those gifts, an orange saree.
Her first delivery was for Ajit Pakhi’s son; the baby is now middle-aged and living in India. Her most recent delivery was just days ago. Calls continue, though her movements are slower now.
Debola was married at eleven, lived in India in 1978, and returned shortly after independence. Her husband, Nirode Mondol, a postmaster, supported her work. Together, they raised four children, each of whom she delivered herself.
Formal training came later, in Banishanta, taught by a woman named Regina with government support. “After I had already started,” she recalled.
The tradition of home births is fading. Younger women prefer hospitals, and hospitals favor C-sections. Debola is blunt: “They cut. They inject the spine. The pain stays for life.” In villages, mothers lie down for a week, cared for by their households—a practice that doesn’t translate easily into policy.
When people recognize her in the village, calling her Grandma, Aunt, or Sister, she notices, sometimes smiles, but mostly continues her work.
As evening fell, she returned to her bricks, ensuring the mosquito net was tight.
“You have to go into people’s danger,” she said. “To be a friend in danger—you have to go.”
Over more than half a century, Debola has answered countless calls. In the streets, mothers point to grown children: “Look, Didi, your hands brought this child into the world. See how they’ve grown.” She nods, sometimes smiles, but too many faces now exist to remember all. Too many lives that once fit briefly into her palms.
