KOCHI:If you google ‘Daya Bai,’ you are likely to find out that she is a social worker. But, she is not your ‘typical social activist’- she neither wears silk sarees and chunky jewellery nor takes part in posh parties to socialise with high-class officials. Instead, she can be found working tirelessly alongside tribal people in Madhya Pradesh, wearing what they wear and speaking what they yearn to say. She shocks the public and officials alike with her incredible knowledge of the rights that her people deserve and her effortless handling of English and Hindi.Born as Mercy Mathew into a joint family in Kerala, Daya Bai (or Deedi, as she is fondly called) set out to become a nun and joined a missionary in Bihar. But, the moment she realised the slicing disparity that existed between the lives within and beyond the walls of the missionary, she quit her ‘mission’ and went on after her real cause-as she puts it, ‘to serve those who really needed help.’ Once she was out of the missionary, Mercy happened to come across a ‘volunteers wanted’ ad for a refugee camp at Bangladesh, during the war there. She enrolled immediately and the time that she spent there changed her perspective of life forever. “The human suffering I saw there was beyond belief. I had never known that such cruelty even existed. The horrors of war hit me right on the face and made me realise that the= purpose of my life is to serve others,” recalls Deedi. Mercy then went on to work for some NGOs and even tried her hand at acquiring a master’s degree in social work in Mumbai; but quit again as she wanted to be with the lowest strata of society. She wandered about and finally settled in Barul, a remote tribal village in Chindwara district of Madhya Pradesh. There, she realised that working for the tribal people meant working with them and that her appearance might become a barrier between them. Hence, she adopted their way of life, including their food and dressing. Thus was born Daya Bai; Daya meaning Mercy and Bai, a respectful term used by the tribal people. Since then, she has been fighting tooth and nail with those seeking to exploit the innocence and hard work of the tribal people. Surprisingly, this ‘warrior woman’, who is in her 70s, is extremely shy of publicity and praise. Dheedi smiles and says: “I am a small person who likes to live in my own little world and help my people in any way I can.” And then, she walks away to continue her purpose and save her ‘little world’ which includes the lives of hundreds of families.
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