The Foreign Service Journal, March 2009

M A R C H 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43 don’t need money, I need hands,” R. Desikan repeated, peering through thick eyeglasses that magnified his brown eyes, giving him a startled look. A college student, he was a slightly built Ayer Brahmin, even higher-caste than our good friend S. Krishnan, who was also a Brahmin, but an Ayengar, which was a step below the Ayer. India was that kind of a place; there were layers on layers of everything. The “hands” that Desikan needed were hands to help with the work in a small roadside leprosy clinic he had es- tablished in the village of Pammal, outside of Madras (now Chennai). He was sitting in our living room, and my hus- band, Ed, who served as Consul General Hank Ramsey’s political officer, was protesting that he couldn’t spare his hands — but “Susan can,” he said, referring to me. And so it developed that during our posting at the Amer- ican consulate in Madras, Desikan would be waiting for me in the driveway every Tuesday afternoon. We would go out along the San Thome High Road toward Pammal, stopping to pick up other volunteers along the way. The car I drove was a Chevrolet station wagon, green with a “solid ivory top,” as Ed described it — adding with a smile, “I’ve been in India too long!” There weren’t many other station wag- ons in Madras in 1956; not many cars of any sort, in fact. Mr. Desikan’s Mission The volunteers we collected were mainly young men, just out of college. Desikan himself had dropped out of college when he was diagnosed with leprosy. He had been treated with an experimental pill, a drug made from “throwaway substances” left over after the sulfa drugs used to treat lep- rosy were manufactured; and it was, therefore, very inex- pensive. Desikan distributed these pills to the villagers who assembled on Tuesday afternoons. The clinic was a small, one-room adobe building with a doorway and a verandah that faced out toward the street. There was no electricity or plumbing. When we arrived, Desikan jumped out of the car, handed me a small broom and assigned me the task of sweeping the building, while he headed off to the village well, carefully instructing me not to follow. The villagers were unhappy about the clinic and “those diseased people” who were gathering near them — much less a casteless white woman. (Don’t let her shadow fall on you!) Desikan returned with two buckets of water, which he poured into a large ceramic pot that could hold about four gallons. Stretching a cheesecloth over the top of the jug, he slowly poured in the water. Then he moved the two chairs and one small table out to the verandah, setting the card file on top of the table. He motioned for me to sit at the table, T HE L EPROSY C LINIC M ADRAS , 1956 M ORE THAN A HALF - CENTURY BEFORE THE TERM “ TRANSFORMATIONAL DIPLOMACY ” WAS COINED , IT WAS THE NORM FOR A MERICAN DIPLOMATS IN THE FIELD TO BE ENGAGED IN CHANGING LIVES . B Y S USAN I NGRAHAM Susan Ingraham flew with her husband, Edward, a newly minted FSO, to their first overseas post, Cochabamba, Bo- livia, on a rainy day in November 1947. They subsequently served in Hong Kong, Perth, Madras, Djakarta, Rangoon, Is- lamabad (during the Indo-Pakistani War) and Singapore. The mother of three grown children and the grandmother of five grown grandchildren, she and her husband now live in Bethesda, Md., where they have resided since his retirement from the Foreign Service in 1980. “ I