that "home" is to
them the land beyond the water, and understanding of their own people
has lessened to the vanishing point. That Miss Maya Das is still
essentially Indian is shown by such outward token as that of dropping
her first name, which is English, and choosing to be known by her Indian
name of Mohini, and also by adherence to distinctively Indian dress,
even to the embroidered Panjabi slippers. What matters more is the
inward habit of mind of which these are mere external expressions.

In a recent interview with Mr. Gandhi, Miss Maya Das told him that as a
Christian she could not subscribe to the Non-Co-operation Movement,
because of the racial hate and bitterness that it engenders; yet just
because she was a Christian she could stand for all constructive
movements for India in economic and social betterment. One of Mr.
Gandhi's slogans is "a spinning wheel in every home," that India may
revive its ancient arts and crafts and no longer be clothed by the
machine looms of a distant country. Miss Maya Das told him that she had
even anticipated him in this movement, for she and other Christian women
of advanced education are following a regular course in spinning and
weaving, with the purpose of passing on this skill through the Rural
Department of the Y.W.C.A.

Another pet scheme of Miss Maya Das is the newly formed Social Service
League of Calcutta. Into its membership has lately come the niece of a
Chairman of the All-India Congress, deciding that the constructive
forces of social reform are better to follow than the destructive
programme of Non-Co-operation. Miss Maya Das longs to turn her abounding
energy into efforts toward purdah parties and lectures for the shut-in
women of the higher classes, believing that in this way the Association
can both bring new interests into narrow lives, and can also gain the
help and financial support of these bored women of wealth toward work
among the poor.

One of Miss Maya Das's interests is a month's summer school for rural
workers, a prolonged Indian Silver Bay, held at a temperature of 112 in
the shade, during the month of May when all schools and colleges are
closed for the hot weather vacation. Last year women came to it from
distant places, women who had never been from home before, who had never
seen a "movie," who had never entered a rowboat or an automobile. Miss
Maya Das's stereopticon lectures carried these women in imagination to
war scenes where women helpe