An eye for an eye

Prem is a 5 yo boy who lives in the basti. He's never seen his mother or the light of day because he's blind since birth.
2 weeks ago an eye camp was held at the basti. A team of ophthalmologists came from PGI along with an optometrist. Together they saw 125 patients in about 3 hrs. At the very end Prem came in with his young mom.  A preliminary look revealed that he had cataracts in both eyes! If his cataracts are removed he may be able to get some vision back.  He has other impairments as well & will require a multidisciplinary approach, but at least a start has been made. How unfortunate that he had to spend all those formative years in darkness. These people are living within a few minutes of one of the best hospitals in the country but for them it doesn't exist. They're lost in the wilderness of ignorance & poverty!

Monsoon Lunch

Jaspreet & I decided to go out to lunch one day. She suggested Punjab University where you can always eat quickly & without hurting your pocket. So we picked up 2 thalis with rice & beans (rajma chawal) & sat on a bench under a mango tree.
Soon it started to drizzle & then it started to pour. But we were determined to finish our lunch, so we opened our umbrellas & continued eating. Very soon the cucumbers in our plates were floating in rain water & the curry seemed to get thinner & thinner. At that point we thought it prudent to give up & head back to our car. Of course the walk back to the car meant wading through ankle high torrents created by the rain water & needless to say we were soaking wet.
In India it's said that the monsoon is best experienced by soaking in it atleast once, I can definitely vouch for that!

For a few extra bucks

I spent an interesting afternoon yesterday trying to make a paper bag. The basti women have so far been making newspaper bags for which they are paid a pittance. So we decided to delve into making brown paper bags which fetch a much better price. However it seemed that the women were somewhat hesitant to making these, even though they would be making 30 times more money than with newspaper bags.
So I decided to make one myself to see what was the problem.
I started off with a newspaper, a measuring tape & some help. I think at some point I may have commented that this is more difficult than going to medical school. But finally, I got it right.
We are now in the process of teaching the intricacies of the process to the basti women.  
Some of the brown paper bags we made were later used to create art by the school kids!!

Volunteering

I'm leaving for India in August & will be there for 3 mths, volunteering with DIR. http://www.dir-help.org/

It's interesting how some things happen in a flash & with complete serendipity. My connection with DIR was like that. Fredrick Shaw, the CEO of DIR, is this sweet old man who is living thousands of miles away from his homeland, in the sweltering heat of India, trying to uplift people in this slum, that most people would rather forget even exists.

His model is so simple & so effective. He trains young people from the community to then spread the message within the community. Much like the model of Manav Sadhana. Just with simple measures to teach people how to get clean drinking water, get their kids vaccinated & seek antenatal health care, he's managed to reduce maternal mortality & infant mortality by significant numbers.