Episode 5

Pathway to Pune (and beyond).
Episode 5

On Wednesday we worked in a rural medical center with a very inspirational doctor who showed us a day at his clinic. The clinic serves very poor areas of the city at very low cost, and the physician we worked with donates his time and absolutely lives for what he does. We saw numerous cases, most of which were gallstones or kidney stones from the rich-ghee filled food. However, there was one case that absolutely stuck out in my mind.

A young woman, no older than me, came in with a very large kidney stone (probably the size of a quarter). The woman was extremely poor, had two children, and had been left by her husband. She came with her mother who had mortgaged her earrings just to pay the nominal clinic fee of 30 rupees (less than a dollar). The kidney stone had gotten so large that the young woman could barely get out of bed and was in an exorbitant amount of pain. As her eyes filled with tears, the mother of the young woman pleaded with the doctor, as she was in debt and didn’t know how she was going to pay for the surgery. The doctor then handed the technician a wad of cash, and told the woman that she did not need to worry, and that he would take care of it. The mother held the doctors hands, with tears running down her cheek, and thanked him profusely. The look on that woman’s face was priceless, and you realize that with such extreme poverty, dilemmas such as medical problems can make or break their lives. After the woman left the room, the doctor turned to us and said, “Of all the pathologies, man’s greatest disease is poverty”. How true a statement indeed. After a day of seeing such cases, it made me wonder why I was born in this skin and not hers.

After our day in the clinic, Natalie and I decided to do some site seeing. Our first stop was Akshadam, an enormous Hindu temple built for Swami Narayan. The temple was unbelievable, decorated with the most ornate carvings and landscaping. Not an inch of stone went without some elaborate depiction or a story. My favorite part of course, was that almost every carving included an elephant in it…. We also visited a few of the exhibitions at the temple, which recounted the story of Swami and some Indian history. The end of the exhibition had some beautiful words about the need for peace in the world and the uselessness of violence. In particular, one that I liked stated, “Man created war, and so he must also eventually pioneer peace”.

After Akshadam, we had some dinner near the Red Fort of Delhi, and after went to a light and sound show at the Red Fort. It was a bit cheesy, but I still enjoyed the lights and seeing the Red Fort illuminated with color.