AN EYE OPENING EXPERIENCE

The consciousness that self discovery through service to larger than self can be a deeply satisfying experience was brought home to me recently in the most unexpected manner.

This is also a story about how the unintended consequences of an action are often greater than the intended ones.

[Photograph of Health Camp organised and conducted by me in my native village Byadigere (AP-Karnataka border about 20kms north of Madhugiri town, Tumkur Dist) on the 18th of April 2009]

Some of you know that I am part of Team Canadia (and its associate NGOs Project Kandwar and The Eighteenth Horse Foundation). We are a group of professionals in Bangalore attempting to give a hand up to the needy in the Greater Chikballapur Area (GCA). The five active members of this group conceived and executed a General Health Camp in Kandavara that is Ward 14 of the City Municipal Council of Chikballapur. The Camp was conducted on 2011 October 16, Sunday, on the premises of the Heritage Primary School where Sir M Visveshvaraya had studied.
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The Episode

As you can guess, I reached out to the network of physicians and secured the help of most volunteer practitioners. When I called my friends my intention was straightforward. To simply provide much needed professional health service to the poorest of the poor. That, I am happy to report, was achieved, thanks to the tremendous assistance provided by all my friends. What I did not expect was how one patient would touch me in such a deeply moving fashion.

A 30 year old lady came to me with a large swelling in her neck. The area of the swelling was approximately 6 cms x 6 cms. It was easy to diagnose that she was suffering from a thyroid malfunction. I knew that a careful follow up would mitigate the problem and probably cure her of her condition. Routinely I requested her to come and see me at my base, namely, Victoria Hospital in Bagalore.

The lady came to Victoria. After some preliminary investigations we came to know that the swelling was (much to my relief) benign, a colloid cyst and her thyroid function was normal. With the permission of my unit chief and my senior colleagues I admitted her and on 2011 November 24, Thursday, I conducted the surgery. It was a 90 minute procedure and the surgery went well. On Monday, the 28th, we discharged her. She expressed grateful thanks to me and the others in Victoria and left.

The Unintended Consequence

What happened to me next has propelled me to write this story in the hope that other health professionals will undertake voluntary work and experience the same awakening that I have experienced. I am still absorbing the revelation.

After discharging the patient I went for the usual walk on campus. It happened so suddenly that I had to stop, literally, to sense the extreme bliss of calm that coursed through me. It was a sense of deep satisfaction that came from doing my job, assisting a patient, receiving her thanks, and reflecting on that sequence.

I come from a typical lower middle class family primarily based in agriculture for generations. Whatever my family and I have achieved thus far is the result of sheer hard work, daringness and luck. And I completely understand that luck might not have accompanied everybody always.

By sheer accident I had met the patient. It is very likely that she and her family have not had the good fortune that my family and I have had. From her point of view, the economic and social distance separating the two of us is probably unbridgeable in her lifetime. And yet, we connected at the deepest level of human fraternity.

Forgive my dramatic formulation when I say there are no words to describe the affinity I felt for her while I was removing the malignant tissues from her neck. Was it the awareness of my good fortune to be able to help an otherwise helpless person? Was it meant to be as some wisdom literature tells us? Was it simply doing the job that is expected of me by the people and the Government of Karnataka? I do not know.

What I do know, however, is that I was in a state of serenity that I have never been. That serenity has enabled me to learn a little about what drives me in my belief in serving something larger than self.

It is my firm conviction that all of us are endowed with the gift to give of ourselves to a cause that we believe in.