Sunday, January 3, 2016

Welcome Back !

Namaskar Sir”  (Greetings Sir) The feeble voice on the other end of the line crackled even as I strained to  figure out as to who could be calling me on a Sunday afternoon…





Kaun bol raha hey” (who is speaking?) I asked even as I was trying to guess the person on the other side as recently all my numbers got deleted due to a technical glitch…

Hum Anil bol rahein hein Sahab” Came the reply… (This is Anil here Sir - Name changed)“ aaj bahut accha camp hua Sir… Ek camp se 521 patient hospital surgery ke liye jaa rahein hein aur ek camp se 200 patients… (We had very good camp today sir, from one camp we got 521 patient and from another camp 200 patients taken to the hospital for surgery)

As the voice crackled on, I was transported to about 1 and a half years back when a medium built, heavily accented and someone who wore his attitude on his sleeves was brought to my office and introduced as the team leader for Outreach in one of the newly opened hospital in the northern part of the country…

For the uninitiated, we are the largest community eye care provider globally and 80% of our services are provided free of cost to the rural poor who otherwise would have become blind in the absence of provision of basic eye care surgery. More of that later.

Anil came to us with substantial experience in community eye care having worked for 15 years with a local eye hospital carrying out community outreach. We had interacted with him through video conferencing and our hospital head also had interacted with him and we thought given the years of experience and the context, he was a suitable fit.

He came to Coimbatore for his training along with his team and that is where we first met each other.
We put him and his team through the standard training program which we have where the team is put in the field and gets exposed to all aspects of community outreach as conducted by us… Few days in the training and we received complaints about him from our team and later by his own team about addiction to tobacco and liquor which he has which he indulged in during his official hours also…

This was infuriating for us and I called him in to my office and along with the hospital head gave him a strict warning that if he is found to indulge in such practices in future then he would be asked to leave… He duly apologised and promised not to repeat it again…

The training was over in due course of time and Anil and team departed to our hospital in the north to start the activities of community Outreach…

Even as work started at our new hospital, I would often get to hear about Anil taking to his old practices not only in terms of addictions but also dishonest practices which he was used to from his earlier job… He also started throwing temper tantrums to increase the salary or otherwise threatened to leave the job…

We finally decided that enough is enough and decided to ask him to leave if he did not mend his way soon… This, it was decided, would happen during one of my visit during May/June when I was due to visit the hospital…

I reached our northern hospital in the blistering heat of peak summer and as soon as I landed up I had a brief meeting with the hospital head on various matters one of which was regarding Anil… surprisingly the unit head was now all in favour of Anil and said that he has reformed completely and there is no need for us to expel him now…. I was not convinced and wanted to meet the man and decide for myself….

The meeting was arranged between me and Anil in one of the afternoons in our conference room…. Anil walked in at exactly the appointed time and greeted me in a very humble way and stood there till I asked him to seat…. I was surprised to see the vast change in the body language but thought it may be some theatrics which he has adopted to beguile us…

I straight came to the point of discussion and told him that if he is not happy with the salary and working with us then he should start looking for other opportunities… Anil looked up painfully as if hurt and with folded hand asked me to give him some time to explain himself… Thus he started his story, one which was not only transformative but one which completely changed him as a person that he was….

 “Sir I know, I have not been a good employee and despite what the organisation has done, I have not been able to reciprocate in the same manner” Began Anil in a meek voice…

I agree that the incentive for leaving my old job was the thought the working with a larger chain of hospitals would give me more money and comfort… I will not lie but when I started work here I also started all the old corrupted practices of taking money from our local supporters and patients… I also indulged in addiction and got in to the habit of receiving favours from local camp supporters for unsavoury things… Given this practice, you are within your right to expel me and I will also not object… But before that please hear my story and how it has transformed me…”  Anil paused to take a sip of water from the glass put infornt of him and then continued…

2 months ago I went to a village to follow up patients who have not come for review… This is a village where I have also worked in my previous job and those people knew me well…whenever I used to come earlier in my previous job, they would insult me and hurl abuses at me for being corrupted and indulging in bad practices.. I used to let it roll of my back and ignore them for what they were saying was the truth and there was no point arguing them…”

“So I walked in to the village and I could see the village elders, young man and some of the panchayat members standing near the village pan shop…With thumping heart and with lots of apprehension I slowly approached them all ready to face the abuse that was going to start”

“As soon as they saw me a noise and commotion arose and I just clenched my teeth and closed my eyes for the 1st roll of abuse to hit me… But then nothing happened and when I opened my eyes I could see all of the village elders and panchayat member encircling me and falling over each other in inviting me to come and sit while some young fellows were rushing to get me a charpoy… Some others were asking me whether I needed tea or lassi!...I could also hear some elder shouting to the young fellows to make it quick as Doctor sahib has come”….

“initially I though it to be one big joke where they were setting me up for some sarcastic leg pulling which will end up with abuses hurled at me… as one village elder tugged my sleeves other made way for me to occupy the charpoy…”

“I sat down, took a deep breath and asked them that is it some kind of joke that they want to play with me” surprised and hurtful they had this thing to say” aap aise kaise soch sakte ho doctor sahib… humein aapke naye hospital ke bare mein pata nahin tha par jab log wahan se operation karake aaye toh pata chal kaisa swarg hey woh” (how could you even think thus doctor sahib? We did not know about your new hospital but came to know of it when people had their surgery and came told us what a heavenly place that is”)

At that point of time, one frail looking old man with dark eye glasses like the one which people use after eye surgery, broke the protocol and jumped in to the conversation….

Kya hospital hey aapka doctor sahib, itna saaf, safai ke saath aap log rakhte ho.. Humein toh camp se itne pyaar se sab log hospital le gaye aur wahan par aapka sab staff itne aadar satkaar se humara kahyal rakha… Khana, pina aur rehna itne acchhe tarike se diya… Hum aapko kya bolein, saare staff hum logon ko dada aur daadi ke name se pukarte the… Itna samman toh kabhi humko apne bacchon ne nahin diya… (What a hospital you have doctor sahib, so neat and clean it is maintained… we were taken from the campsite with much respect and at the hospital your staff took so good care of us with dignity, food was served with so much love as well as the stay…. I even feel choked now emotionally as I tell you this: your staff called us grandpa and grandma for all the duration of our stay… such love and respect we have never ever received even from our own children) at this point he choked and started crying…

“A feeling on guilt on time wasted and a self-loathing about the opportunity which I was just frittering out at Sankara overtook me at that point of time… unknowingly tears of gratitude on a second chance and also the respect of the poor and needy for me started to roll down heavily from my eyes as I unabashedly cried that day in that village which had forever scorned me but was now welcoming me with an open arm as one would to their own child”

I could see Anil wiping tears from the corner of his eyes and I was just overwhelmed to see this cocky and a man so sure of himself can also cry….

That day Sir” Anil continued “I vowed to change myself and dedicate my life to Sankara and the noble work it is doing…. I do not need any salary hike nor any money for doing this work… I just need the organisation’s permission for me to do this work… For 15 years I did the same work but was always met with abuse and expletives thrown at me but never broke down under those feelings of hatred… This one moment of love and respect which the villagers showed me that day changed me totally as a person… Now, whether you decide to keep me or throw me out, does not matter to me… Even outside Sankara I would continue to work and help the hospital in its noble work…”

 I asked Anil to wait outside and give me some time to think before I can arrive at a decision…. I just sat back and contemplated on what transpired between the two of us in last half an hour… What Anil realised and received 1st hand is something none of our training manual, field exposure or theoretical framework can give him… This is the gem which one can only discover when one has really given that care and love to the countless masses selflessly which gets returned back manifold and becomes so transformative that it can change the total perspective of community work and can prove to be life changing…. This ultimately is for me is the real fortune at the bottom of the pyramid!

I conferred with the hospital head who is also a good friend and who listened to my tale of Anil with a smile on his face and asked me to take the final decision…

I called in Anil and asked him to sit down….

Slowly with emotion choked voice I said  “Ab tak aap kahan the Anil…. Welcome back



Epilogue:
Since then Anil has gone to work like a man possessed and has broken many earlier records in the state of reaching out and serving many poor patients through surgery and provision of quality eye care.

He also has enrolled himself in a de addiction program and is slowly limping back to normalcy even as we speak. Though his doctor has advised him complete bed rest, he could not resist to come to today’s mega camp which was one of his dreams which he had promised to me as we departed each other’s way on that blistering hot day of summer...