VOCATION OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBLITY

An inspiring incident that lightened my vision towards life. It was in this passing summer, in the month of May, when I was travelling back to my home at Vasai for my annual holidays; I encountered Riya.

I rushed in the Virar local from the crowded station of Dadar fighting for a seat. I got a seat and the feeling was of a victorious nature. Ofcourse! it has  to be.  Looking at the people sitting around a seat, my eyes caught the attention of a notorious and stubborn nine year old Riya. With such attitude, she managed first to get the attention and then the sympathy of a man sitting on the window seat offering her to sit on his lap. Feeling delighted she got up from her father’s lap and started approaching towards her window seat.

That was the moment which caught the attention of the people around me. She struggled while approaching her seat. We witnessed that her right leg was supported by various steel rods. Some went into her ankles others into her knees. The look itself gave a pain to us.

Very soon, we started enquiring about this accident to his father. The sharing of the father touched me. He said that she fell down from the school steps in the school break. The sheen bone broke and had come out of the flesh. Her father than took her to a private hospital but the treatment given to him on his financial incapability made a deep scar on him, losing his respect for the doctors and he almost lost hope on his daughter’s well being. They asked four lakhs for the operation. They were poor and could not afford it even in their dreams. With some friend’s advice, he then approached the Sion government hospital. He said that what they did regain the respect for doctors which he had lost. They first did the emergency requirement. They calculated the required cost of one lakhs and assured him that his daughter will be completely alright within six months of treatment after surgery. Today is the sixth week, he said. The daughter stands and walks with those rods attached. She was getting better.

As he was talking, we all looked at Riya. She was happily looking outside the window and viewing the developed face of Mumbai. I asked her that how did she feel about this whole thing. She innocently replied that this pain doesn’t pain me as much as the pain I get looking at tears in the eyes of my parents. She now wants to be a doctor who can help all such affected children. I looked in her eyes. Her eyes spoke with full of honesty which we hardly find in most of us. Somehow, in our lives ambition creeps in at the cost of social service. I admired her joyous nature which cared little about the pain which she was going through. It thought me that instead of getting over concerned at my small inconveniences, discomforts or pain I need to be more concerned about the greater horizon of positivism and optimism. It also made me realize that whatever our profession maybe; it definitely has a vocation if seen through the lens of social responsibility. What is your vocation?