Brian Mullaney’s trip to Calcutta, India
I am writing this in one of the most remote and poorest places I’ve ever been.
We’re in a tiny village, four hours south of Calcutta, India. The temperature is 100 degrees; humidity is 98%. My clothes are drenched in sweat. It is 10:30 a.m. on our last day here. Please excuse my bad photography.
It took us 3 long plane rides, car rides, a 30-minute ferry ride and 32 hours of continuous travel to get to Calcutta, India from New York.
We came all this way to attend a one-day eye camp and to witness the hundreds of eyesight-restoring surgeries that followed. A grant from WonderWork helped make it all possible.
I met this boy who lives on the train tracks in the poorest slums of Calcutta.
I met this widow who makes17 cents an hour working at a brickyard.
Blindness hurts women more than men. When they can’t care for their children or husband, they’re often thrown out of the house and their husband marries someone else.
We arrived at the camp early and found long lines and thousands of children and adults. Everyone in line was blind, going blind or had severely impaired vision. Some came from far away and had traveled for days. They were all ages, all shapes and sizes, young and old.
These people in Calcutta are the poorest in the world. Most cannot afford shoes. They live in huts made of dung, without electricity or plumbing. Every day, they live on the brink – of starvation, disease, violence or catastrophic weather.
Most of Calcutta men and women are day laborers who make 17 cents an hour. That’s $2 for a 12-hour day in 100-degree heat. Their biggest complaint is not how little they’re paid, but how little work is available.
Everyone standing in these long lines knew this could be their only chance to get their eyesight back. You could see the desperation in their faces. We walked down the lines asking questions, taking photos. They looked at us as if we had just stepped off a spaceship with our iPhones and fancy cameras. We looked at them and wondered how, in 2013, billions of people are living in the Middle Ages.
Not a single person had glasses. Not only had these people never had an eye exam, most had never seen a doctor. Annual healthcare spending per capita in the U.S. is $8,362. In India it is $132. In America, blindness is rare. In India, blindness is 500% more prevalent. And it can strike at any age.
Her two daughters were both born blind. She and her husband could work for 100 years and never be able to afford the surgery that could restore their eyesight.
We met babies who were born blind.
Children who could see, but then lost their eyesight suddenly. Or slowly. While their parents watched helplessly.
We met hundreds of adults from their early 20s, up through their late 90s who had become blind without any warning.
We met a young, 35-year-old farmer who is desperate because, if he goes blind, he’ll lose his farm and his family will all become beggars.
We met an old lady who told us that since she went blind she’s become a burden on her family.
They call a blind person a “mouth with no hands.”
The World Health Organization reports that 60% of children die within 1-2 years of going blind.
We met a frantic mother who asked, “Who will marry my blind daughter?”
We met a mother (above) with not one, but two daughters who were born blind. With tears streaming down her face, their mother told us, “They’ve been waiting since birth to see me.”
This Calcutta family sleeps on a dirt floor in a mud hut with no furniture. They’re all malnourished; the girls’ growth is stunted. Their future is as bleak as the looks on their faces.
The surgeon, Dr. Asim Sil, who examined the sisters, Anita and Sonia, says both girls had a good chance of getting their eyesight restored.
Yesterday we went into the O.R. and watched a few of the hundreds of surgeries that will happen this week. It was so simple. The surgeon makes a tiny incision and removes the cloudy lens that’s causing the blindness. He then replaces it with an artificial lens that costs $2. The incision is so small no stitches are needed.
From start to finish, it took 5 minutes.
At 6:30 a.m. today – just a few hours ago – we were there when Dr. Sil arrived to remove the bandages. He slowly unwrapped Anita’s bandages…
Her first eye popped open and her head recoiled from the light… she could see! He unwrapped her right eye – she recoiled again.
“I can see! I can see!” she kept saying as her head swiveled back and forth, taking it all in.
Dr. Sil then took Sonia’s bandages off and she opened her eyes and gasped.
Sonia could see, too!
Like her sister, Sonia was born completely blind and waited 12 years
before she received the miracle surgery that restored her eyesight.
I took this picture of her just minutes after her bandages came off.
Both girls’ heads swiveled as their eyes raced left to right, up and down, all around the room, taking it all in, smiling, gasping, seeing the world for the first time in their lives. We watched in amazement.
The minute she saw her, Anita leaped off the bed to hug her sobbing mom. “I can see you, mommy…I can see you….” she said.
Their mom cried. So did we.
Over the past 20 years, I’ve witnessed a lot of amazing things, but nothing compares to watching a child who was born blind, open their eyes and see for the first time.
