BLOG 3, a sad meeting

Today, Friday 15th, being Cow Pongal, is another holiday. We had agreed to meet the lads met in Blog 3, at RUHSA hospital, to visit Nagadevi. In the event we were also able to arrange our meeting with Dr Rita, director of Ruhsa, to fit with this.

We had been warned that we would be shocked to see Nagadevi, who is gravely ill. She has been a very energetic and full of fun organiser ( animator) in their village but is now stricken with what began as cervical cancer and went undetected for too long. She is in great pain and was we think pleased to see us, but unable to tolerate much time. Her daughter who is a nurse stays with her. The Sitaramanpet people, like our lads, are so grateful to Dr Rita who found money from an Australian fund for helping patients with this cancer, to pay for some- I would imagine mainly palliative- treatment in RUHSA and at CMC, the large hospital in Vellore. A shocking transformation in a year for this lively and attractive woman, and a great sorrow for her community too.

Our meeting with Dr Rita went excellently. She explained first of all that she has long had a particular interest in cervical cancer screening programmes but that take up is very very low. I mentionned that this has also been the case even in Britain, and she seemed to have heard of what happened with Jade Goody last year. Dr Rita had taken the trouble to visit the projects already existing for the elderly, and our play centre, in order to prepare for our visit. She asked very good questions about how we would plan for sustainability and what funds we proposed to draw on. We came away very heartened indeed by her interest and her evident intelligence and readiness to listen. We will meet her again after we have made a start on identifying the elderly who will benefit, and also later to see how progress is made re setting up teacher training programmes.

We then cycled our old favorite ride, down the back way from RUHSA to Sitaramanpet, along the line of the railway, to Balaji's house for a fabulous spread, and yet more flowers in the hair. This causes much mirth from the swarms of grinning village children, and perhaps is weird for pensioners from England! Balaji's older brother Shankar was there with his new bride of 2 months, Shanti. She seems a very sweet person- young, 2o years old we think. I told her she has been fortunate to find this family to come to live with and she seemed to agree. This marriage was arranged through a broker. Her family live near Bangalore. The couple seem so far to be very happy with each other, showing affection for each other in a way that is unusual here. Maybe things are changing in India too. Suresh told us that nowadays the idea of love mariage is gradually becoming more acceptable.

Ah ha, as I write, the regular 2 minute late evening 'current off' which makes us all the more grateful for the return and the fans when it comes.