A heart-warming story for our times
Jun 25th, 2008 by lekhni
A darkened synagogue in Midwestern America. Two Americans are praying - one, a neurosurgeon who super-specializes in complex brain surgery involving repairing the brain’s thinnest blood vessels and dissecting tumors. The other, a social worker who lives and works in Ethiopia. What are the chances these two strangers would meet?
But they do meet, and find time to chat. Their chat then leads to a cure for an Ethiopian woman with a rare facial deformation, an orange-sized tumor in her face that was slowly taking her life.
Real life can really be stranger than any fiction we can imagine. I was really moved by this story.
Rajesh Kumar 
Mys Lyke Meeh 
Shrinidhi Hande 
wsw 
Amit 
km 
nits 
Billigflug 
Reema 
??! 
Meira 
purplesque 
tabula rasa 
I read something like this almost every month on Reader’s Digest. And it never fails to move me everytime…
That story is indeed amazing.
Just wondering if this would have transpired if the setting was a temple and these were two Hindus praying (let’s forget for the moment, all the chaos and noise that pervades temples)…
Aah and here we were thinking that Ajay and Sallu miya meeting in a church in HDDCS seemed contrived
Fact really is stranger than fiction huh……
Kima: That’s true, Readers’ Digest has a lot of these, right? It’s funny, I used to read Readers Digest a lot as a kid, now I hardly do, even though it’s prominently visible in the grocery checkout line..
km: Yup, it certainly made my day!
Shefaly: It’s possible. The situation that I can imagine even more easily is two Indian doctors discussing their patients at the temple and finding some issue that the other can treat. I notice that desi doctors in every city have their own group of doctor friends, and I am sure they also talk shop whenever they meet.
Nightwatchmen: True, Bollywood just imitates real life. When it is not imitating Hollywood, that is
Lekhni: Your story mentions a doctor and a social worker.
Would this exchange transpire between two desis with those professions, but praying next to each other in a temple? I have my doubts. Most desis I know fraternise with their own kind - professionally, socio-economically, even regionally… Most shun people who are “different” or whose lives move on a different trajectory. Hence my curiosity.
Shefaly: Okay, you mean the “doctor talking to social worker” aspect. I was thinking on the general aspect of two men meeting at a temple and helping a 3rd person.
Will a doctor talk to a social worker? Yes, and no. Yes, we desis tend to be very class-conscious. So my take is that the doctor will talk to a social worker if (i) said social worker is a celebrity-turned social worker (or social worker-turned-celebrity).
(ii) said social worker is a professional-turned-social worker. You know, people who make their money in Wall Street or software or wherever and then start non-profits.
It’s unfortunate, but the career social worker does not carry that much weight as the above two categories. Of course, I am guilty of generalizing, stereotyping and all that.
Truly heart warming.