Aravind
Excerpts from JOURNEY TO ARAVIND AND THE TEMPLE CITY - A PILGRIMAGE, 2000.
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"I have come to Madurai at the time of the rice festival, Pongal. In three days, I have been to dances, both folk and classical, a splendid family party, a feast in a village and the 'running of the bulls." |
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"Please madam, make my image," one man asks politely. "I will take this and get a frame and put the picture in my home." I draw dozens of these portraits, and manage to save a few as souvenirs of the Pongal day.
Some of the sitters are young men, the Aiyappya pilgrims who will go on a walking pilgrimage, 40 days, to a temple in Kerala. There are also elders and families of all types.
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"This is the Aravind Hospital. This is an astounding place, large, with 1600 employees, three satellite hospitals, and has eye camps in outlying villages six days a week."
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"A tall building with pillars, the Training Center, dwarfs the eyeglass shops. There are classes here, with students from Africa, Indonesia, Cambodia, Nepal...and all over India. There are conferences with speakers from Bombay and Boston and at the top is a small factory, pristine, and orderly where lenses are manufactured, sutures, and medicine, all made to help attain the goal of sight for all whatever their circumstances."
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