Karaikal, India: Monday, January 26

Republic Day… India’s nationwide blowout. Schools close, offices shut down, families go visiting. But this was no holiday for the Rotaplast team. Before dawn at Vinayaka Hospital they were in the OR working on the first of today’s cleft lip and palate cases and looking after the Post Ops from before.

Beyond the hospital, however, the day began with two celebrations: one hailing the birth of a nation, the other marking the death of one of Karaikal’s citizens.

At precisely 9:05 am - the moment when the world’s largest democracy was nailed together with a signed constitution in 1950 - a flag-raising and military salute kicked off Karaikal’s Republic Day wingding at the town stadium.

Assorted dignitaries, uniformed officers sporting medals and swagger sticks, and a fine turnout of townsfolk viewed a procession of floats, awards and honors by local politicos and a cultural program featuring folk dances by kids in costumes from eight different schools. The Paris hotel lobby TV carried it all later via KSAT, the local cable channel. You could see Wayne in his sweaty t-shirt taking the photos like this one and a lot of other great shots visible on our super special REPUBLIC DAY BONUS PAGE.

Rolling back to the hotel afterward in an auto-rickshaw, we hit a bottleneck in Main Street traffic. The rose petals raining down had something to do with it. A trail of them along the pavement led us up to a f

lower-covered cart drawn by several men. In the cart was a dead man on his way to his own funeral. Wayne and Jason jumped from the rickshaw and followed it, cameras clicking furiously. You may view typical Hindu burial rites and pay your respects at our very special FUNERAL BONUS PAGE.

For those waiting on the floor in a white-tiled corridor at Vinayaka Hospital this was no holiday… except, maybe for the girl in the red sari. Her name was Ganthimithy Kodamathy, from a dirt road village an hour away by bus, and she had not seen much of the world. She was enjoying her escape in more ways than one, according to Dr. Teena, one of the Vinayaka staff who was translating.

At twenty-eight years old, Ganthimithy had never been to school and never learned to read or write. Others teased and stared at her face, pinched by a cleft lip and palate. Her parents had never known the deformity was fixable. She had grown up thinking it was fate that had twisted her features, that angry gods had marked her this way. Her life, she said, had been sad, lived mainly among her three sisters and one brother, doing housework.

Now her parents were dead. A friend who worked at the hospital told her about the Rotaplast visit. She decided, bravely, to leave home and come and sign up. Although she was a “walk-in” (missing the first screening day), the Rotaplast team put her on the schedule for a lip repair later this afternoon. Flanked by two cousins, she said she hoped the doctors would help change her life. She said she wanted to get married and have a happy family life.

Leaving Ganthimithy with her cousins in the corridor, Dr. Teena wondered if Ganthimithy’s ambitions would stop there. Once the girl’s deformity was no longer such an obstacle, would she want to go back to school, get a job, go out into the world beyond her village?

It was as if Dr. Teena, a very impressive young lady possessing an obvious intelligence and an admirable manner with patients, was talking about the future she had seized for herself. Not an easy task in a country that was still very new, with a constitution signed scarcely more than fifty years ago - and yet so very old.

Rex Weiner
Wayne Schoenfeld