giving back
Make-A-Wish Mumbai, India
Today my life has been changed for a lifetime. I don’t really know for the good or the bad yet, but life certainly is different. For the past three days I’ve been working with Make-A-Wish Bombay, these tireless workers spend long days doing what ever they can to grant the wish of a sick child. I feel honored to work along side these amazing men and women in an attempt to document their remarkable deeds. Working with the Bombay chapter has been a real eye opener, we’ve been documenting children with all kinds of ailments including Aids, Cancer and Tumors in Bombay’s Government Hospitals. These are free for the most poor and most needy people of India. I’m really having a lot of mixed emotions about the whole experience, on one hand we really did do some good, I was able to document some astoundingly happy children that really have nothing more than what we brought them. Just the look on there face was enough to bring tears to my eyes. On more than one occasion I had to do everything I could to hold it back the tears and keep shooting. But on the other appalled, by the amount of filth and conditions that these hospitals had. I witnessed some unbelievable events and feel ashamed in repeating them because their was nothing I could do.
Upon entering the hospitals immediately I was greeted with security, I got the feeling that photographers generally are not welcome and their job was more to keep people like me (photographers) out than keep the peace. Government hospitals in India have quite a reputation.
We made our way down a dark hallway the smell was my sense greeted to things not being quite right. The smell of urine in a hot confined space is unmistakable as my eyes adjusted to the darkness and my nose to the foul stench I realized that this was not going to be what I expected. The dirt on the floor was so thick you could make out where the traffic of peoples bare feet had been flowing in the edges litter and debris mixed in with the filth guiding your journey deeper inside. As we approached our first corner thick red spit called pan painted the walls. It would be America’s version of chewing tobacco, but in a red form. I was confused, this couldn’t possibly be.
As we reach the pediatric ward I was feeling a bit uneasy of what may be in store for me. But after entering the ward one by one smile after smile we were greeted. Even through all of the pain these children’s endured their day was made by the small token of a gift. Their smiles were genuine, honest without greed or strings pure to the core.
One child was lying alone, in the corner next to a window with oxygen flowing through a make shift housing. It was an old plastic round ice cream container with a neck hole cut out and a tube with oxygen attached at the top. My heart broke, He couldn’t have been for than three, his small chest rose and fell rapidly in the heat. It was very clear he was dieing. I think it disturbed me the most that he was along no one was with him. While this child lay unconscious we made the wishes of two other child that were positive for HIV. in the bed next to him.
Torn on one hand I’m their to make Make-A-Wish look good with happy children but on the other feeling like I must document what I was seeing to share with the world in the name of change. For the most part my images are of happy children sprinkled with a bit of truth. The images I chose to post here are the truth as I saw it.. Very different than the happy images I delivered to make a wish..
It so many ways this is the embodiment of India, the good and the bad, the rich and the poor, the evil and the sublime all rolled up in one big ball of wax. Even as I was appalled by the conditions in the hospital I realize that with out this institution, these souls would have no where to go and surely no chance of survival. It seems that the world isn’t always black and white but a constant changing of grays..
