Sribatsha Biswal, 75-year-old residing at Mendhapada

He is Sribatsha Biswal, 75-year-old residing at Mendhapada, Parjang in the district of Dhenkanal. He could not able to see properly with his eyes, because he had got cataract in both of his eyes (PL positive and PR positive), he could only able to mark the light source. What a painful life he was spending. He lost his wife ten years ago; he is dependent on the whims of his daughter’s in law and grand children for her ablutions. He has four sons and a daughter. The daughter is married and lives with her husband & children while the sons, their wives and children live under one roof but have different hearths. The family doesn’t own any land. He curses his fate for hisr present situations.

The eldest son works as a daily laborer and has no assured source of income. If he is lucky he works as a sharecropper. Simply putting it his family lurches from day to day for their existence. The middle son has died leaving behind a widow with a son and two daughters. She manages to meet both ends by selling puffed rice. She has the additional burden of marrying of her daughters, which will send her to the arms of Mahajans, the local shylocks. If she is unable to payback the interest and the principal during her lifetime, her son will inherit the debt and keep on paying for the rest of his lifetime. The third son is a blue-collar worker is slightly better off than th e rest of his brothers but can’t afford to bear the cost of operating his father’s eye. The fourth son, Ananta who attended his father at the hospital is working as a waiter and earns about 1000 rupees a month, which is just about enough to meet the needs of his family. Though he wants better facilities for his father but his hands are tied by the constraint of money.

Sribatsha Biswal, blind of both eyes, rues the fact that though he has four daughter’s in law, he many a times has to wait for her sons to come back from work to attend to his needs. Sometimes he curses himself for having borne 4 sons, as they are not being able to take care of her basic needs. He cannot able to do his daily duties properly, Also due to nill visibility, he faced problem to eat his own food.

One-day morning he heard the announcement made by the publicity team of Kalinga Eye Hospital & Research Centre of a free screening camp for cataract affected person for surgery. He felt as if this was a boon sent by gods to be cured of the curse of blindness. He attended the camp and was found to have motiabindu (cataract). He came with the screening team and was operated for cataract on October 6,2006, by Dr Susanta Kumar Jagadala. He found improvement in his vision, on the very next day. That day he came back to the campsite. Now he can do his daily duties at his own and can move everywhere at his own.

Days passed by. The surgery ultimately showed its color. On the 16th day from his surgery, Sribatsha accompanied his son, Ananta, for the follow up visit to KEH & RC. This time, both the father and his son wore excited expressions on the face. The vision test, of course, added a glint to their eyes and a wide grin on their faces. The left eye vision of the person had increased to 6/36.

On a farewell note, Sribatsha stated an emotionally "BIG THANKYOU".

She hopes to get back to her life soon

Garia Sahoo is an 80-year-old widow with two children, 1 son and one daughter. She married at the age of 16 years but to her misfortune, her husband died just after 8 years of married life. Her father in law had only 2.5 acres of land. After the death of her husband her bother in law took note of opportunity and grabbed the land. She earned her living by collecting wood from the forest and selling them. She also resorted to daily labour. She saved money and was able to buy 1.25 acres of land. Her son sold the land to fund his wayward life. At present she owns 4/10 acre of land. Her son is not married so Garia has to cook for both of them. Her son earns his living as a goatherd and owns two goats and sells their milk as well.
With shatter life and broken wings of hope she came to the camp conducted by Kalinga eye hospital. She under went the surgery and now she could see well. She hopes that with her sight restored she will tend to the patch of land and again start collecting wood for sale.

Wish the dreams of Garia to be fulfilled