Monday, January 16, 2006

Giving a New Life


After


Before

Reporter's Notebook


Recently, I read a wonderful piece in Hindustan Times' Sunday Sentiments by celebrity Indian TV journalist Karan Thapar . He drew an analogy between media and medicine. The question is: Can media, like medicine, save lives? Mr. Thapar, in that piece, seemed defeated in his premise. But, here I am providing an epitome of such life-giving phenomenon.

Few months ago, I did a story on an epileptic patient chained for five years. She was senseless; could not speak, didn't feel and just could cry aimlessly. Her peasant parents were having hellish life. A brief news was published in a daily and I hastened to probe beneath the layers. I told to myself, "A precious life is being wasted." And, we embarked on a life-saving journey. The story was presented from the point of view of her parents who were a suffering lot.I was pleasantly surprised when the story grabbed the attention of a lady doc who refused to be mentioned in the Nepal Magazine follow up reporting. She provided all the expenditure for the 19 year old Laxmi Tamang's treatment. Laxmi lives in Mangaltar VDC, Kavre, five hour drive from Kathmandu.

And, lo and behold, she is now freed from chain. I came to know that she's also cured from epilepsy. The before and after pics tell you a lot. Here, I would like to thank Dr. Aruna Uprety and Rural Health and Education Service Trust (RHEST) for being Good Samaritans.Hats off to you. I am also thankful to blogger and The Katmandu Post reporter Ujjwal Acharya and photojournalist Bikas Karki for accompanying me to the place. They didn't complain when I had less-than-enough money to support the travel expenditure.

4 comments:

~*. D E E P A .* ~ said...

Hi !

Read ur previous posts ...

Abt this one , yes , media can save lives , but it is not so common ... as far as what we see , media pays more attn to the gory side of disasters than trying to rectify the loss

~*. D E E P A .* ~ said...

Shall definitely keep coming here ... ur posts are very different ...

I read the previous 3 posts :) tho i havent commented :(

I was unable to log on for past few days , and hence missed out on ur posts

Deepak Adhikari said...

Thanks Deepa. I too have become ur reg reader. But, lately, u have n't updated, huh?

Dewaker Basnet said...

great work..keep the flame of journalism burning. On behalf of the entire journalistic fraternity, thanks for the remarkable work and thanks for saving a life:)
Appreciated!!