Bhandari Recounts Memorable Life Experiences in Published Works
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COMOIACommunicationsNews2006 News ArchiveBhandari Recounts Memorable Life Experiences in Published Works
One of his most recent achievements, however, is having two pieces published in The Legible Script, an annual literary journal produced by the medical students at the University of South Florida College of Medicine. The mission of the journal is to showcase the creative works (fiction, poetry, personal essays and art) of medical students from across the country.
“Dr. (Gary) McCord told us about this literary journal published by medical students and encouraged us to enter,” Bhandari says. “I think it’s a great avenue for those of us who enjoy the arts to reveal another side of ourselves other than our interest in medicine. I have always found writing to be a wonderful way to express myself and recount my life adventures.”
Bhandari submitted two entries, “The Children of Mumbai” and “Trail to Avery Peak”, and both were published. “The Children of Mumbai” focuses on Bhandari’s experiences in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India the summer before he started medical school. Growing up in a home with parents from India, Bhandari learned to speak Hindi, a skill which proved useful in his work. He volunteered for two and a half months with Pratham, a Houston-based non-profit organization founded to improve education and literacy across all geographic areas in India.
According to Bhandari, just a few of the major problems in India are poverty, child labor and a lack of family planning. He chose to spend the summer primarily working in the medical clinics in Dharavi, (the largest slum in Asia), where malnutrition was a common problem the health workers faced. In addition to his work in the clinics, Bhandari performed magic shows for the children, ran an AIDS awareness program and reworked the organization’s computerized reporting system. Some of the most heartbreaking experiences he had were seeing the conditions in the local sweat shops.
“Many young Indian children work in sweat shops. We worked to not only improve their health, but their education as well,” Bhandari says. “If you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, many of them say they want to be the owner of a sweatshop! It’s so difficult to end the cycle of poverty, unless you fix the root of the problem—education. That’s what Pratham is trying to do.”
The following is an excerpt from “The Children of Mumbai”, recounting Bhandari’s first visit to the sweat shops:
“Two-story wooden shacks lined both sides of the streets, with half-torn tarp coverings that offered minimal protection from the rain. I tightly pinched my nose, as the putrid odor of a trash and defecation mixture enveloped the air around me. I remember how quickly I began to doubt my ability to work in such conditions. We entered a small shack, and inside, two wooden panels ran from one wall another, about one foot off the ground-a piece of fine silk cloth stretched across them. A group of twenty young boys, ages 8 to 16-years old, sat on the ground, legs crossed Indian style.”
To read the full text of “The Children of Mumbai”, click here.
Bhandari is still working with Pratham in his hometown of Houston to raise funds and increase awareness for the organization. For more information about Pratham, visit: http://pratham.org/
His second published piece, “Trail to Avery Peak”, doesn’t weigh quite so heavy on the heart.
“It’s a lot lighter,” Bhandari laughs. “It’s really just about my experience moving away to college (Tufts University) and my first backpacking trip during the first week of school. I guess you could say I lacked the understanding of how to enjoy nature. But by the end, I realized what the experience was all about and by the time I reached the top of the mountain, I learned what it meant to be one with nature!”
To read “Trail to Avery Peak”, click here.
For more information about The Legible Script and/or to read the journal, visit: http://www.hsc.usf.edu/medstud/thelegiblescript/index.html
