Maggot and Boy story

This is the year 1999. Freshly out of a Delhi based college that taught 'Social Work' as a Masters' Degree course, I chose to start my career by working as the Health Sector Coordinator in the villages dotting the Indo Pak border in Barmer, Rajasthan in association with a local NGO of Barmer. 

As a part of the outreach programme, we liaised with the government health functionaries to undertake health check up, immunization and treatment camps in remote villages that were bereft of primary health care services. In one such camp, I met a team of doctors volunteering from the district hospital, situated 72 kms. from Barmer district headquarters.

A child of twelve years came to the camp with his grandmother to get treated for a mole growing behind the upper part of his right ear lobe. It had a brown crust resembling an ant hill. The doctor said that it was not a mole but some deposit gathering on the skin.  (The people living in the dunes of Barmer, lack access to water and as a result, are unable to maintain personal hygiene).

The child needed a minor surgery to clear away the deposit and the doctors were not equipped for the same in the middle of the desert. An experienced middle aged doctor took a pencil, dipped it in an antiseptic solution and dug deep into the growth.  The rustic child was asked to withstand the pain, which he did by clinging to me. And soon after a little probing, the doctor pulled out a maggot from behind the ear lobe. It was not a deposition of dirt but a maggot was comfortably living, amidst the warm moist corner covered by oiled hair.

I was appalled and the doctor's team thrilled at the successful surgery with no equipments available at hand. I still get goosebumps  when I am reminded of that day!