Rajal

Last night I got to meet a dog with backwards forelegs. Not to worry, he was as happy as could be because he lives with my new friend Rajal. She actually has 7 dogs but they live in the courtyard behind her house. This little guy though has his own bed in her apartment. When she found him he had fractured both legs really badly but, as she is a senior doctor at the hospital, she arranged to have his legs fixed with some pretty extensive surgery. His legs bend forwards now, in the way most dogs feet do (like an ankle joint) and he sort of plops around on them as happy as can be. This was the first surgery of its kind in India and Rajal and her dog had their story reported in the newspaper.

Rajal, besides being a dog guardian angel, a gynecologist and a professor at the medical school provides sex education for young girls and boys. She also works with blind and deaf kids and takes them out into nature to experience the world outside the city, while throwing in a few facts of life along the way! You may have heard the quote "my life is my message" by Gandhi - Rajal won several awards for her work doing outreach as well as her work treating women who live on the street and in a newspaper article the headline was "her life is her message". I have to agree.

Rajal invited me to stay for dinner as well as stay with her on my return to the city. And she refused to let me even thank her. I tried to help her cook so I could learn but her mother would only let me roll out the very last roti, certain that I would botch it up. I learned a lot though, including how to make roti (which is puffy kind of bread).