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Foreigners give a healing touch to Gujarat

K G Suresh in Bhuj

"It looked like Beirut or Lebanon. I had never seen a worse disaster," says Dominique Delfieu, a French doctor, who is on a personal relief mission in the quake-ravaged areas of Kutch.

He is among the scores of foreigners who are here not as part of any official rescue and relief mission but motivated by the desire to serve fellow humans in their hour of need.

Delfieu, who had come to Morbi to visit a friend, was moved by the plight of people affected by the January 26 quake and immediately rushed to Bhuj with the small stock of medicine in his possession.

Accompanied by his wife and daughter, Delfieu attended to patients and provided them with medicines.

He, however, does not have a very good opinion about the foreign relief teams working in the area, including the one from his own country.

"I was very much disappointed with the attitude of the team members. It seemed that they just wanted to show off," he said, adding, "If they want to do some real help, now is the time. Rehabilitation is the need of the hour here."

Julia D'Souza, a writer and photographer from Hollywood, also reached the quake-devastated Kutch "spontaneously" leaving behind her grand holiday plans in the country.

On hearing about the quake, she immediately got in touch with a Florida-based friend, a Swaminarayan devotee, and got the sect's contact address in Gujarat and jumped into the next available train.

"Julia is not a follower of our sect, but she wanted to help our activities monetarily and work along with our volunteers," said Janak Jyotindra Dave, spokesman of the highly-influential Bochanwasi Akshar Purushottam Sansthan.

"I believe in the oneness of God and unity of mankind," said Julia as she clicked away the relief work being carried out in some areas of the district.

The humanitarian work of these "missionaries with a difference" is not confined to Kutch alone. They propose to take the message back home also.

If Julia is planning among other things a photo exhibition and "perhaps a book" to raise funds for rehabilitation work, the French doctor humbly says, "I will tell people back home about the requirements here."

Delfieu and Julia are not isolated missionaries seen in the vast expanse of Kutch. Working in Anjar and other towns and villages are students from countries as far as Seychelles.

They are working in tandem with religious and cultural organisations with their meagre resources and a large heart.

"The colour of the skin is not important here. It is the colour of the blood which unites us all," says Shantibhai Patel of Gayatri Parivar, a religious organisation, as he guides some foreign students through a heap of rubble in old Anjar town.

PTI

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