Volunteer work in India inspired med student

Some college students spend their summers flipping hamburgers or zoning out. Shashin Shah spent it among the dying and poor of Calcutta -- and meeting Mother Teresa.

"It was the most stressful experience of my life," Mr. Shah said. "If I could do that, I can adjust to anything."

The senior at Siena College in Loudonville spent six weeks working with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in India as part of the service project required in the eight-year medical program jointly sponsored by Siena and Albany Medical College.

Taking him in

Mr. Shah went to India with a desire to serve the poor, and some knowledge of the Missionaries of Charity. However, other than his flight, nothing about the trip was arranged. He had no place to stay and no arrangements with the missionaries. After finding his way to the motherhouse, his offer to volunteer was accepted.

While he was familiar with India and had seen poverty in that nation a year earlier while spending a semester studying there, he was shocked by the conditions the Missionaries of Charity work in.

"On the first day of volunteering, I went for ten minutes and left," he confessed. "I couldn't do it. But then I was ashamed and went back. If you're on the street and see someone with no legs, that's one thing. But after seeing it day after day...that's poverty."

Serving neediest

The Missionaries of Charity run several programs serving a wide variety of needs. There are houses for the dying and those with AIDS, schools for street children, and homes for disabled children.

In the latter, a volunteer's typical work includes washing, feeding and playing with the children, as well as doing some physical therapy.

"Most of them are quadriplegic," Mr. Shah reported. "There was a lot of gangrene. They were mentally gone."

Among the dying

In the homes for the dying, Mr. Shah would sweep floors that were covered with excrement, wash clothes by beating them against a rock, shave people, and watch them die. It was a struggle to keep going.

"Volunteering wasn't a bowl of cherries," he said. "Then I realized, this is what I'm here for. Just do it."

Mr. Shah, a Hindu, found solace at Mass. Each Wednesday evening, a Mass for the volunteers was celebrated, followed by a "chat" session with a priest. Those were designed to help the volunteers cope with the traumatic experiences they were having.

Seeing Mother Teresa

The Missionaries of Charity also gathered each morning at 5 for Mass. Mother Teresa attends the 90-minute services, and he was able to meet her.

"Before I met her, I got scared," the college student reported. "I'm a nobody about to meet the greatest living person. I sensed an aura about her. She was so personable. She was really like a mother. Everyone is amazed by her."

While there were religious differences between Mr. Shah and the Missionaries of Charity, that wasn't a problem for him. "If you're a good person, it doesn't matter what you are," he said. "Good people are good people."

Impressive work

Although many Indians are skeptical about Mother Teresa's motives, Mr. Shah is impressed with the empire of service she has created.

"When she first started, people didn't like her," he said. "They thought she was trying to convert people. She's much more respected outside of India."

Mr. Shah told a story of a crowd demanding that the police close Mother Teresa's first house for the dying. After the police saw what she was doing, they told the crowd that if anyone was willing to do the work she was doing, they would gladly shut her down.

Teaching street kids

Most of Mr. Shah's time was spent at the school for street children. He taught six days a week there and found the schedule rigorous. "I would ask, `God, give me strength,'" he said.

He was impressed with the abilities of these children. They were able to speak two languages, Bengali and Hindi, and were learning English.

"Prayer was a huge thing at the school," he said. "The kids knew every Jesus song. They are smart."

He admits to making "the mistake of asking one child if I could come to his house." The street children live in makeshift shacks on the road. Many of the children begin working when they are five; girls are often abandoned at birth.

Health conditions

A self-described "health freak," Mr. Shah had to worry about malaria, scabies, tuberculosis and lice. Prior to traveling to India, he had to have shots and take medications to ward off illnesses. While there, he saw the country's garbage system at work: cows eating waste. And he watched people utilize the sewage pipes as latrines.

"It's poverty if you have western eyes," he explained. "They don't see it that way. For them, it's a way of life."

Struggles and fears

He describes life in Calcutta as difficult. "Everything was a struggle," he said. His worries included finding places to stay and fearing that his clothes would be stolen while he wasn't in his hotel room.

Some of the struggle was self-imposed. "I always took the hardest way, like taking the buses, because I wanted to incorporate into the culture," he said.

Growing

While it was a grueling experience, it did provide him the opportunity to grow.

"One thing India teaches you is that life isn't a given," he said. "You really have to appreciate everything you do. You can see great sights, feel textures. Going there gave me a chance to analyze who I am. I've grown a lot. My views have changed. Things aren't what they seem."

Mr. Shah, a member of Siena's tennis team and president of the Asian Student Association, will finish his medical studies in four years. He doesn't know what he wants to specialize in but said: "As long as I'm a good doctor, that's all that matters." [[In-content Ad]]