4. Aravind Eye Hospital, a World within Pondicherry

Driveway into the hospital campus

Frontal view of Aravind Eye Hospital Pondicherry

Entering the campus of Aravind Eye Hospital was entering into a different world within Pondicherry.  The mayhem, noise, dirt, and litter of streets in the neighborhood and nearby Puducherry city, seem unreal as soon as you enter the gates of the hospital campus.  Clean, paved road are divided by manicured bushes, leading westward past a tulip garden and a pond, into the 22-acre campus.  The hospital is centrally located in the campus, with separate entrances for the Inpatient, Outpatient, and Free Sections.  Flanking the south side are the residences for the doctors, the sisters, and the guesthouse; on the north side is a power plant for the campus.  The hospital is 5 stories of concrete with many open windows, housing the various ophthalmology clinics, patient beds, hermetically-sealed operating rooms, administration, IT department, library, classrooms, and meditation chamber.  Behind the building and surrounding the residences are acres of land intended for agriculture, where banana trees dot the fields, and goats walk lazily.  Slim agile young ladies – sisters – who are dressed in white or green sarees, glide quietly between the Sisters’ residence and the hospital, like ensembles of angels, following the spiritual purpose of everyone within Aravind.

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