A three year old was sitting beside the doctor’s table, outside the labor room. He was surprisingly calm and quiet. He seemed to enjoy the tea we had given him while his mother delivered her fourth child. He had no father or any known relative to take care of them. His mother was a psychiatric patient on regular follow up and treatment. He didn’t trouble us at all and never asked where his mom was. This little one was wearing the same old clothes that he wore when he came here few months back (We had seen him with the mother on her previous two admissions) and this mom, didn’t have any clothes for her new born either. The little fellow had a brown paper bag, which had stones, bottle caps and other junk, probably he picked up while coming to the hospital. These were his toys. These people collected the single use, plastic water bottles from us because it was the nearest thing to a toy they knew. They filled them with stones and pebbles to create rattles for babies. The nurse returned ...
Here I post my recent interview with the Asian Review Magazine Writing and reading possess the power of healing. When writing comes out of a healer? It can be both for self-healing and healing others. The Asian Review presents today a medical doctor who embarked on a writing journey for both self-healing and healing others. Dr. Bodhini Samarathunga is a Sri Lankan writer who works across several genres. She writes in both Sinhala and English, and has been translated into third languages. She is currently based in Sweden. “Writers are not born or made; they erupt accidentally like volcanos.” How did your writing life begin? I was drawn to books from a young age and have been eager to write since school. During my medical student years, I started expressing my creativity through poems and short stories in web forums and personal blogs with the encouragement and guidance received from friends. The curiosity ignited by reading evolved into a fiery passion to create my own tales....