Dear Children:

I have been planning to write this letter for a long time I just waited for you to grow up to understand it.

When God sent you to this world, it was probably the best thing that had happened to your parents. They were on top of the world but that very day, this happiness was short-lived. That day, you started turning blue. The doctors had found a hole in your heart.

The dreams of your parents were shattered. They could not understand why they were being punished in this way. They had no choice but to accept the reality, and decide to give you the best possible care.

But they could not afford the cost of the operation and they could not wait, because you were turning blue every time you cried. I guess this is the price you paid for being born in a third-world country at ten days old, you had a price tag on your life. If your parents paid the price, they could have you if not, you would be taken away.

Your mummy and daddy went through self-pity, denial, mutual accusation and anger towards a society which was indifferent towards their problem. Your daddy was upset to think that your price tag was less than his boss would spend on a Saturday night out.

Your daddy was desperate when he heard about me. The first thing he said when he met me was ‘I heard you love children’. Well, I do I have four. My job is to give hope to those who have heart diseases, and give them a chance of a fresh new life. I am a technician who can cut and stitch up hearts they call me a heart surgeon.

When I met you, you were ten days old, cuddled in a warm blanket next to your mother’s heart. Except for a bit of rapid breathing and blue nails on your finger, you looked like an angel. You won’t remember, but I asked you ‘do you want to be my friend?’ This is the question I ask all children I wanted to be your friend, and I worked hard to win your friendship.

I clearly remember your mother’s face when she handed you over to the operation theatre nurse she kissed you and looked at me with an expression that said she was handing over her most precious possession to me, with total confidence that I would take care of you.

It took me six hours of intense concentration to work on you, and many sleepless nights before you started smiling again. It was a big day when you were discharged from the hospital you were blissfully unaware of it, but tears of joy rolled down your parents’ cheeks, and I had to turn the other way because a cardiac surgeon is not supposed to cry.

Through the corner of my eye I saw your face one more time and knew I had found one more friend. Your friendship and love is the only fee I expect for treating you.

I have performed 4,000 operations on children like you. Most are from poor families, but I treat them all for free I think that this is the best way I can repay God, who has given me everything I need.

You must be wondering what inspired me to do this. My life was spent in fear of losing my parents, who were ill in our life, God was a distant image of a doctor who could save lives.

I remember one day building a toy out of matchboxes and listening to a relative telling my mother of a surgeon who saved children’s lives and offered his services free. I heard my mother bless that surgeon and saying that the world is still a wonderful place because of people like him.

That was when I found the purpose of my life. I trained at Guy’s Hospital in London, and my colleagues there called me an ‘operating machine’ because I loved doing heart surgery so much.

In 1989 we started a heart hospital in Calcutta it was to become one of the best heart hospitals in India. One day my mother spent almost the entire day in her prayer room, because it was the anniversary of my father’s death. My sister, who was watching TV, screamed and my mother hurried out to see her son, on the screen, with a nine-day-old baby the youngest baby in India to undergo successful open-heart surgery.

It was the beginning of such surgery on little children in India.

A few years later, when Mother Theresa suffered a heart attack, I was put in charge of her heart care.

One day, she was convalescing and saw me examining a blue baby. She turned to me and said: ‘Now I know why you are here when God made these children, He was probably pre-occupied, and sent you to fix it.’

One day, young child, you will become an important member of society, with responsibilities and commitments. All I ask is can you spare a few moments of your precious time for someone who needs it? And without expecting anything back in return?

Do you know the power of helping others without expecting anything in return? Children, we are all created by God and He is in control of this world but He is not supposed to be seen here. So He runs this world using people like you and me.

And when you do your work without expecting anything in return, just for the joy of bringing happiness to others, that’s when you’ll realise that it is not your hands which are doing the job it is the hands of God that are working through you.

Dr. D.P. Shetty