Why Do We Go To Camp?

by  Stuti Dave

Every year, around the same time, people from different parts of the world come together for something called “Plastic Surgery camp.” Growing up around it, I always knew it mattered. But this year, I think I finally started understanding why people really come.

The doctors who are probably the best at what they do leave their comfortable lives and travel across countries just to give back. They come to operate, to heal, to teach younger doctors and to share years of experience and learning. But I think they also come for something else… to see a child smile again, to help someone look in the mirror without pain and to remind themselves why they became doctors in the first place.

Then there are the volunteers and members. Some have been doing this for years, quietly carrying forward a legacy of service without expecting anything in return. Some come to meet friends they only see once a year at camp. Some come because the chaos of operation theatres, patients, schedules and emergencies strangely makes them feel alive. Some come because seva gives them peace.

Some come carrying pain of their own.

Maybe someone comes because helping others makes their own problems feel smaller for a little while.

And then there are the aunties and mothers who somehow make the best meals during camp… the kind everyone waits for all morning. In between surgeries and stress, those lunches become small moments of happiness.

Some volunteers spend hours just blowing bubbles, playing games, colouring or making funny faces for little patients waiting outside operation theatres and on their recovery beds. And somehow, for those few minutes, the hospital stops feeling scary.

The patients come for very different reasons.

Some come trying to forget one terrible day that changed their life forever. Some come after years of hiding scars, pain or shame. Some come holding on to hope for a future they have imagined for a very long time. And their families come carrying prayers, helplessness, fear and love… all at the same time.

And then slowly camp ends.

The operation theatres become quiet again. The volunteers go back to their regular lives. The doctors head back to different countries. The banners come down. Everything kind of goes back to normal until next year.

Maybe people come back for the same reasons.

Maybe they find new ones.

As for me, I go back to studying for my 10th boards and acting like trigonometry makes any sense. But somewhere between school, homework and everyday life, I know I’ll still keep thinking about camp.

And maybe one day, I’ll be part of carrying this legacy forward too.

Until then, from the shadows, I still wonder…

Why do you come to camp?