ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the folks at the Leprosy Mission Hospital in Kolkata India for letting me hang out with them and celebrate their work
To those who are not truly seen
1 The Best Day of My Life THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE was the day I found out I was all alone in the world This is how it happened I was picking up coal No I was supposed to be picking up coal but I wasn’t I was tired of picking up coal I was tired of coal Being tired of coal in Jharia is no good because coal is all there is in Jharia There is coal in pits and coal in piles and coal in mines under the ground There is coal on the roads and coal in people’s hair and coal in people’s chests that makes them cough and cough There is even coal in the air It comes up through cracks in the earth from the coal fires that have been burning under the town for nearly one hundred years If you’re a man you work in the mines or the pits
