We seek funds to help treat this child after bringing her to Delhi for better medical care. If you would like to help, please get in touch with us! In the small Indian town of Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, lives 15 day old Lakshmi. She is born with an Elephant trunk which is one of the rarest facial deformities. If she is not operated on she will not be able to speak or breathe properly. Villagers from near Aligarh, have flocked to see the ‘divine’ girl in the belief, that she is an incarnation of the elephant-headed god Ganesha. According to the doctor her condition may well be a genetic mutation. This is the story of Lakshmi - born with a “trunk”. Lakshmi is the newest addition to the family of Omprakash and Sarvesh. They live in Aligarh in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Laksmi’s father Omprakash is a vegetable seller and her mother Sarvesh is a homemaker who takes care of their five children. When Sarvesh was told that she is pregnant and expecting their fifth child, both Sarvesh and Omprakash did not realise the future complications in the pregnancy. They did not take the advice of any doctor and never even went for an ultrasound. At the time of the delivery, the family preferred a home-delivery with only a mid-wife in attendance, due to lack of money. Laxmi was a normal delivery. The mid-wife was shocked to see the baby. When the family saw the baby for the first time, they all were shocked to see a baby with a trunk like that of an elephant. It was hard for them to accept the baby with such an obvious facial deformity. Her facial lump is between her eyes and appears to have divided her nose in two. A crowd of people from nearby villages came to see the girl with a trunk. Everybody believes that she is an incarnation of the Lord Ganesha. Whoever hears about her visits her home to get a glimpse of the baby and makes whatever offerings possible. Doctor Pradeep Bansal, a paediatrician, examined the baby girl to find out more about her condition. According to him, her condition could be a genetic mutation triggered by malnutrition. He referred her to the famous All India Institute of Medical Sciences at New Delhi. Due to lack of money Laxmi’s parents are unable to go to Delhi for treatment. Ompraksh and Sarvesh want to take Lakshmi for corrective surgery when she grows up and are looking for financial support. We hope that Lakshmi, a child born with one of the rarest facial deformities gets all the necessary help and proper medical care so she can grow up as normal child and not as an oddity. This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of HD imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of 50, 000+ hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM / SR 1080i High Definition, Alexa, SR, XDCAM and 4K. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissio
