LEARNING FROM A SAINT

Life has a strange way of giving lessons. Unexpected events happen and they give one’s life a new direction. One such incident helped to direct me to “the path less travelled”. It must be twenty years ago, that professional work took me to Halol in Gujarat. My colleague and I had one evening free. Somebody suggested that we should visit Muni Seva Ashram situated a short distance away, run by a saintly lady Smt. Anuben Thakkar. We accepted the suggestion. I am glad we did.

We reached the Ashram in the early evening to be greeted by Anuben herself. She was dressed in saffron clothes. It was twenty years ago, that Anuben decided to commit her life to work for the poorest of the poor. Her Guru indicated to her four places on the map. She told me, “I selected Waghodia, which was the worst place. If I had to light a lamp, should I not do so at the darkest place!” The place selected by her was infested with robbers. The Collector and Police authorities tried to persuade her to move to another place in the interest of her safety. But she did not budge. She built her hut with the material borrowed from the villagers and started work by looking after the children of the women, when their mothers went to work in the fields.

This was the first lesson. It taught me that if I had a choice. I should select work which helps the poorest of the poor that is most difficult. The first lesson was:

When we were taken around the Ashram, we saw what Anuben was able to achieve in just 20 years. There were 20 day care centres. There were two residential schools with 250 children each. There was an Orphanage, where there were 80 kids. Anuben’s direction to donors was that, they should not give broken toys and torn clothes for the children. They should give only such things as they would give to their own children! Apart from these, she also had an old age home for 40 people and a 60-bed hospital……..and a nurse’s training centre! The last one which we were shown was a separate unit for 100 girls with intellectual disabilities, which was a recent addition. Parents of one such daughter cried their heart out. To look after 100 such girls and with so much love and affection was something only Anuben could do. Her dream was to set up a full-scale cancer hospital. This hospital had already been setup and was doing fantastic work. The project was started by her, but sadly she did not survive to see the full fledged hospital working.

All along people like us have not done anything on the pretext that the problem is so vast and we alone cannot do much. Here was a lady whom I considered to be less educated, less impressive in personality, with lesser resources and lesser connections. If she could do so much in such a short time, I had no business not to put in my best efforts and do whatever little I can. May be I could achieve only a small fraction of what Anuben achieved. But I had no excuse for running away from the problems of our people. The second lesson was this:

Anuben was explaining how the centre for those mentally retarded girls came up. “The government gave the land so I started.” I could not help asking as to where the money came from and how could she start without entering that the required money would be available. Her reply was simple, “It is God’s work………He was bound to send money and He did!” This was an eye opener and also the third lesson. This is the experience of several social workers. Whenever they took up such work with faith, where the help came from one does not know. This was the third lesson.

So friends, let us select a place which is the darkest and light our candles. Do not ask what we alone can do, and have faith that God will not let us down. Let us begin and let us begin now.