A Date With an Old Lady

It's very wonderful to observe that giving joy to someone also imparts joy to your life, probably more than what you give away. And it was today afternoon that I got the first hand experience of it. I had never been to any old-age home, whe

re destitutes and elderlies who have no societal support or have been abandoned by their family spend rest of their life. I volunteered to be part of one of XL's Joy Of Giving Week, A day with an elderly, where few students from XL got the opportunity to visit an old age home, known by the name Nirmal Hriday and run by Missionaries of Charity. It was bunch of around 30 young and bright students ( exclude me :-P ) who finally got to make use of this opportunity. Here, I would like to emphasise on the word opportunity as I believe that I was actually a chance in front of us not only to quench the CSR thirst, which might have occurred due to various contrasting reasons, and to shoulder some of our social responsibility but also a chance to get away from our LIK and SIP obsessed frame of mind.

I had my own reason to be part of this event. I wanted this visit to be a tribute to my late Granny, who passed away around 10 months a

go. Our granny was an amazing person, who not only showered us, me and my brother, love and affection and protected us from numerous dangerous situations, such as getting spanked due to some mischievous act, but also taught us many lessons which helped us immensely to be what we are today. She was a person loved by one and all and had a wonderful health and an evergreen toothless smile complimented by full-silver hair. We were very close to her since the day we checked-in to this world, but apparently I was pampered more than my brother, reaping the benefit of being younger, I guess. I can continue to a great length to talk about her but I would like to cut short and just say that both of us loved her very much and will always feel her presence among us throughout our life. Due to this reason, I just wanted to visit this place and pay my tribute to her, to her unconditional love

to us and also to her evergreen-toothless but the most beautiful smile.

We left for the old age home at around 1430 hrs and 20 minutes later we were at the gate of Nirmal Hriday. At first we were not permitted to enter as the person keeping the main gate refused to let us enter the premise but after making a few calls to the Sister we managed to get the permission. The premise was a decent one, it had a 2 storeyed building bearing the common cuboid shape. Initially, We could observe only a few male occupants on the roof-top and the compound felt quite tranquil. Probably, most of the people were having their post-lunch siesta. After around 15 minutes we had a nice gathering of peop

le around us. There were many people around us, men, women and even children. Initially, there was an awkward feeling among all of us, as I could feel, probably because very few of us had faced such a crowd before. They belonged to different religion, had different language but now in this place they were all bound with one commonality, they had nobody as family and we all understood that pretty well. I tried to connect to them and was able to do so with few of them without much difficulty. Then I met an aged lady, probably 70-75 years old, a 5 feet tall figure. She had a mix of gray and black cropped hair, was bit lean but had a very bright smile on her face. We talked and I soon discovered that this lady has got an amazing sense of humor, she cracked many jokes and I reciprocated accordingly. She was not literate but had a good sense of the world around her. While chatting, she told me that she had worked for Mother Teressa many years ago and that was the most fulfilling achievement for her life.

Somehow, within minutes, I liked her and even she

liked to talk to me. Later when I asked for her name, she said, with a big smile on her face, that she won't tell me her name. And the reason which she gave surprised and moved me a lot. She said with her aadivasi accent "jo bhi ata hai, photo leta hai aur naam pochta hai, aur dubara wapas nahi ata...itna photo le liya lekin kisi ne ek bhi photo diya nahi" (whoever comes, he clicks a snap, asks my name but never returns. Moreover, nobody gives me a copy). She was bit unhappy because many of those people promised to return and give her a copy of the picture and unfortunately it never happened. I was touched, I felt that more than the fact that nobody gave her a copy of the picture, the fact that none returned to meet her was hurting more, although she stated this with one more smile on her face. Then after chatting for some more time, I asked her if I could take a snap of her with me, and she permitted me to do so. I took a snap and while saving the picture I resolved to my

self that I would get her a copy of this snap, within a week. We had a look into the pic, it was nice and she was happy to see that. I was pretty sure that she would be more happy to have a copy of that snap.

After spending some time with other inmates, especially children ( I loved to play with them and believe me that was fun) we asked for their permission. Before leaving I went to meet that lady again, and this time she came to with both the hands raised. She blessed me for coming to their place and spending some time with her and kissed on both of my cheeks, just as my granny used to. I thanked her and took her blessings. When I reached the gate, I said goodbye aloud but kept the words "see you soon" to myself. I hope that I would live up to my resolution of getting her a copy of the snap, very soon.

Updated: 16th Oct 2009, 0255 hrs( Cristina and me)