“I who am blind can give one hint to those who see – one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf to-morrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful.”
This is an excerpt from Helen Keller’s essay, “Three Days to See”.
I have never been involved in social work in school, nor did I enrol for the Social Service League in college. Actually, I wasn’t even sure if I believed in social service for that matter. (I’m still not sure if I do!)
I visited Nirmal Hriday, Home for Dying Destitutes for the first time in November, 2009. It wasn’t an official visit. I know someone who has been a very regular visitor for a very long time, and when he asked if I’d be interested in tagging along; it seemed like a pretty interesting way to be spending the afternoon.
I am not the first person to be writing about Om Prakashji and Yadu, far from that actually. I don’t even have anything new to say about my acquaintance with them. But being the human that I am, I like to give myself and my intelligence a great deal of importance and so to me, my story is very special.
When you are a person who tends to avoid visits to the hospital for vaccine shots or even visiting friends and relatives because the very thought of wards full of sick, terminally ill, or ICU’d patients makes you squeamish, a Home for Dying Destitutes does not seem ideal.
Nirmal Hriday these days is being renovated and major portions of the building have been scaled down, including the women’s section. What remains now, is the main convent building, and a dilapidated section, housing not even one-fifth of its original strength. When you have finally convinced the street kids outside not to demolish your car windows with their heroic bowling stunts, not to mention a few of whom would promise to guard your car with their life, you enter the main gate. More
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