I was in fourth or fifth
class in a school at Jalgaon, Maharashtra. The year was perhaps 1955. That
evening, Sarvodaya leader Acharya Vinoba Bhave was in town. There was a large
gathering on the town’s meeting ground. I was with my father patiently
listening to the Acharya’s words of wisdom.
It must have been about an hour when he fished his sermon. Honestly, I must not have understood what he had said. Back home, during dinner, my father gave us a gist of Acharya’s speech.
It must have been about an hour when he fished his sermon. Honestly, I must not have understood what he had said. Back home, during dinner, my father gave us a gist of Acharya’s speech.
It was fashionable those
days for the students to write a diary. I used to write thought-for-the- day,
good idioms, or something interesting. That night, I wrote Vinoba’s only
sentence I could remember. He had said in Marathi, ‘ If a neighbour does not recognise
a neighbour, it must be a city.’
By the time I attended the eleventh class, my diary was nearly full. On almost the last page, I had scribbled the title of a lesson in my textbook: ‘Good Samaritan’. I wrote its meaning from the dictionary: ‘One who is compassionate and helpful to a person in distress.’
By the time I attended the eleventh class, my diary was nearly full. On almost the last page, I had scribbled the title of a lesson in my textbook: ‘Good Samaritan’. I wrote its meaning from the dictionary: ‘One who is compassionate and helpful to a person in distress.’
Years passed by. All my diaries and notebooks
of school and college days were lost into oblivion. But somehow this diary kept
on resurfacing again and again during the latter part of my life until very
recently. I was fond of reading these two entries whenever I resurrected books
and diaries of yesteryears. By the time I finally lost the diary, these entries
became etched in my memory. Now, these entries are not in front of my eyes. But I
do not need them to remember.
Yesterday, I realised the truth in what the
Acharya had said, in lighter vein perhaps. ‘ If a neighbour does not recognize a neighbour, it must
be is a city.’
This is the story involving my
neighbour, Abhijit, son of a veteran journalist Sureshchandra Warghade. His
family lives in the adjoining building at Patrakarnagar, Pune. Abhijit is a childhood
friend of my sons. I know him and his family. Thus, Acharya’s statement should
not be applicable to me. Yet, I must admit that I did not know Abhijit adequately.
I came to know real him, his
wife Madhuri and mother Nirmala only now two days ago. That, all of them are
good samaritans. Samaritan is ‘One
who is compassionate and helpful to a person in distress.’
This is the story of how I came to know about
their compassion. I was only vaguely aware that Abhijit is well placed in some
company. Only by sheer chance, I came to know that his 70-year-old mother and
her daughter-in-law have been preparing about a hundred chapattis in their
kitchen every morning for the last three weeks. These are for the workers
locked down at his company, Vijay Logistics Pvt Ltd, at Kuruli village on
Pune-Nashik highway. Abhijit is the Employee Director of the company.
The Company Chairman Mr Ravinder Dhaka, who had
spotted the panic-stricken migrant families walking on foot along the highway,
proposed to provide them bananas, biscuits, and mineral water bottles. These
families were on way to their homes in neighbouring states. Abhijit and his
family members were moved by their plight and volunteered to join the
initiative.
Thousands of the migrants had panicked due to
Covid 19 and had begun walking without money in their pockets. They were
unmindful of the fact that there would be no food and water available on their
long journey. The situation has eased a bit now. The migrants do not have to
walk now because the Maharashtra government has made arrangements for their
journey back home.
The staff of the Vijay Logistics Pvt Ltd have
turned ‘sevekaries’ to offer service to the people in distress. They even now take two trucks carrying the supplies for the migrants at the bus stops
and railway stations because the families have to board the buses and trains on
their journey back to their native places.
For the Chairman, Mr Dhaka and Abhijit, this is
not an activity under Corporate Social Responsibility, but an act of
philanthropy under the preaching of spiritual leader Sant Rampalji who is revered
in Haryana and other parts of North India as an incarnation of Sant Kabir.
--
25.05.2020, Pune
--
Prof Dr Kiran Thakur
Adjunct Faculty
FLAME University
