For this math prof,life is the sum of charity and love

M S Bedi,whose one leg is afflicted with polio,sold his one-kanal house in posh Sector 11 to set up an orphanage in Jhanjeri village in the late nineties. Managing the orphanage with his pension,Bedi lives in a spartan dwelling in Sector 40. But with age not on his side and the orphan kids all grown up,he thought of giving the property to someone who could set up a shelter for the homeless.

While he was looking for a caretaker,20 kms away in Padiala village in Kharar,Shamsher Singh was scouting around for space to keep unclaimed mentally challenged persons and the destitute. Shamsher runs an NGO for persons abandoned by their kin and living on the roads and railway stations. With around 150 persons at his destitute home,shortage of space,besides funds,had hamstrung his endeavour.

When Bedi met Shamsher,their plans dovetailed and he gave his land on a 15-year lease to the Universal Disabled Caretaker Social Welfare Society. The professor takes a token amount of Rs 1,000 per month,which he spends on the new building Shamsher is constructing on his plot.

The ashram,as Bedi terms it,has quite a few inmates. One of them smiles innocently on seeing Kuldeep Kaur,Bedi’s wife. “He is Om Prakash,reportedly an engineer from Ambala. Not much is known about him except that problems in his professional life pushed him into the abyss of depression,” she says.

A few steps away,Bobby is working with a carpenter on a wooden plank. After he lost his mother,Bobby left his house in a state of shock,and when he came to this shelter,his one kidney was missing,says the caretaker.

Every inmate has a soul-stirring tale to tell,which is sketchy due to their mental condition,says Kaur as she going around asking about their well-being. Meanwhile,a contented Bedi watches from a distance,a warm smile sweeping his face. After inspecting the work at his charity home,Bedi leaves for Padiala village to meet Shamsher.

As we alight,a cradle catches our attention. “People abandon their unwanted children here,most of whom are girls,” says Kaur as she walks in. The entrance has posters of missing persons pasted by their kin in a hope that someone might drop them here. The sight inside the premises drains every eye. The home is packed with mental wrecks,who stretch out their hands when Shamsher comes in.

“We are miserably short of space. At present,we keep women on the ground floor and men on the first. Once construction at Bedi’s ashram is over,we will shift the men there. With no government help,the biggest challenge at present is isolating TB patients. We have to adjust two persons on one bed,” he rues.

A trained pharmacist,Shamsher says Bedi’s proposal has solved his problem. Meanwhile,his phone rings and he rushes his volunteers to Chandigarh to pick up an abandoned person from Sector 27. “We pick up unclaimed persons from railway stations too,” he says.

It’s not only the poor and uneducated who dump their loved ones. “We have an inmate who has done his BSc. His brother left him here after their parents died. Another is a commerce graduate,whose father is no more and mother is in the Amritsar mental hospital,” he says.