INNER VISION

THE credit for setting up this Church in Ota, a slum rehabilitation scheme in Nigdi, around 20 km from Pune city, goes to Sunil Agale and his wife. Agale came to Rupee Nagar, Nigdi, in 1997 as the pastor of the local Evangelical Church of India. “It was a big church with very low attendance,” recalls Agale. “On the way to the church I would see dozens of visually impaired men and women walking across the roads and I began thinking about them. I started thinking that this was where my calling was,” he adds.
It was in early 2001 that Agale and wife Swarupa began spending time with the afflicted people. Over the next few months, the young pastor got 14 people from some six families to start attending informal Saturday meetings.
“It was tough to convince them that I wanted nothing from them as they had never experienced someone actually making an effort to spend time with them, shunned as they were by their families and society. In November 2001, I decided to cut my strings with the Evangelical Church where I was being paid about Rs 2,000 a month and start working on my own with these people, building up a ministry among them,” says Agale.
To make ends meet, Agale began talking in other churches about his work with the blind. Some responded, some didn’t. Says his wife Swarupa, who has a bachelors degree in Theology from Bible College, Nagpur: “I also began to spend time with women who had a host of problems. But the graver issue was about the difficulties a visually challenged couple had in bringing up their children. It is often a difficult task and that is where I am trying to make a difference.”
The Agales tried to align themselves with the Chennai-based Mission to the Blind, with Agale signing up in 2004 as their Maharashtra coordinator for the next three years. “It didn’t work out as they had a larger canvas and my concern continued to be the plight of the blind in the Rupee Nagar colony. In 2007, we decided to do the work on our own and started the New Life Centre for the Blind.”
Though the Agales keep teaching the blind the word of God and have a following of about 40 men and women, they are also trying to take care of the 115 or so children of the 70-odd blind families in the region.

SO, what is that makes these 40-odd men and women keep coming back to the church? At one level, there is faith. Featuring high in the list of miracles performed by Jesus Christ, according to the Bible, was making the blind see.
At a more pragmatic level, though, is the emotional quotient at work—the feeling that there is somebody that cares for them—something that makes a world of a difference to those who have been abandoned by their families for being a burden.
But burden is something they try not to be. Some are employed in Pune’s auto-component units while others make their living selling toys. Others eke out a living in more mundane manner—offering to take your weight on a scale for a rupee or so, playing wind instruments, even begging, which a few odd people still indulge in.
There is Sidheshwar Jagdale who has been working with Sunidhi Electronics, a spare parts supplier to some of the big auto majors in the region. He earns Rs 1,700 per month for a family of three—his wife Kanta and her sister Usha too are visually impaired.
The pied piper of the brotherhood is Pyarelal Fuljale, who plays the flute and also a wind instrument made of a modified comb. The next time you board any of the Pune-Mumbai trains, watch out, because that is where Fuljale makes his living.
Then there is Shivaji Awale, the leader of the group, who used to sell toys in trains, but now takes it easy at home, doing odd jobs. Sharad Thorat works in Sunidhi Electronics while Bhausaheb Navgire, who completed his schooling, is the regular reader of the Bible for the congregation. They all find happiness in this hour of fellowship offered by the New Life Centre for the Blind—their church.
Sunil Agale who has been their pastoral leader for the last eight years, says, “They don’t want a proper church. It’s fine the way it is. But what they definitely need is a day-care centre for their children. As both the husband and wife are blind in most cases and they leave their houses during the day to make a living, the future of the children is bleak.”
Between the 40-odd churchgoers and the rest of the visually impaired living in Nigdi, there are about 115 children aged between four and 15. They have been assured that their houses will be spared as the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation takes up a makeover of the Ota scheme under the JNNURM slum rehabilitation scheme.
“These dwellings of 100 sq ft units had not been originally given to the blind, they’ve encroached on the space. But those who’ve been living there since 1995, including the blind, will still benefit,” says Dilip Band, Municipal Commissioner, Pimpri-Chinchwad.
Clearly, this faithful group doesn’t have to worry about being evicted from their houses.