PANCHAAMRITAM 273
(pancha is five in samskritam; amritam is nectar)
Amavaasya /
Kali Yugabda 5117 / Manmatha Vaikasi 3 (May 17, 2015)
ONE
During the recent earthquake in Nepal, Butham Sai, a 14-year-old orphan from Rama Krishnapauram Colony in Timmapur mandal, Karimnagar district (Telangana, Bharat), rescued five children, three boys and two girls, all aged below four, by evacuating them from a toppling building in Kathmandu while everyone was trying to save themselves. Sai had migrated to Nepal two years back with the help of his paternal uncle. He was taking care of the children of his uncle and some relatives. Around a hundred families from RK Colony live in rented houses in the Shinamangal area of Kathmandu. On the day of the earthquake, Sai was watching TV along with the other children. “I realized it was a earthquake only when the TV set fell on the children. I then started shifting the children to the road,” said Sai. “A flying piece of tin cut my left eyebrow, resulting in bleeding, when I was trying to rescue my uncle’s children, eight-month-old Venkata Sai and one-year-old Indu.” The other children who Sai rescued were Ganesh (4), Anu (3) and Shivani (3), children of other residents of RK Colony. (Based on a report in DECCAN CHRONICLE May 08, 2015).
TWO
Light of education is spreading in backward, tribal and
remote areas of Madhya Pradesh. Two students from the most marginalised Baiga
tribe in (Madhya Pradesh, Bharat) have
cracked the Indian Institutes of Technology Joint Entrance Examination
(IIT-JEE) Main exams and have become eligible to sit for the JEE (Advanced)
2015 scheduled to be held on May 24, 2015.
If the students Geeta Tekam and Santosh Kumar qualify the IIT-JEE
(Advanced) exams, they will be eligible for admission into one of the most
prestigious engineering colleges of India. Both the students live in acute
poverty and their mortgaged everything
to fund their education. Eighteen-year-old Geeta Tekam is the first girl of
Baiga tribe to see the dream to study in IIT. She has already cracked JEE-Main.
Her labourer parents, living in acute poverty at Sunehra village in Mandla,
preferred to choose her for academics than two sons. Santosh Kumar of Jablpur is the second talent
of Baiga community. A resident of Paundi village, Santosh is not sure about the
branch of engineering he would opt for in future, but he has big aspirations.
In fact as many as 135 children from different tribes have cleared IIT-JEE Main
exams 2015 from Madhya Pradesh. All of them, including Geeta and Satosh are
being provided special coaching by the state administration for IIT-JEE
Advanced exam. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has congratulated
the duo for their success. Over 13 lakh
students had appeared for the IIT-JEE Main exams 2015. (Based on reports in
IBNLive.com May 7, 2015 & http://www.mpnewsonline.com)
THREE
Hiware Bazar - Located in the Ahmednagar district (Maharashtra,
Bharat) has transformed from being a
place fraught with issues to being possibly the richest village in IndiaFrom
168 Below Poverty Line families in 1995, Hiware Bazar now has just three. The
village, which has 235 families and a population of around 1,250, now also
boasts of 60 millionaires. The cement houses along well-planned, clean roads
are pinkish brown. There is a sense of discipline and order. Liquor and tobacco
are banned. So is open defecation and urination. Every house has a toilet, a
fact that few Indian villages can boast of. The fields are lush with maize,
jowar, bajra, onions and potatoes. Hiware Bazar is an oasis in a
drought-affected area. Earlier it was not like this. There were 22 liquor shops in the village. Alcoholism had made them poor and addicted. Popatrao
Pawar, 52, the only postgraduate in Hiware Bazar was elected Sarpanch unopposed. Pawar realised
he had got the chance of a lifetime to usher in change. He got the liquor shops
closed. He got the gram sabha to tie up with the Bank of Maharashtra to grant
loans to poor families, including those who were brewing illicit liquor
earlier. He got the villagers to voluntarily help in rainwater harvesting.
Soon, the villagers built 52 earthen bunds, two percolation tanks, 32 stone
bunds and nine check dams. Water management helped them harvest multiple crops.
Before 1995, there were 90 open wells with water at 80-125 feet. Today, there
are 294 open wells with water at 15-40 feet. In 2007, the village won the
National Water Award for community-led water conservation. There is no doctor
in the village. There is no need of a doctor here as everyone is healthy. No
one can fall sick when the streets and houses are clean.The gram panchayat has
now decided that the second daughter’s education and marriage expenses will be
taken care of by the village. The village has just one Muslim family and as
there was no mosque for them to offer prayers, one was built for them. Banabhai
Sayed and his family take part in all Hindu festivals and effortlessly sing
Hindu bhajans. (Based on a report by Shri Ramesh Menon in TEHELKA MAGAZINE,
October 20, 2012).
FOUR
At Ganganagar locality of Meerut (Uttar Pradesh, Bharat)
is the house named Satyakam. Twelve children live in the house, all of them
HIV-positive and blessed to have found parents in Ajay Sharma, 41, a former
teacher at the Government Inter College in nearby Phalwada, and his wife
Babita, who teaches at the Ismail Degree College. Ten years ago, Ajay had a brain haemorrhage
and slipped into a coma for 15 days. This close encounter with death helped him
“understand the importance of being alive”, says Ajay, dictating his decision
to quit his full-time job and dedicate the rest of his life to the cause of
underprivileged children. Wife Babita has been a pillar of support; it’s her
salary that Satyakam runs on. The couple has two biological children of their
own. The couple enforces a strict daily
regimen of yoga, timely meals and sleeping early to ensure a healthy and
disciplined lifestyle for the 12 children. They have to be coaxed, however, to
take the bitter medicines twice a day. In the end, though, it remains just a
semblance of normalcy, the harsh truth never too far behind. One child, Balwant
has already reached Stage II of the disease and knows his condition may worsen any day. Aniket, 11, lived
in Satyakam for over two years before his relatives finally accepted him and he
went back to stay with them. The Sharmas adopted their youngest, Samrat, from a
hospital when he was an emaciated and malnourished kid of two. Five today, he
is ecstatic to have a family to call his own. The couple wishes to adopt more
kids and increase the number to 50. Right now, the adoption laws don’t allow
them to take in girls with the boys. So the Sharmas are planning to rent out a
separate house for girl children infected with HIV soon. Their motto is very
clear. “I want these 12 children to reach out and help a hundred like them,”
says Ajay. Hope multiplied. (Based on a report by Smt Sakshi Virmani in
OUTLOOK magazine, September 15 2014).
FIVE
For once, the porters did not indulge in any bargain, but
rose up to the occasion voluntarily and promptly after the blast at Chennai
Central on May 1, 2014, rescuing the injured and rushing them to proper
medicare after first aid. And Southern Railway decided to reward the licensed
porters for their Good Samaritan act when its General Manager Rakesh Mishra
lauded the timely effort that helped to prevent blood loss and agony. “This is
no just reward but means more to us. It’s recognition for us coolie porters,” —
was the common refrain of the group of porters who were honoured on May 5. “Chennai
Central is more than my house…it’s my temple,” says A. Hameed Basha, 34, a
licensed porter who was honoured on the occasion. “This is our livelihood, and
we would strive to safeguard the passengers whom we don’t even know by their
names, denominations or destinations, when the situation demands,” Shri. Basha
says, even as his comrades Shri Kalyani,
Shri N. Murugan and Shri B. Pandian nod in agreement. “Even if such unfortunate
circumstances recurred, we would not hesitate to help, unmindful of the danger
to our life and limbs,” the porters, who number around 300 at the Central’s 11
platforms, reiterated off the dais. (A report in THE HINDU, May 6, 2014).
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