A serene odyssey

J. Ganesan

“It was God in Gurvinder’s form that saved my father,” recalls Vinod Rawal, a chartered accountant, as his eyes become moist. His father, Ram Swaroop Rawal, an elderly gentleman from New Delhi, has Alzheimer’s. On the 11th of January 2015, he walked from his home and lost his way back. “We spent sleepless nights and tried all means to trace my father. We had almost lost hope when suddenly his photo was published by Bhai Kannaiah Ashram, Sirsa, and emerged on a social media group,” recounts Vinod. The volunteers from the ashram had spotted Vinod’s father from the Sirsa bus stand. Realising his condition, they had taken him back to the ashram and mounted a search operation, ultimately uniting him with his family. Vinod feels it is divine intervention that got his father back.

The story of Vedavati, a hapless woman who strayed from her home in Kolar, a town 2000 km from Sirsa, and found her way to the Bhai Kannaiah Ashram, is heart-wrenching. While her family gave her up as dead, it was Gurvinder and the Bhai Kannaiah Ashram that helped her recuperate for three years and reunite with her family. Vedavati’s brother Praveen often pauses to compose himself on the telephone as he expresses his gratitude to Gurvinder.

These are but a few untold stories of human compassion and kindness at the Bhai Kannaiah Ashram, a home for the destitute established by Gurvinder Singh a decade ago. His life is a saga of a lifelong dedication to humanity. An unsung hero avoiding the limelight all this time, he couldn’t help preventing it when he was conferred the prestigious Padma Sri award by the Government of India. Kindness and empathy are infectious traits, and this award is another vector that helps them spread, says Gurvinder in his characteristic style. Why aren’t you excited, and how is it that your mind is always like a steady stream? I ask. “It wasn’t. I was like the raging rapids,” says Gurvinder, recounting his early years.

Gurvinder had a small business repairing agricultural implements in the mid-1990s. Always to be seen in his white kurta, neatly tied turban and well-trimmed beard, he was a handsome young man looking forward to life. This was until the fateful day in 1997 when he was hit by a speeding truck. A deep blood-red took over his otherwise white attire as he lay on the road, slipping in and out of consciousness. The accident crushed the spinal cord and paralysed him from the waist down, rendering him immobile and confined to a wheelchair. Gurvinder recollects, “The mental agony was unbearable, much more than the physical pain. I was angry at everything, and it seemed my life was slipping right before my eyes, unmindful that my journey had just begun.” The distinct smell of the hospital, an unsavory mélange of blood, antiseptics, soaps, and cleaners made him sick as he underwent treatment in different hospitals for the next four years.

It was a cold, freezing night in December 2004 when Gurvinder’s life turned around again. As Gurvinder was winding up for the day, his eyes caught a homeless man curled up near his workshop. It didn’t take much for Gurvinder to realise that the man may not survive the night. His instincts kicked in, and with the help of some of his friends, he arranged an ambulance and moved the man to the civil hospital. Gurvinder’s voice choked as he remembered the faint smile and the tear that jerked from the man’s eyes as he was moved to intensive care. “All my anger was washed away. I had made peace with God,” says Gurvinder.

He had found his path. The journey Gurvinder was to embark upon would stop at nothing and touch the lives of hundreds of people on its way. “I thought it wouldn’t work and was plain wishful thinking,” says Sanjiv Jain, a prominent lawyer and tax consultant in Sirsa, recalling his first meeting with Gurvinder.

Sanjiv thought Gurvinder was delusional as he spoke about his grand plans to open a home for the destitute. “The man was insistent and wouldn’t stop. But I sensed an urge in his voice and a demeanor that was raring to go. It seemed as if the wheelchair did not exist. I decided to help him with the paperwork to register a Charitable Trust,” Sanjiv says. Little did Sanjiv realise that he would be drawn so much to their cause within a few years that he would become a patron of the Trust and even donate a piece of land.

The Bhai Kanhaiya Manav Sewa Trust thus came into being in 2005. Named after the 17th-century saintly figure, the trust took a vow of selfless service upon itself. Driven by personal motivation, Gurvinder started with the ambulance service to help road accident victims. With the support of patrons from Sirsa, the Trust realised its dream of establishing the Bhai Kanhaiya Ashram for destitute and mentally challenged women in 2011. Hundreds of men and women, destitute, homeless, and abandoned, have found solace in their “bhai sahab” Gurvinder. I had the good fortune to witness the ashram’s growth and its service to humanity during my stint as the District Magistrate of Sirsa during 2012-14.

Gurvinder continues with his journey undisturbed, like a steady stream. He couldn’t have known that the accident that wounded him would heal the lives of so many others.

(The writer, a senior IAS officer, is MD, Hafed and Hartron, Haryana)

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