By Neha Patil
We (Jayesh Uncle, Freya, Jesal Parekh and me) began our two week adventure in Ahmedabad on Monday, July 3rd. We reached Ahmedabad by train and headed to Manav Sadhna. Manav Sadhna is an NGO run at the Gandhi Ashram by Jayeshbhai and Anarben Patel, its founders. Gandhiji stayed at the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram for twelve years while protesting British rule in India. The Ashram was founded on the principles of Gandhiji and continues to promote them through its various projects and teachings. The Ashram has a museum and various buildings including the meeting room where Gandhiji met world dignitaries while spinning the “Charkha”.
Towards the end of the tour of Manav Sadhna, it started raining heavily. Since it was the first day of heavy rains in Ahmedabad, Jayeshbhai allowed the young kids at the Ashram Shala (school) to dance in the rain; Freya and I joined the kids and danced with them for a good half an hour, after which we all sat down to do prarthana (prayers). Despite the fact that we were so tired from our train ride that morning, after seeing everything at the Ashram, we were all pretty excited for what was in store for us.
The next day started with prayers at 11:15 in the morning (this was the pattern for the next two weeks). After prayers, Jayeshbhai asked if anyone wanted to give a testimonial or tell a story about a particular act of kindness they might have seen recently. On that day, the four of us were given little, homemade dhinglis (Tsunamika dolls) that were pinned to our shirts. We each lit divas (candle lamps) and then different volunteers were asked to tie rakhis (bands) to our wrists. All this was done to initiate and welcome us into their group. It was a really neat experience, and everyone was incredibly nice. After prayers we sat with a group of young boys who were working on various arts and crafts projects. Manav Sadhna has an “Earn & Learn” program in which the kids learn a certain skill that enables them to make some money for their families. The kids are quite talented and extremely meticulous with their work.
Next, we visited the Tekra (slum area) in which Manav Sadhna has started a Centre and a non-formal school; the school was created because the children in the slums don’t have access to any type of formal public education. From that point onwards, our trips to the Tekra consisted primarily of sitting in on English tuitions and teaching 7 th, 8th, 9th, and 10th graders random English phrases and words. The kids were extremely eager to learn. Jayeshbhai joined us in the Tekra with Jayesh Uncle and proceeded to have some friendly conversations with many of the workers in the Tekra. He approached one very old man and nonchalantly began cutting his fingernails and took away the man’s beedies (Indian cigarettes) and got him to promise never to smoke again. Manav Sadhna promotes hygiene above all, and the first step in staying healthy is keeping your hands clean, which is why Jayeshbhai frequently checks and cuts people’s nails.
On this day, we also met a little girl by the name of Kajol and her baby brother, Jignesh. These kids were by far the dirtiest and neglected of the kids we met, and Kajol should have been in school with all the other kids. Instead, her baby brother was attached to her hip and he never left her side. Despite the fact that they were both half-naked and dirty, both Kajol and Jignesh had enormous smiles on their faces. In fact, all of the children were always smiling when we were at the Tekra. It was a very humbling experience to see the kids and the perpetual smiles on their faces smiles that were present regardless of all the difficulties they faced at home. The four of us decided to buy Kajol and her brother some clothes at the first available opportunity, which we ended up doing the next day.
After prayers the following day, Freya, Jesal, and I were given cooking lessons by Bhavnabhen, who is one of the five women in charge of cooking a snack for 5,000 children everyday. She was an adorable woman whose face bore a constant expression of cheerfulness and optimism. She taught us how to make rotlis (Indian bread) and, after a couple oddly-shaped and overcooked ones, we became fairly good at it. Overall, it was a lot of fun and Bhavnabhen was very encouraging. We visited the Tekra again on this day. And that night we decided that we would fast the next day, each of us having different reasons for doing so. So the next day, we fasted the entire day, drinking only water from time to time. It wasn’t as difficult as one might have expected, except for the fact that we had to work at the Seva Café that same night.
The concept of the Seva Café is an amazing one it is basically a café that’s run by volunteers. The volunteers cook all the food in the café and serve the first fifty people that come to eat there. It is up to the customer to decide how much he or she wants to pay for the meal. There is no price on anything, and customers can eat as much as they want. Everything that is done at the café is done out of the goodness of people’s hearts, and the vibe one gets from being there is great. All the volunteers are so considerate and helpful. It became difficult for all of us at times only because we hadn’t eaten anything all day and there we were, serving people grilled veggie sandwiches, dahi vadas, and chocolate ice cream among many other things. It was definitely an exercise in discipline and willpower that I don’t think we’ll forget. Right next to the Seva Café is Gramshree, which is a store that sells merchandise made predominantly by the women and children of the slums. The store has everything from cards and lamps to jewelry and clothes. It is essentially an outlet that showcases the skills and talents of the artisans while also helping them make some much-needed money.
Earlier during that day we visited “Utthan”, a school for the mentally challenged. While we were there, we were given the opportunity to sit with some of the students and help them with the projects they were working on. There were different stations at which some were making bags while others were making folders. The visit really changed our perceptions of mentally challenged people. Most of them were entirely capable of making things and holding normal conversations. At the end of the day, they’re people just like us, with likes, dislikes, certain abilities, sense of humor, etc. However, until you actually sit and interact with them, you tend to group them into a category of people that are “different” than you. Its funny how human nature works and how it can be changed through experiences that we have.
We started off the next week by visiting the Adalaj step-well with Jayeshbhai. It was built during the reign of Queen Rudabai, a Muslim ruler. I don’t think that any of us realized what we were about to see. It was a multi-storied structure in the form of a water-well with chambers one behind the other. The intricacy of the carvings and complexity of the overall structure stand as a testament to the capabilities and dedication of the architects and builders of that time. Collectively, we must have taken over one hundred pictures. After the step-well, we visited a School for the Blind that was actually started by two elderly blind men after they lost their jobs at a textile factory. We were given a brief introduction to the Braille alphabet and were able to talk to the founders of the school for a short time. When thinking about the willpower and consideration with which two blind men were able to change the lives of so many unfortunate children, we were reminded yet again of the generosity of the human spirit, even in the face of such adversity.
That same day, we spent the night at the Environmental Sanitation Institute that was created by Jayeshbhai’s father, Ishwarbhai. One of the volunteers at Manav Sadhna, Maria, was leaving after working at the Ashram for seventeen months. Because she loves garba, everyone was throwing her a farewell celebration. People started coming to the Institute around mid-afternoon, and by the evening there were a good sixty to seventy people there. After a candle-lit session of prayer, testimonials, and goodbyes in the amphitheater, we all ate dinner, did garba, and played games well into the night.
The next day, we along with about eight International volunteers went on a “search for good walk” with Jayeshbhai and Anarben Patel. The eight kilometer walk took us through a Shree Krishna temple, Swaminarayan temple, a Jain temple, and a Mosque. During this walk, we were encouraged to speak only to a minimal extent. Along the way, we encountered a homeless man who had been sitting on the side of the street for six years. He had with him the bare essentials some copper pots and pans, some drinking water, the tarp he was sitting on, and the clothes he was wearing. He informed us that he had lived off of the kindness of neighbors for six years, as people came by daily offering him food and drink. Jayeshbhai spoke so kindly with him and offered him a hygiene kit with towel, toothbrush, comb he refused to take anything and lifted his turban to show us that he was bald and had no need for the comb. Instead of accepting any goodies from us, he took out fifteen rupees from his pocket and offered it to Jayeshbhai, telling him to buy us all some tea and snacks. I don’t think any of us had ever witnessed anything like that before.
The following day we visited three of the sixty-six preschools (Aanganwadi) started by Manav Sadhna in different slums throughout Ahmedabad. The kids were adorable, and Freya, Jesal, and I were given the chance to hand out cashews as snacks to the children. Each child waited patiently for their cashews and all of them were surprisingly well-behaved for such young kids. That same day, we were also able to watch the Ashram’s tradition of “Mutthi-Daan”, which is a gathering at which battered women come together and are given a bag of grains by the Ashram. These women are generally too old and/or sick to work and make money, and they have often been abandoned by their husbands and families. “Muthi-Daan” is a way for the Ashram to help them out, because for these women, one bag of grain actually does go a long way.
On our last day at the Ashram, the four of us were given special shirts to wear that said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the World”. After prarthana (prayers), Jayeshbhai and Anarbhen talked about the four of us, and we were each asked to say something about our experiences over the past two weeks. Later we were gifted with a commemorative picture of the four of us in our t-shirts. The text at the bottom of the picture thanked us for coming to Manav Sadhna and entering their world. We were given quite a few other gifts of thanks and appreciation, but they seem small in comparison to the experiences, friends, and realization that all of us have undoubtedly walked away with. Our two weeks with Manav Sadhna were, in one word, fulfilling. No words can completely express everything we saw and felt, and nothing solid could ever represent our time with Manav Sadhna. The feeling that comes from the countless acts of kindness, love, compassion and generosity that we saw at Manav Sadhna is not a tangible one, and no completely selfless act ever really is.