TOI: A school dropout injects joy into the lives of ill kids: August 13, 2008

At the children’s ward in Bombay Hospital, little patients march around their cold steel beds chanting nursery rhymes. Others draw mischievous caricatures of the nurse who jabs them periodically with a long needle—and tells them it’s for their own good. Every time a pill has to be popped, the tots pretend it will turn magically into chocolate. Every time blood has to be drawn, they take a deep breath and exhale while humming their favourite song.

  And all this thanks to a bright-eyed 20-year-old lad named Sumeet Gade and his unique social venture, Pragati. Sumeet makes for an unlikely Patch Adams, the loveable character in the Hollywood film who injects joy into the drab world of hospitals in simple ways. He lives in a cramped Mahalaxmi room that he shares with 10 others. His father is a watchman, a job that Sumeet’s grandfather, a plumber at the race course managed to get him. The city has no shortage of wealthy good Samaritans but how often do we hear of an underprivileged boy who brings joy to children of wealthy parents, and who does this despite opposition from family and friends? Even as the country gears up to celebrate its 61st Independence Day, it is change-makers like Sumeet who infuse new meaning into celebrating freedom. When Sumeet strides into the ward in his bright orange pants, tiny foreheads uncrease and laughter rings forth. “Pragati is about making ill kids happy because it helps them get well. A child should be playing in the garden, not be stuck to a saline drip,’’ says this Florence Nightingale who likes to dress like a cocky college stud. Those who know him readily agree that beneath the flamboyance is a shy youngster easily embarrassed by the praise people pour on him. 

   Sumeet is now facilitator of 25 other such youngsters who’ve taken it upon themselves to drive change. He and five friends visit Bombay Hospital for two hours every Sunday. On their last trip, the kids made sequined paper crowns. “They simply refused to take them off,’’ smiles Sumeet, who knows exactly how much happiness a simple hand-made photo-frame made of ice-cream sticks can bring to a sick child. He now wants to extend Pragati to municipal hospitals. “The toughest battle is to get permission from the bureaucrats. I’ve waited outside offices for more than six hours and have written to seven municipal hospitals but have not heard back from even one.’’ 

  Even when he was a student at the Akanksha Foundation for street children, Sumeet knew that he wanted to do something to make children happy. He found his calling when the NGO held a social leadership programme. That’s when he came up with the hospital idea. “One of my cousins has a hole in the heart, another is slow. It makes my heart burn to see them in that state,’’ he says. 

   The going was not easy initially. He was met with snide jokes for pursuing a career in social work instead of contributing to the family income. “But today, my mother is proud of me.

In fact, by working at Akanksha I end up earning more than my brother who works for a bank,’’ he says.

  After a full’s day work, he attends night school at Parel for his Bachelor of Arts degree. It’s hard to believe that this conscientious youngster is the same boy who flunked his Std X exam three years in a row, and who fled a home plagued by an alcoholic father and a mother who had run away from the brutality. He spent the nights at Chowpatty among vagrants and tried his hand at the vices on offer, but eventually returned home.

   Having, in a sense, lost his own childhood, Sumeet seems determined that others should not lose theirs. His mission seems to have been successful. An eight-year-old girl who visits the hospital once in two months for chemotherapy refuses to leave until she’s spent time with Sumeet bhaiyya. Other children who have healed and gone home still keep in touch. “I visit them or we talk on the phone,’’ says Sumeet, flashing his wide smile. “These relationships are for keeps, in sickness and in health.’’

   (This is the first in an Independence Day series on youngsters who have chosen to light a candle rather than curse the darkness)