It was the darkest night of my life, a night when my soul shivered with an unknown fear. My husband and I stood forlorn outside the paediatric ICU of KGMU Hospital in Lucknow.
Inside the ICU, doctors struggled to control my five-year-old daughter’s high fever.
Suddenly I heard low sobs in a dark corner of the corridor.
It was a mother taking her sick son back home because she couldn’t afford Rs 16,000 for a surgery.
My husband volunteered to pay.
That very instant, as if by magic, my daughter Swarnima started recovering.
Today she’s a healthy 24- year-old, studying journalism.
The incident changed my life. I decided that I’d earn only people’s blessings.
I started providing medicine, food and financial aid to all the underprivileged children coming to the government hospital for treatment.
Soon I noticed that many of them were coming for cancer treatment. Many came from villages and had to camp in the hospital grounds.
Cancer meant a longer treatment and also a larger financial strain on the family. So, I took a vow to work for cancer-stricken children and their families.
Initially my businessman husband funded my work. Then friends and relatives also started supporting. To help more people, I started Eeshwar Child Welfare Foundation in 2002.
We serve underprivileged children of two government hospitals in Lucknow with 1,200 hot cooked meals three times a day. We also distribute weekly dry rations to mothers whose children are admitted.
Six years back I started a craft unit too. We involve mothers of the child cancer patients to make and sell jewellery and other craft items.
When I learnt that many of these children’s fathers lost their livelihood during the pandemic, we started a “masala unit”, to make powdered spices. It’s doing well, so it helps the families earn.
I help organise the marriage of five girl cancer survivors every year too.
Knowing the foundation’s need for resources, my elder daughter, an engineer, started transferring money to it each month. It was a proud moment for me.
I feel a sense of spirited ecstasy when I’m around the cancer survivors, seeing them smile after the seething pain they’ve suffered, and helping them fulfil their academic dreams.
I won’t trade these absolute joys for anything.
Of course, there are days when I feel bogged down, the children’s pain depressing me.
But I’m back on my feet with renewed energy when I remember the happy survivors. Providing for them and their families’ needs when they are ill mean a lot to me and I can’t rest.
After all, I’m here to earn others’ blessings.
Reporting by Kulsum Mustafa, an independent journalist based at Lucknow. Photos by Mehraj.
