A Smiling God

Posted by Madhu on Aug 5, 2011

One of our Lokmitra fellows, Raghu, has been running a Tiffin service for the poorest of the poor. Recently Rafa, a Manav Sadhna volunteer from Spain, went to distribute food with Raghu and shared the following experience:

“After three hours of roaming in the Ahmedabad slums with Raghu, distributing food from house to house, I started to feel tired. What kept me going was the thought that Raghu does this every single day without his disability limiting his compassion. The last house we visited was of an old grandmother who was living alone. She was clearly in lot of pain and kept complaining that she had no desire to live and wished god would take her. She was constantly crying and Raghu listened to her very patiently trying to give her hope. When she didn’t seem to stop crying, Raghu looks at me and requested me to take a picture of her. First it felt quite inappropriate and uncomfortable taking a picture in this situation but when Raghu insisted I took out my camera and asked the grandmother to smile for god and next moment as if she really saw the god she gave one of the most beautiful smile I have ever seen. Few days later I learned that she had passed away and with no one else left in her family, Raghu did her cremation. My heart is still filled withe loving memory of her smile and in awe of Raghu who is doing this work which is truly moved by love”

Recently, in our Moved by Love space, someone shared that Raghu had utilized all the donated money and last month he had to use his own salary to pay for the food he gives away -- and yet he never asked for any help. Few friends decided to raise some money for him but then that seemed like an easy way out and not true to our spirit of ‘no fundraising’ and of serving with what we have. So we all decided to fast for one day in a week and money saved from that will be contributed towards the tiffin service. This really felt like a full circle. And staying hungry never felt so good.

Posted by Madhu on Aug 5, 2011 | permalink


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