Jyoti Niwas

I always thought that an old age home leaves one feeling lonely sad and disheartened .

But does it really?  Today I was proven wrong. Today, for the first time in my life, I visited

an old age home and it was nothing like I imagined. Jyoti Niwas is  a place for people of

any age who are abandoned by family, discarded by society and have nowhere to go.

People over there are treated like family. As I first entered the home, a series of questions

ran through my mind. How do people live here? Why do people live here? Where are their

families?  How do I approach them? Will they respond if I talk to them? We were to

interact with them. I thought of it as a task to be completed. An assignment to be done.

I was lost. Where do I start? Whom do I talk to?  We just walked for a few minutes.

Everyone went inside one or the other room. Only a few of us were sitting with the

people outside so I decided to talk to one of them outside.When I asked his name he

just smiled at me and waved. I was confused and was about to get up when

Mr.Durgaprasad, the man sitting beside us clarified that he couldn’t hear properly. I tried to communicate with him using my hands and got to know that he was quite content with his life and he enjoyed his time in the house. Then I initiated a talk with Mr.Durgaprasad and came to know that he has been  in this home for 17 years. He used to paint walls before                                                                              arriving here. It was like having a conversation with a newly made friend. I then                                                                          realized that the people in old age homes are just like anyone else with simply a                                                                        larger family connected by bond not blood. Then we were introduced to Rahul. A                                                                       boy slightly elder than us who takes time to process the details and to talk                                                                                 properly. It was a bit difficult for me to understand what he was saying but  It                                                                             was good listening to him. After that the lunch was being served to everyone by                                                                         a   volunteer so I also decided to offer my help. I served milk to everyone. It felt                                                                          content to see the slight acknowledgement or the shy smile on the face of the                                                                             people I served.  After strolling casually for a little while we went to the head                                                                  sister there to put forth some ideas we had like entertainment options for the residents. When she approved of the idea, out of curiosity we asked her the story of Rahul. What she said   was heart breaking. She told us that he had an elder sister who passed away a fewyears back but both his parents were alive. Till grade 8 he was completely fine but suddenly something happened and he became mentally unstable. After his sister’s death he became violent and his parents couldn’t control him so they dropped him in Jyoti Niwas. From the joint effort of the doctor and sisters at Jyoti Niwas Rahul started getting better and now he is no longer violent and can speak slowly but properly and read and write as well.  It is very sad how his own parents

abandoned him but at the same time astonishing that sisters at Jyoti Niwas who

were strangers helped him get so much better. This trip was an eye opener that

one need not be rich to help the poor and one need not be related to the person to

offer them any kind of service. I often used to ask myself that I am just a student

how I can help such people. I consoled myself saying that I will; once I grow up.

But this trip made me realize that these people do not need our money as charity.

All they need is little company and someone to listen and talk to them, which we 

being mere students can provide them. As it is said ‘the sooner, the better’. No

matter how old we are, we can always help, and I am definitely looking forward to

our next trip to Jyoti Niwas to meet my two new friends whom I promised to be back.

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~Nidhi Polekar

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