Gokul Chand Kapoor. A toothless grin and a frail body, completely dependent on a walking stick, is what you see of him now. But his sheer fortitude and that undying enthusiasm to be at people's service are strong remnants of what this nonagenarian was a decade and a half ago. That is, when he organised neighbours to start Manav Kalyan Sewa Samiti in Sahibabad's Rajinder Nagar area.
Wrapped in the warmth of camaraderie he shares with the Samiti's office bearers — all well into the sunset of their lives, all surrounding him at his Rajinder Nagar house, an affable Kapoor barely needs any prodding to peel the core of the organisation, set up in 1994 at a colony temple “just by accident.”
“We serve people in need, we are not interested in any religion or politics. We have never taken a penny from the Government, we run on individual donations, sometimes as low as Rs.100,” he says. Blow by blow, over cups of piping hot tea on a rainy day, he goes on to give an account of what the Samiti does. Soon you realise what not it does!
Nominal rates, quality results
Healthcare at an ultra nominal rate, scholarships to poor local students, bearing school expenses of needy kids, offering tailoring training to girls, bearing the wedding expenditure of poor brides, building local bus sheds and animal shelters, running a public library, a small computer training centre, donating wheelchairs and tricycles to the disabled, providing ration to needy daily wage earners — all of these come well within Samiti's umbrella of activities.
“Healthcare is so expensive now, many can't avail it. For those, we offer doctor's consultancy and medicines at our Ayurvedic dispensary for Rs.5 per day and for Rs.3 at our homeopathy dispensary everyday except Sundays,” he says. Fellow worker M.P. Gupta adds, “Besides, a patient can get an EEG done for Rs.30, blood sugar test at Rs.20 and other pathological tests at half the market rate. We also run mobile healthcare vans which go to the nearby slums once a week.” The Samiti's eye care centre is temporarily shut for want of a doctor ready to offer voluntary service, says its general secretary S.D. Aggarwal.
Stepping back in time, Kapoor, long retired from The Railways, brings to fore the genesis of the Samiti. “It was in 1993, I had just lost my son. Two neighbourhood women came to attend a function we did for him at our house. Suddenly, one of them started crying. I thought she was sad for us, but it soon came out that she was crying for her son, who badly needed a knee operation. With no money for it, she was trying to sell her house. I don't know what took over me. I told her there won't be any need to sell her house.”
Kapoor soon called a meeting at a local temple, where neighbours agreed to his idea of donating money for the operation. “Today, that boy is leading a normal life. But it led me to think of starting an organisation which can help more needy people,” he states. Soon he rustled up members with Rs.120 as a lifetime fee. Next, he took a trip to Meerut with some neighbours to get the Samiti registered.
“Soon, we started working, by setting up a shed there, a piao there…,” he trails off. Today, the Samiti has a Delhi chapter too besides members from across the world made through workers and their relatives.
Keen on showing around their field work, he takes one to the Ayurvedic dispensary in Sahibabad's Lajpat Nagar. With patients trickling in, the doctor is busy. And so are the pathologist and the dispensary administrator, all retired, giving their time there for free.
The spectacle repeats itself at the homeopathy dispensary at Rajinder Nagar. Housed along with it is their library, the computer centre, the tailoring centre plus its office.
“We raise money to buy sewing machines for the really poor girls after their training here so that they can make a living out of it,” adds Kapoor. The Samiti also raises clothes and other daily needs to send to disaster hit areas. “We sent a truckful of clothes and other necessary things to the flood hit in Bihar recently, adds Suresh Sharma, the Samiti president.
On how it meets so many needs with a shoe-string budget and a life time membership of just Rs.1100, Kapoor answers with a chuckle, “Though we run on donations, we don't stop ourselves from thinking like benevolent rich men.”
