Messiah for Kashi’s abandoned and sick
VARANASI: Unable to withstand the humiliation by his children, a 61-year-old has now become a helping hand for lawaris, or abandoned and sick, in the Holy city. The man arrived in Kashi from Vishakhapatnam in 2015 and now drives an ambulance for free to help the needy people in the entire district.
Bishwanath Mukherjee was born and brought up in Kolkata. An alumnus of St Xavier’s College, he remembers the heart-wrenching afternoon that changed his life.
“Soon after shifting to Vizag (Vishakhapatnam) with his family having a son, his wife and a grand daughter, I was abused verbally. One day I was sitting at home when my daughter-in-law threw scalding water on me. Looking at the silence of my son over the issue, I left home,” said Bishwanath, tears filled his eyes of his creased face.
Heard a lot about the kindness of Kashi, he took the train and arrived here. “I had no place to live and one day was wandering on the road where I got into an accident. People admitted me to the divisional hospital. I was caught in the lime-green walls and forced to eat stale food when a women of Mother Teresa Ashram took me to their hermitage at Shivala,” he recalled .
At Shivala the old man met social worker NN Tiwari, CA by profession who visited them every Sunday. “I was lost in thought that how would I survive when Tiwari ji tapped on my back and asked: “Kaa Bhayal?” (What happened?). Unable to understand Hindi and Bhojpuri, I asked him: “What did you say?” Shocked with my language and accent, he listened to my story and took me to his place,” said Mukherjee.
After visiting his home, Muklherjee came to know about the social work of Tiwari and wished to help him. “Impressed by his inherent goodness and driving skills, I bought him an ambulance and a mobile. Since then, he is on day-night duty. Anyone who needs help to take any patient to hospital from any place, Bishwanathji is just a call away,” said NN Tiwari.
Picking and dropping four to five patients daily is the selfless service that the white-haired man renders.
“The society is full of forlorn people like me who have been abandoned by their children. All of them are my family. Whenever I find any such person, I try to help in the best possible manner. I take them to Ashrams where they may stay,” said Mukherjee.