Every morning Narmadaben Patel wakes up at 6am and meticulously cuts 2-3 kgs of vegetables. She then proceeds to make enough vegetable sabzi, dal and rice to feed a small army.
After she is done, she proceeds pack everything neatly in containers and load it into a van and deliver food to patients and their relatives at Sayaji Hospital who can’t afford basic necessities like food.
Narmadaben, aged 83, has been running this annashetra since the last quarter of the century. It all started in the year 1990 when Narmadaben and her husband Ramdas Bhagat started an initiative to provide food to people for free. Their inclination towards charity came from their devotion to their religion, Narmadaben tells us. “My husband wanted to start this. At an initial stage we used to go to give food on his scooter — he used to drive and I used to sit behind him.Then more and more people started coming upto us, so we hired a rickshaw.”
Since then, the organisation has grown tremendously. People around them saw the quality of work they were doing and donated generously to their cause. That’s when Narmadaben hired a van. The project is called ‘Ram Bharose’ because not even once have they ever had to beg for funds — Narmadaben has always had donors wanting to contribute to Ram Bharose.
When you walk into her home from where she runs her charity, you see certificates from Abdul Kalam, Narendra Modi and a national award for bravery in the corner. When asked about them, she tells us about how her work got her national recognisation. She tells us with a stoic face, “In 2001, my husband was hospitalized and was on a ventilator. The doctor said he might not have very long and wanted to take him off life support. But that was the time of the day when I set out with my driver to go to feed the poor people. They expected me to be there, and I was the person who would give them one warm meal a day. So I told the doctor to wait till I came back later in the day. After feeding the poor, I came back to the hospital and paid my last respects to my husband. I knew he’d have wanted me to do the same thing.”
Narmadaben solely takes responsibility of cutting vegetables and cooking the food in her huge kitchen everyday. The walls of her kitchen are adorned with photos of Gods. She points to them and tells us, “Not once have I cut my finger, or ever gotten burned. That’s because they are watching over me.”
On Sundays she prepares special sheera to give the mothers of newly born babies. Also, because Sunday meals are special in every other family, every Sunday meal that Narmadaben cooks has a sweet.
Narmadaben tells us that she isn’t looking for publicising her cause. “Whatever donations we get are because of God, and God willing we will get as much as we need. I plan to continue to do this as long as I can,” she says with a satisfied smile.
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