Editor,
Vinayak Lohani. Does India know about him? Does the name sound familiar? If the answer is yes, it’s nice. But if it’s no, then the Indian society should indulge in some serious introspection.
Bhopal (MP)-born Lohani had set foot on Bengal soil as a student to study at IIT Kharagpur and then IIM Kolkata. Course completed; but unlike his peers, this ‘fool’ didn’t strive for a glamorous, lucrative top corporate career in India or abroad to earn a fortune and live life king size. Despite being in the mid-40s, he hasn’t engaged himself in a matrimonial bond as well; yet this man is father to thousands of children.
Is it a fable or merely a dream? No, it is a hard fact which is stranger than fiction.
As stated previously, Lohani refrained from engaging in a rat race to turn successful career-wise. Instead, this Vivekananda-Mother Teresa inspired person, taking diksha at the Ramkrishna Mission, opted out of career placement after completing his MBA and, as a true human being, he turned his attention towards the plight of the orphan and poor children loitering at railway platforms and red-light areas, left to their own wretched mercy by the state and all apparatus of society.
By giving tuitions and lectures to MBA aspirants, Lohani rented a tiny accommodation, established his own organisation, Parivaar, in 2003, and took up the responsibility of sheltering feeding and educating three helpless children. But expenditure was far exceeding the income through tuitions. But drawing inspiration from his selfless Himalayan task, IIM alumni and like-minded, compassionate acquaintances came up with donations which have enabled Lohani to come up with an independent building, comprising a school and a hostel spread over more than 20 acres and housing more than 1,000 orphans or children of the poorest of the poor families. Many of them have completed their graduation and are retained in the hostel itself, giving tuitions to the younger batches and can move out only when they get ready to face the world independently.
What an act of protective father to thousands who were doomed to lead the whole of their lives as beggars or, at best, manual labourers, or could have been victims of traffickers and ended up as petty criminals or prostitutes.
It is high time India learned to identify its true heroes and role models and offered a helping hand to these faceless Vinayak Lohanis, so that they can pursue their goals with more success. The authorities concerned should also learn from Lohani about their foremost duties and priorities and at first take up the cause of India’s vulnerable children, instead of remaining immersed in playing to the gallery of statues film festivals, bullet trains, temple, or religion.
Kajal Chatterjee