: Compassion: The need of the hour #IndiaNEWS #Panorama Maneka Sanjay Gandhi My mother, who is remembered by friends and family alike as the world’s most buoyant and caring person, spent the last

Compassion: The need of the hour #IndiaNEWS #Panorama
Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

My mother, who is remembered by friends and family alike as the world’s most buoyant and caring person, spent the last few months of her life ill in bed with cancer. But no matter how sick she was, the first thing she did every morning was to spread ‘bajra’ on her balcony for the birds. She said the happiest part of her day was to lie back in bed and watch the daily drama. First would come the fat feisty pigeons who would jostle each other off the ledge and spend more time fighting than feeding. Then the rose-ringed parakeets (some of whom from a batch that had been rescued and released nearby) who ate quickly and quietly. And then came the timid little sparrows pecking at the seeds furtively and vanishing as magically as they appeared.

My own mornings begin with a shower. My bathroom adjoins the garden and invariably there will be ants that have made their way in to seek refuge from the sun or rain, so bathing is always preceded by scouring the walls and floor, rescuing and relocating ants before I turn on the shower. Similarly, my five-year-old granddaughter Anasuyaa always carefully picks up and moves slugs, snails, and earthworms to the grassy kerb, when they make the occasional foray into the driveway, so that they don’t get stepped on or run over.

Then I make prasad for my guru – suji ka halva and this is distributed to people and animals. The utensil that it is cooked in is washed with water, and the water put on a secluded pavement so that the ants can pick up the crumbs.

When I made a house in Maharani Bagh, I put a tap outside attached to the wall. Anyone passing by could drink clean water and there was always a bowlful for animals. Some years ago, I was going out for dinner when I saw a man with all his possessions draped on his wheelchair. I stopped to offer him money. He took it and then said – “I don’t really need much money but is it possible for you to give me water every day???? He comes every morning to pick up the water and I am grateful to him for allowing me to do this small thing.

During this lockdown, thousands of people have risked COVID, risked going hungry themselves, risked going out at night and being herded by the police, to feed street animals who are bewildered because their sources of food – the dhabas, the marriage halls, the garbage, the hotels, the people on the street had all vanished. Many of these feeders have lost their jobs. Many of them were abused and mistreated by their society organisations. I salute them a million times. They are the backbone of India – an India known for its compassion.

What is compassion? Compassion is that extraordinary competency that can sense and experience another’s pain as miraculous as the ability to see light.