New Delhi:
As part of NDTV's blanket campaign, our team visited AIIMS and Safdarjung Hospital to distribute blankets among the homeless people who are compelled to spend their nights out in the open on the pavements and along the roadside. Volunteers from all walks of life poured in to be a part of this special campaign. With Christmas just around the corner what better way than Santa himself willing to join us as we drove past hospitals, flyovers across the city. (
Help keep someone warm: Donate a blanket)
Sita Devi is huddled outside AIIMS, coming all the way from Samastipur, Bihar as she is forced to take hold of open space outside hospital premises as her husband battles with cancer. "I manage with a sheet, may be light fire at times that's how we try and cope up", she tells me, helplessness being evident in her eyes. It was no better when the team proceeded towards Safdarjung Hospital.
Another overwhelming aspect of the drive was the sheer enthusiasm of volunteers who decided to come out of their comfort zones and be a part of this initiative. For Eena Puri who lives in Laburnum, Gurgaon it was more to do with instinct than anything else. "We live in gated communities somehow only when we read in newspapers we get motivated," she said.
Activist Neelam Katara was also there to cheer up the team and expressed the notion of how important it was to reach out to the less fortunate ones.
And as an old man under a flyover started crying after receiving one of our blankets there was little that words could do to comfort him. May be a basic thing like blanket was all that he needed at that point of time.
Braving the chilly winter night is part of daily ordeal of thousands of homeless across the capital, NDTV along with Uday Foundation tried to fill some warmth in the lives of these people on this Christmas.