Harakhchand savla

harakhchand savla

Dressed in a white kurta and pyjama, Harakhchand Sawla can be seen taking a walk around the premises of Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH) in Parel everyday from afternoon till late evening, talking intently to those who are generally overlooked by passers-by, the cancer patients that camp outside TMH.

Sawla has been tending to the patients and their relatives, teeming on roads leading to the hospital. Around 12.30pm for lunch and 6.30pm for dinner, patients queue up outside his tiny office in a nearby chawl with plates and glasses, and are served hot meals — rice, chappatis and vegetables.

"For those who have undergone rigorous chemotherapy sessions or have throat cancer and can't digest salty food, we serve turmeric-infused milk," says Sawla.

Thirty years ago, he left his thriving business and began caring for cancer patients by adopting 25 of them, looking after their nutritional needs. Sawla now has a dedicated army of up to 150 volunteers who assist him. Sawla's trust, Jeevan Jyot, also caters to the need for meals of 700-odd patients or their relatives at state-run hospitals — JJ, St George, Cama and TMH. The trust incurs a daily cost of Rs12,000 in feeding these patients.

"In the vicinity of TMH alone, the number of patients that come to us for meals has risen to 400," he says.

But that hasn't deterred this Mulund resident. From reuniting family members to helping out by providing free medicines or giving an appropriate funeral to the deceased, who have no one to fall back on, Sawla's trust spends up to Rs8 lakh every month towards social work.

"A few of them are so dedicated that once a patient completes his/her treatment, s/he escorts the unattended patients back to their remote villages across India and reunite them with their families," he says.

Fond of children, he says it pains him to see little ones affected by the dreaded disease. He recently took around 400 children for a day's outing. "We have regular activities for children to keep them occupied and distance them from the pain that cancer can inflict. We convince people to collect and submit old medicines, toys, clothes and books for the kids. I appeal to more people to come forward and help us in our endeavour of making the lives of cancer patients a tad better," he adds.

Do your bit

To help cancer patients, send unused medicines of any kind, books, clothes or toys to 
Jeevan Jyot Cancer Relief and Care Trust, 
3/9 Kondaji Chawl, 
Jerbai Wadia Road, Parel, 
Mumbai – 400 012. 
Call on 022-2415 3453 or 
log on to www.jeevanjyot.in for details.


 At 12.30 pm every day, a long queue waits outside a tiny shop in one of the by-lanes behind Parel-based Tata Memorial Hospital for their turn to get free food. Each one lives on the footpath lining the cancer hospital and is a relative of some or the other patient admitted there. And their stay for months has emptied their pockets.

The tiny shop run by a trust, called ‘Jeevan Jyot’, serves lunch and dinner to around 600 people daily, along with free medicines for cancer treatment. The shop, manned by a dozen temporary volunteers, aims to help economically backward cancer patients and their families who have come from various parts of the country to seek treatment.

Among various unique methods Jeevan Jyot adopts, one is to invite local residents to donate old newspapers. “We get a lot of raddi and old clothes, which we sell to buy medicines. We also have a network of patients. Some people have extra medicines that they don’t require. We take the unexpired ones from them and pass it on to the hospital for poor patients,” said Diren Gada, who has been attached with Jeevan Jyot for four years now.
Harakhchand Savla (56), a hotelier in Nagpada, first launched this initiative 30 years ago by serving food to five people when he saw the families living on streets with just small suitcases and a thin mattresses to support them. “For 12 years, he spent from his own pockets. Word got around and people started helping,” Gada says.

Today, along with volunteers, the group circulates old toys to cancer patients and passes them on to other kids after it is returned. Recently, a picnic to theme park Essel World was organized for over 400 cancer-stricken children with funds donated by local Parel residents.

The shop has become a popular spot for extending help to cancer patients. Last week, blankets were distributed to families sleeping on pavements. “Sometimes, a donor would sponsor lunch and we could also get sweets to serve the people. Few patients in the hospital have also requested to be served food and a lunch box goes to them free of cost,” a volunteer said.

Devising new means for getting donations, the shop publishes names of donors (giving clothes or medicines or cash) in a local Jain tabloid. “People started reading the names and got inspired. That has helped us get more clothes and raddi in donation,” Gada says as a woman with a bag full of old newspapers enters the shop.

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विषेश म्हणजे त्यांचा फोटो मिळवायला मला पुर्ण एक दिवस लागला..

मित्रांनो माणुस देव शोधतो पण कुठे
कोणी मंदीरात तर कोणी मसजितमध्ये
पण गेल्या 27वर्षात कँन्सरग्रस्त आणि त्यांच्या नातेवाईकांना देव सापडला
तो हरखचंद सावला यांच्या रुपात,

मुंबईच्या परळ भागातुल प्रसिद्द टाटा कँन्सर हाँस्पिटलच्या समोरील फूटपाथवर उभा राहुन तिशीतील एक तरुण खाली उभ्या असलेल्या गर्दिकडे टक लावुन पाहत राहायचा.
मृत्युच्या दारात उभ राहील्यामुळे रुग्णांच्या चेहऱ्‍यावरील दिसणारी ती भीती,
त्यांच्या नातेवाइकांची भकास चेहऱ्‍याने होणारी ती धावपळ पाहुन तो तरुन तो तरुण खुप अस्वस्थ व्हायचा
बहुसंख्य रुग्ध बाहेर गावाहुन आलेले गारीब लोक असायचे.कुठे कोणाला भेटायचे,काय करायचे हेही त्यांना ठाउक नसायचे.
औषध पाण्यासाठी नव्हे तर त्यांच्याकडे जेवायलाहि पैसे नसायचे.
ते सार दृष्य पाहुन तो तरुन खिन्न मनाने घरी परतायचा..
आणि शेवटी याच तरुनाने एक मायेचे पाउल उचलले..

त्याच एक चांगल हाँटेल भाड्याने देउन त्याच पैशातुन त्याने त्या हाँस्पिटलसमोर कोंडाजी चाळीच्या रस्त्यावर एक यज्ञ सुरु केला जो पूढे 27वर्षे चालुच राहिला,
तेथिल जनतेला सुद्दा हा ऊपक्रम आवडला आणि त्यांनिही हाथभार लावला

ते एवढेही करुन थांबले नाही त्यांनी रुग्नांना मोफत औषध पुरवायलाही सुरवात केली.त्यासाठी त्यांनी औषधांची बँकच उघडली त्यासाठी तीन फार्मासिस्ट व तीन डाँक्टर अन वर्कची टिमच त्यांनी स्थापन केली.

आज त्यांनी स्थापन केलेला जिवन ज्योत ट्रस्ट साठ हून अधिक उपक्रम राबवत आहे,

अशा या सत्तावन्न वर्षिय मा.हरखचंद सावला यांच्या कार्याला माझा शतशः प्रणाम।

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