Today, I bring to you details about the 3rd drive Minal & I undertook, full of motivation, enthusiasm and the spirit to fight against all odds. This time, the setting was different, the suffered people were different, their requirements were different, however, the only things that remained the same as in the earlier drives were those dry eyes looking for a drop of kindness. With the same thought process of reaching out to as many people as we can like in our earlier drives, we chose shanties in and around Sector-23 Dwarka, Delhi.

The number of families we targeted this time is around 50. These people mostly are daily wage workers and most of them being unskilled labourer’s including people with disabilities. We made a couple of visits this time before finalizing our ‘go-to’ spot for the distribution of groceries. With an ever-increasing feeling to help, Minal almost ended up visiting the nearest Police Station to enquire about local needy people before finalizing this Sector-23 community.

After having made a thorough assessment about the families living here, the kind of work they do, the number of members in each family, we made a list with the help of a local individual who was part of the same community. Then we both decided to act sooner than later by amassing the groceries/ration needed for this drive. We contacted many wholesalers in and around Dwarka and finally were able to procure 250kg of wheat flour (atta), 100kg of Chana dal (pulses), 150kg of rice, and 50 litres of cooking oil to be distributed amongst 50 families. Soon we realized that this would total up to 550kg approx. for which we would need to borrow another car from our dearest and very helpful cousin. A quick snapshot of amounts procured with costing in INR is as given below:

Minal and I drove separately and got all the stuff procured the night before and parked in our society so that the task could get completed on 3rd May itself, early in the morning without any delay.

Further the list of friends who contributed equally towards this drive included us, Nishu didi, Anish, Khevna, Natasha, Mansi, Gajraj, Rahul, Kavi, Nandan, Gaurav, Shilpi, Saloni, Ankita (in no particular order).

3rd May 2021, Time: 7:15 A.M.

We dropped Sarah at the same cousins’ place we borrowed the car from and then both of us drove to the designated place where all these people lived. We had our list of families readied with us and it almost took us 2.15 hours to finish the entire exercise of distribution.

The biggest reward for an artist is appreciation from his audience. We both ended up getting a similar reward when one of the older members of the community mentioned:

“Marna to sabhi ko hai ek din, lekin aapka sobhagya hai ki aap ache karma is jeevan mein kar paoge!!!”

Translation: “Everyone will die someday, you are the fortunate ones who would end up doing a good deed in this life!!!“

Finally, I and Minal got back, sanitized everything possible/visible and went to our cousins’ place again to drop the car and get our lovely daughter back.

And I would like to mention that we are particularly very thankful to all our friends, cousins and friends of friends who have not only encouraged us but have been very concerned about our safety as well and has also contributed to funding this drive like the earlier drive. A warm thank you to all of you, without you, this wouldn’t have been possible.

Hoping to share another exciting drive with you very soon, until then, take care and stay safe!

Few pics I would like to share: