Mandala

Mandala

November 2023
Mandala
Connectivity till the last mile 
Benazir Patil, now in Pune, lost her  mother to cancer when she was just 22.  Subsequently, she received her doctorate  in the domain of public health, with a special  focus on policies and program implementation.  
She discovered that: • No senior citizen ever wants to live in an old  age home. 
• Every senior citizen wants to live and age in  their own home, amid their loved ones, family,  and friends.  
• Each and every age group in our country  has some kind of family-based or government served support system, starting from newborn  babies to young children, adolescents, youth,  and as well as women, but nothing of this sort  exists for older people in 2007. She calls it “Last Mile Connectivity,”  which means remaining connected with the  elderly till their last mile of life. This includes  care and support in their day-to-day life,  healthcare services at home and within the  community, and linkage with different social  security schemes and programmes for long-term  financial support and reduction of expenditure  on healthcare services. More than anything else,  she and her team ensure that the old never feel  uncared for. 
She decided to: 
• Turn ageing into a positive experience, where  
the senior citizens feel happy, content, and wanted.  
• Prioritise those who are most vulnerable and  
needy: the ones residing in slums and remote  
villages. 
• Create a system wherein it is possible to  
sensitise the communities and youth regarding  
the challenges senior citizens face in old age. 
• Start providing love care, support, and services  
to the senior citizens in their own homes.  
Benazir’s primary approach is to extend all of the  
above through companionship and friendship.  
To this end, she started the NGO Vriddha Mitra  

Kudos, Benazir, for bringing the much-needed  smile to the faces of our elderly. 

Brahmavidya—a beacon of  hope, healing, and  
transformation 

During the early years of the 20th  century, an English gentleman named  Edwin John Dingle went to Tibet  and learnt Brahmavidya, a science dedicated  to yoga, esoteric knowledge, and liberation.  After completing his studies and practices for  over nine months in Tibet, he went out into  the world to teach it under the term Mental  Physics. He came to be known as Ding Le Mei.  Guru Jyotirmayananda, the founder of the  Brahmavidya Sagar Sangh, learnt the science of  Brahmavidya from Guru Ding Le Mei and he  started the Brahmavidya Sanstha in 1977.  
Shri Jayant Divekar, an IIT engineer and a  management postgraduate from IIM Bangalore  also learnt this science. He is the vice president  of a leading business conglomerate in India and  an eminent personality in the modern world. His  commitment to Brahmavidya is tremendous.  During his six-year study, which was mostly  online, he translated all three levels of the  Brahmavidya syllabus (around 1500 pages) into,  Marathi, his mother tongue. It has now been  translated in other languages too, with many  more being planned. 
A Jyoti Kamboth from Mumbai, a student  of Sri Divekar, who is now a teacher in the  organisation, shares, “I was in the seventh or  eighth standard when I started getting dandruff  and a kind of white substance on my eyelashes.  I also developed a red roughness on my cheeks  which worsened into a puss-like ailment. My  
parents tried allopathy, homeopathy, ayurveda,  and even unani medicine, but nothing changed.  I learnt to live with it. Then in 2010, I got to  know about the Brahmavidya class from a friend.  I joined the class, and I realised I had entered  the greatest of all places—a palace of light, love,  and healing. I learnt to take responsibility for my  life instead of blaming circumstances. Following  this, I never realised how and when the ailments  on my cheeks and eyelashes vanished, with only  a pink blush remaining on my face!” She learnt  that being potentially divine, man has a lot of  power to overcome his difficulties and problems. 
About two hundred teachers are well trained in  the discipline of Brahmavidya and can provide  able guidance. They are teaching Brahmavidya  in more than 300 centres in India and abroad,  guiding and uplifting others.  
By Jamuna Rangachari

Conquering disability to  build an able world

Nazim Khan was born in Bihar with his  left hand affected by polio. Nobody  would play with him, and even his  family members avoided taking him out with  them. However, instead of giving in to being  a victim of circumstances, he decided to  study hard and prove himself. Nazim moved  to Kolkata to his aunt’s house to get more  exposure. Most of his studies were done at  home, but since he wanted to attend school,  Nazim asked his tuition teacher to act as his  guardian to help him get admission. Today, he  has a Master’s in Social Work. 
In Kolkata, Nazim joined Mobility India, an  organisation dedicated to rehabilitating the  disabled. He started giving physiotherapy  education to disabled children by going door to  door and also informing them about government  facilities tailored specially for them.

In 2010, Nazim left Mobility India and joined  the Tomorrow Foundation. Due to some  reason, Mobility India closed down in 2016.  All the guardians of the disabled children  who were members of Mobility India came to  Nazim’s house in Kolkata and requested him to  open a rehabilitation centre for their children.  Though he lacked money, Nazim had oodles  of courage. He requested all his friends from  the rehabilitation field to help him. With their  aid, he started GRIRR (Garden Reach Institute  for the Rehabilitation and Research) in 2017.  Within three months of its launch, Nazim held  a surgery camp in collaboration with ISHWAR  (International Society for Human Welfare  and Rehabilitation), where five children with  deformities underwent corrective surgeries  without any external funding. Today, these  children are living normal lives, which is a  special moment for Nazim. Nazim wants to take his services to remote  areas, especially villages, and expand his  services to different states as well as abroad. He  does not want others to feel less able, as he had  at one stage. He is trying to do his best, and the  Universe too is aiding him in all areas, slowly  but steadily. 
Nazim Khan 
- By Jamuna Rangachari