Children of Sagarpur New
October in India, is by far the month of festivals. Children hardly go to school for a week because of one festival or another but I guess they aren’t complaining and neither am I . I am going to spend my first ever Diwali in India and I am stoked! Diwali or the festival of lights, is one of the most celebrated festivals by Indians all over the world. According to Hindu tradition, it is the celebration of the return of Lord Rama to Ayodhya after 14 years of living in exile. So, Indians all around the world consume more sugar on this day than they should- mind you I still think that one cup of tea is about 4 chocolate bars worth of sugar. Diwali is a beautiful festival where houses are decorated (similar to Christmas), gifts are exchanged, kilos of different sweets are consumed (it’s showing on me that’s for sure- Michelin Baby in the making)and best of all the fireworks! The Chinese may have invented the fireworks but by far, the Indians use them the most.
Yesterday, I got to experience a random act of kindness by an independent donor and his family. Knowing that there are tons of children who aren’t fortunate enough to celebrate Diwali, the way it should. He packed up his car with all kinds of goodies for children, stationery items and sweets and gave SARD a call indicating that he would like to distribute this to one of the schools.
So, Annu and I ended up taking him and his family to Sagarpur New, one of the schools that SARD works with in Delhi. I’ve never seen a more excited group of young third grade boys than they ones i met yesterday. They were all patiently waiting in the school hall for us to arrive and kept wishing every person who entered the hall- “Happy Diwali”.
I could see how happy they were to receive these gifts. They were so excited with the stationery, the food and the chocolates that they couldn’t keep it all in their hands and kept dropping it on the floor. It was an amazing feeling to see that even in this time of celebration, there are some people who are still willing to spend a little bit of their good fortune and foster some happiness within little children whose parent s may not be able to afford to give them the Diwali we celebrate.
The funny thing is that today when I went for my morning walk...one of the kids recongized me and chased after me calling me " Didi...you came to my school, thank you Didi"...Jello all over again!
I guess I’m just jello on the inside as well .
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