There lived in a thatched hut in a remote
village in the state of West Bengal in India, a poor young farmer, his illiterate
wife and 4 little children. The poor farmer, despite his hard work, earned such
meager wages that he could afford to give his family just a hand to mouth
existence. Still the farmer and his wife, along with their kids, were leading a
contented life just as most other villagers do, without any complaints, without
any big dreams, until one evening when……
One evening, the poor young farmer returned
home complaining of a pain in his stomach. The pain kept increasing hour by
hour. His poor wife desperately tried to do all that she could to ease his pain.
But to take him to a hospital for timely treatment was just not within her
means. The nearest Government Hospital was around 5 kilometers away. It had
been raining heavily for days and the road in that direction lay flooded. To
afford a private vehicle or a private doctor was just out of question. Still
the loving young woman was just not willing to give up. By the third day, as
her husband lay at home writhing with pain, she somehow managed to borrow from
the neighborhood enough money and took him to the nearest private hospital,
around 10 kilometers away. But……
But, by then, things were too late and she
had to see her husband breathe his last right in front of her eyes. The widowed
mother then huddled her little ones close to her heart and vowed that she would
work hard to see to it that no other family in her village suffered such fate
as hers. This illiterate woman then vowed to give her children good education.
This shattered woman then resolved to build a hospital for the poor in her
village so that no more lives would be shattered for want of timely medical
treatment. And……
And, thereafter, from 1971, life was one
terrible trial, all the way for this woman, Subhashini Mistry. But so strong
was her determination, and so tender her humanistic impulse that nothing could
deter this seemingly ordinary woman from pursuing her extraordinary goals. She
says: “It was hard labour all the way, but I had no other options to feed my
children. I had to work as a construction laborer, house-help, waste picker,
farm laborer & vegetable vendor. From morning till night, I would take up a
number of jobs, one after another, with hardly any rest, because I had this one
big dream of building a hospital for the poor. If I earned five rupees, I would
use two rupees for our eating, two rupees for rent and other expenses, and I
would save one rupee to fulfill my life goal. That was how I used to manage
things.” Yes, she did manage a lot, or wouldn’t it be more proper to say that
this woman, suffered, struggled and sacrificed a lot.
Subhashini Mistry says: “Even when the whole
world jeered at my stubborn and seemingly foolish dream, thankfully for me, my
children were very supportive. Before admission to school, my son Ajoy had to
work in a tea stall to support the family. When things became more difficult I
had to even put two of my kids into a government run children’s home. I found
then that that was the only way the children could get proper food and a good
education. But I didn’t ever regret any of those moves. For I always knew that
there were many such things needed to be done for the greater good. I used to
cry many nights not having my little ones next to me. I would visit them every
week and take along some sweets, occasionally clothes and hold them for hours
and kiss them. I would tell them that the reason they had to stay away was so
they could have a better life and also because they could one day grow up to
give better lives to many others maybe even poorer than them.”
Over the years, much to the relief of
Subhashini Mistry, her elder son Ajoy excelled in his studies, earned
scholarships and went on to become a doctor. So it was time for Subhashini to
speed up things. After two decades of struggle, in 1993, this determined woman
invested all her life-long savings to buy an acre of land in her husband’s
native village. She along with her son, Dr. Ajoy and some fellow-villagers then
set up a temporary shed in that newly acquired land. This shed served as their
first hospital. Dr. Ajoy and some of his
kind-hearted colleagues offered their free services there. On the very first
day, they diagnosed 252 patients. Day by day, as the patients started to line
up more and more outside the temporary shed, Subhashini told Ajoy: “This is not
enough. We need to build a proper hospital.” Soon Subhashini’s younger son
Sujoy who had completed his graduation by then also joined the Mission. He
started raising funds to set up the hospital of his mother’s dream while the poor
mother still kept on with her vegetable selling to be able to contribute financially
yet again to her avowed Mission, as much as she could.
But that’s all history now. Thanks to the compassion,
sacrifice, hard work and unflinching determination of this village woman,
thousands of poor villagers are today able to access free and subsidized
medical treatment. Today, Subhashini’s NGO, the Humanity Trust runs two
Hospitals for the poor (one at Hanspukur near Kolkata and the other one in the
remote Sundarbans region), carries out several outreach medical programs and is
presently in the process of setting up an ideal old-age home and an orphanage
in its Hanspukur campus. Today, Subhashini’s whole family (including her
daughters) is devotedly engaged in carrying forward her humanitarian mission.
Today, Subhashini’s Humanity Hospital is a multi-specialty hospital serving the
medical needs of thousands of villagers. Today, Subhashini is the recipient of
several awards such as the ‘Mind of Steel Award’ by Godfrey Philips, ‘Real
Heroes’ from CNN-IBN, ‘Silver Awards’ from HARMONY Foundation, ‘Service above
Self’ from Rotary International and the Janahita Award by CKJI. But Subhashini
Mistry is still the same simple, straightforward, compassionate and resolute
woman that she was decades ago. Her body has sure become aged but her mind is
still too young and highly inspiring.
Subhashini Mistry tells
Mission AHIMSA: “Watching poor people get free medical aid, talking to them,
listening to their problems, sketching out possible solutions for them by
discussion with my sons and other board members, playing with my grand
children… thus time runs out for me these days. I am happy that these hospitals
are able to do so much to the needy poor but I am not contented still. I wish
to spread the services deeper and wider. My mission was and is: ‘Nobody should
die unattended and unserved.’ I know by experience how difficult it really is.
The more the poor people we would be able to serve, the happier I would be.”
