By Bipin Sharma
Senior Journalist
Situated in the heart of the city in South Delhi, Kalkaji Temple holds colossal significance for devotees all over the globe. One of the most famous Temple’s of the Divine Goddess, Kalkaji Temple is an ancient and highly revered Sidhpeethas of the country.
Since the outbreak of the Novel Corona Pandemic last year and the subsequent Covid surge this year, Kalka Maa’s Devotees have once again lived upto their image as “Covid Warriors”. Continuing from where they left last year, Kalka Maa Devotees have been delivering home cooked nutritious food as well as medicines to Covid positive patients and their families in South Delhi.
Says Anuj Mittal,President, Shree Kalkaji Sajja Sewadar Mitr Mandal (Regd) & Executive Associate,WHO,“Realizing that the impact of second Covid wave this year on “lives and livelihood” was going to be much more humongous than the first Covid wave of 2020, our team of volunteers braced themselves up for the bigger challenge this year, and got going on ground zero with immediate effect. Much like the outbreak of the Covid virus in 2020, the surge of the virus this year took us by a storm. As a result, we realized that the challenge too was manifold.
Since most of the people who had tested positive were unable to cook food at home and were not in a position to step outside their homes for buying their medicines, our team of warriors got into the act, and have been delivering home cooked food as well as medicines free of cost to all such needy ones 24 hours a day.
Senior citizens comprise a substantial segment of people that we are reaching out to, in these challenging times. Our first and foremost priority is to extend a 24×7 helping hand to senior citizens who are staying alone without their children. Then our focus is on providing food and medicines to those below the poverty line, and the migrant labourers.
On a personal note, I have always been inspired by the ageless adage of William Arthur Ward, “Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records”. We were all aware that every team member had to play their distinctive role if we were to help the sick and the needy ones around us. We feel truly blessed that like last year, this year too, we have got a chance to work relentlessly for Humanity.
We have aptly nicknamed our kitchen as “Maa Kalka Ki Rasoi” since Kalka Maa happens to be our main source of strength and inspiration. I feel delighted to share that all our Temple Devotees have not only exhibited due restraint by not visiting the Temple during these unprecedented times of Covid surge, but have also played a pivotal role in spreading awareness among the underprivileged segments of the society about the pertinence of following social distancing norms.
I will like to specifically mention the names of Samaritans Meetu Mittal, Jagdish & Tanu Gupta along with many other volunteers who have all played a commendable role this year too as a “Hunger Warrior”.
With the objective of keeping everyone in a positive frame of mind, Mata Ki Chowkis and other devotional programs are being hosted on Apps like Zoom that enable the devotees to view the same from their homes. This helps ensure both spiritual enchantment as well as remaining connected digitally. We organized “Shrimad Bhagwat Geeta Katha” through Zoom App also.”
No wonder, extraordinary circumstances often bring along with them extraordinary strength and resilience . ..and help ordinary beings evolve into extraordinary Heroes.
Kalka Mata Devotees have in their own special way etched their names as True “Champions of Humanity”.
