Earth Saviors' Foundation

I volunteered for an organization called the Earth Saviors Foundation. It is basically a rehabilitation centre for the destitute. The inhabitants range from MRs ( mentally retards ) to rape victims,AIDS patients and many others. My duties involved teaching the children of rape victims who were also HIV positive, catering to some admin responsibilities and performing gap analysis.

As I took to teaching the children I was literally shocked to realize the level of ignorance these children were living in. They were physically and mentally weak due to infection. They didn't even know that they lived in a country,  which comprises of various states. Their geographic knowledge was limited to the fact that the people with the different skin (foreigners, UN delegates, international scholars etc) come from some place far away. Their behavior clearly showed that they have never been taught even the littlest of things. It was quite a challenge to manage these children and make them sit quietly and listen, let alone teach them anything.  I couldn't have imagined such a living had I not witnessed it.

I also had an "encounter" with one of the infected mothers who was mentally unstable to the extent of being abusive and even violent. And the scary bit was that they looked so normal,  one wouldn't detect their state until they would do something very disturbing.

BUT the most out of the world encounter was with a blood cancer patient and one of the inhabitants,  Justice Avikar Raj(see pic).  He claimed to be the adopted son of the bachelor bureaucrat Dr VK Krishnamenon, also known to be the second most powerful man in India after Jawaharlal Nehru, once upon a time. Justice Avikar's biological parents died in a car accident in London shortly after they had moved there. He was a kid back then.

According to Justice Avikar Raj, Dr. Menon ensured that Avikar, as a child, got the best of education. Avikar did his undergrad from London School of Economics and graduated from Cambridge University on United Nations Scholarship to become a barrister in London. He also proudly named some of his alums such as Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Salman Rushdie. He talked in a perfect British accent and it was hard to doubt him when he said that he was the member of eminent organizations like Delhi Gymkhana club by invitation.

After listening to him for almost a hundred hours, i finally dared to ask him how on earth could a person as qualified as himself land up in a rehabilitation centre?! He gave the most unconvincing answer that he wanted to work for the noble cause of running the Foundation with Ravi Kalra, the founder of Earth Saviors. The authorities had a different story though. They told me that he did not get the citizenship of London over the service of many years and had to come back to India where Dr. Menon had passed away, leaving no family or assets to Avikar. His Kerala roots had faded off long back. So here, he failed to establish himself in anyways, lost whatever he owned, and now suffers from blood cancer, with no family or friends to look after him. Now he is the angry old man with immense superiority complex which ends him up in quarrels and even fights with the rest of the inmates. He talks endlessly of how a third world country like India does not have any standard education or infrastructure of even people of international class.

I googled him but couldn't find much. The story is unbelievable, most of it makes no sense. But when i was in the moment, listening to Avikar Raj, at least a part of it sounded very,very real. I was baffled at how destiny can subject one person in his little life span to possibly the brightest and darkest shades of life!