| In Focus |
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 Real People, Real Stories
Shobha Mukti
At 67, Shobha Mukti is still energetic. She needs to be. It has been fifty years since she became a widow at the age of 17. Since then, she has lived in her brother’s house at Subhash Nagar slum in Mumbai, dependent on odd jobs and other people’s beneficience for her survival. But her responsibilities do not end there. About seven years ago, her brother died and a few years later, his son committed suicide by setting himself on fire. Her nephew’s wife is disinterested in her children and household matters so it is up to Shobha to take care of her brother’s four grandchildren—two girls and two boys, all still in school. Shobha does not mind the responsibility; the children are her source of joy. They provide meaning to her otherwise hard and bereft life. She takes them to school and brings them back, cooks and feeds them and takes care of their needs with a diligence that few parents would show.
Some time back, she started working at a doctor’s dispensary to earn money for them. The sum was meagre—a mere Rs 450—and inevitably, she had to go door to door to beg for food and other items for the children. Asked about it, she sounds faintly bitter. “Their mother does not take care of them. She gets up in the morning and goes somewhere so I prepare the food for the children, send them to school, wash their clothes, bring them from school, borrow money from others and pay their school fees and tuition fees also. Sometimes, some people offer food or vegetables. The amount that I receive as salary is not sufficient to buy provisions and children’s education.”
Extremely hard working, Shobha elicits compassion from everyone around her. She has dedicated her life to these children and her worries centre around providing for their food, clothes and education. “I am very much worried about the future of the children,” she says. “If I die who will take care of the children? Will they go to the street and beg for food? Who will help my grandchildren for their education? Will they stop studying? Who will pay their school fees and set my girls’ marriage?”
While conducting a project survey in the slum, we discovered Shobha and the committee selected two of the children as eligible for sponsorship. Every year, the project gives them school books, food grains and clothes. Every Sunday, they are given snacks and soft drinks. The children are also given value lessons, skills education (oil painting, glass painting, drawing, craft), personal hygiene and environmental awareness, and workshops on cleanliness and nutrition.
The sponsorship project at Subhash Nagar slum has been running for the last four years. Currently, 38 children are covered by the project.
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