“Don’t ask me about my childhood. I won’t be able to narrate that time,” said 83-year-old Jagdish Lal Ahuja, in a voice choked with emotion. In 1947, a 12-year-old boy born in Peshawar, Pakistan, came over to this side during the Partition. The event not only took away his birthplace from him, but his childhood too.
It is this lost childhood that Ahuja, popularly known as PGI’s ‘langar baba’, is searching among hundreds of poor kids whom he feeds daily. Over three decades have passed since he started organising langars across Chandigarh in 1981. In 2001, he started a daily langar outside Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER). He has been at it without a break.
In 2015, he sold his seventh property worth ₹1.6 crore to arrange money for his noble initiative. Ahuja has sold six other such properties worth crores to ensure that the poor do not go to bed on an empty stomach.
Must compliment Hindustan Times for this excellent story by Tanbir Dhaliwal, that they have published. Such stories inspire others too. Read more of this in Hindustan Times...
