It's 10.40 pm on New Year's eve: Anshu K. Gupta stops his car outside
aiims, alongside a row of sleeping bodies curled up against the
cold. His friends and he step out. The car boot opens and out come
blankets, folded within each are a set of trousers and woollens.
Silently, they place the packages beside the sleeping and return
to their cars. Mission accomplished, they drive on to repeat this
anonymous drop-off. At 3.30 am they make their last stop by the
Modi Mills flyover, on the south-eastern fringes of Delhi.
By 5 am, January 1, Anshu and his friends get home, their final
midnight run of 2003 complete.
"The
biggest problem in our country is still roti, kapda aur makan,"
says Anshu, founder of Goonj, "yet something as simple as
donation of clothes can solve at least one of the basic issues."
Goonj's Vastra-Daan programme harks back to one of the oldest
forms of charity in India, counted among the nine punyas or good
deeds.
But what really prompted Anshu and his wife to initiate the project
in 1998 was the fact that, for those who don't even make it to
the shanties of shining India, clothes pretty much double up as
shelter from the elements as well.
Beginning
with 67 items of clothing from their closet, Vastra-Daan today
transports over 5,000 kilos of clothes per month across India,
with help from 300 volunteers. Wondering why we only swing into
action when disaster strikes, Anshu asks: "Why do we forget
that half our country does not need a disaster to be helped?"
Extending the recycling circle beyond the maid, driver and watchman,
Vastra-Daan reaches blankets and clothes to the destitute in distant
villages. "It takes only 97 paise to transport an old sari
from Delhi to Kalahandi," says Anshu, who sources plastic
gunny bags at cut price from grain merchants and crams trucks
to the hilt before dispatching the packed goods.
To
match donors to recipients, Vastra-Daan asks local ngos to send
photographs and information about deprived village communities,
political/economic refugees, or victims of natural disasters.
The request is then carefully processed. For instance, donation
camps for post-riots Gujarat were held in West Delhi, from where
all salwar kameezes were dispatched to Muslim centres, while the
saris were sent to Hindu centres to maximise aid utilisation.
Their
experience with recycling garments has also taught them a lot.
Salwars often arrive minus the waist cord, which renders the garment
useless. Compensating for this, Goonj supplies a 1.5 metre cord
along with every outfit. Shoes too are transported tied by their
laces, or fastened together to ensure that pairs don't go astray
in transit. Nothing goes waste. Rags, scraps, torn clothes and
flimsy spaghetti tops, are all turned into bags or pattis—mats
that kids in village schools can use as seats.
Goonj
today has collection centres in almost every major metro. Minus
any funding, it survives by using one-side used paper for correspondence
and by selling newspapers (donated by corporations, schools and
colleges). Yet, even with minimal running costs, they are still
unable to process the sheer volume of desperate requests. If you
would like to sponsor a Rs 40 seating patti or donate woollens,
blankets, school uniforms or toys,
Contact:
Anshu K Gupta at J-93, Sarita Vihar, New Delhi 110044, Tel: 011-2697-2351,
Mobile: 98681-46978 or email him at anshu_goonj@indiatimes.com.
—Pramila N. Phatarphekar
