Karnataka - Bangalore   

Giving back to society

— Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

D. Bhoopathy.

Bangalore: Her message is simple: treat volunteerism as a game of service, where you only stand to win and never lose. The more the players, the better and there is no age or gender bar. The only requirement for this game is love.

This may be a strange comparison, but then D. Bhoopathy is not your usual kind of woman. She is a senior citizen, spending her twilight years counselling terminally ill patients at the Kidwai Institute of Oncology and helping patients and their relatives fill forms and in other odd jobs at the Bangalore Baptist Hospital for almost 13 years now. “Being a volunteer has taught me the beauty of giving and sharing, helped me connect with people and form deep bonds,” she explains her simple motive.

Ms. Bhoopathy stumbled into volunteerism by chance more than by choice. After her husband, a former professor, retired from service, he expressed his wish to give back something to society. “It was his idea to take up the role of a volunteer at the Baptist Hospital. I was not very keen because he had a cardiac problem and did not want him to exert himself. But he was adamant and I was forced to follow him. But after that I have not looked back and feel that I have been cut out for this unique role,” she says. Her work in the family court as a counsellor in the early 1990s seems to have helped.

Even after her husband’s death five years ago, Ms. Bhoopathy continued her good work. She feels that her interactions with patients and their relatives had made her richer. “There are so many unique experiences that I have had that I cherish them in my heart forever.”

Narrating one such incident that happened in the palliative care unit of the Kidwai Institute, she says, “On one of my regular visits to the ward I found that one patient was rolling his eyeballs and seemed to be very restless. His relatives were standing around his bed and crying. I went towards them and asked them not to cry and to pray with me for the patient. Then I called his name and asked him to look at me. First, he did not seem to hear but after I addressed him again he nodded his head slowly. I stood at his feet and said a prayer. The dying patient seemed to be more relaxed and his heaving chest was moving rhythmically. After I moved out of the room and was entering the doctor’s room, a nurse ran up to me, thanked me and said the patient had died peacefully.” Such experiences fulfil the role of a volunteer, says Ms. Bhoopathy.

“Volunteerism has to come from within, I want more youngsters to come forward and volunteer and serve people. For me it has been a blessing,” she says with a conviction gathered over years of selfless service.

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