Gave his land to set up home for the mentally challenged and the penniless

Instead of leisurely resting on his laurels, this 88-year-old mathematics professor from Government College-11 gave away all his life’s earnings to help the homeless.

M S Bedi, whose one leg is afflicted with polio, sold his one-kanal house in posh Sector 11 to set up an orphanage in Jhanjeri village in the late nineties. Managing the orphanage with his pension, Bedi lives in a spartan dwelling in Sector 40. But with age not on his side and the orphan kids all grown up, he thought of giving the property to someone who could set up a shelter for the homeless.

While he was looking for a caretaker, 20 kms away in Padiala village in Kharar, Shamsher Singh was scouting around for space to keep unclaimed mentally challenged persons and the destitute. Shamsher runs an NGO for persons abandoned by their kin and living on the roads and railway stations. With around 150 persons at his destitute home, shortage of space, besides funds, had hamstrung his endeavour.

When Bedi met Shamsher, their plans dovetailed and he gave his land on a 15-year lease to the Universal Disabled Caretaker Social Welfare Society. The professor takes a token amount of Rs 1,000 per month, which he spends on the new building Shamsher is constructing on his plot.

The ashram, as Bedi terms it, has quite a few inmates. One of them smiles innocently on seeing Kuldeep Kaur, Bedi’s wife. “He is Om Prakash, reportedly an engineer from Ambala. Not much is known about him except that problems in his professional life pushed him into the abyss of depression,” she says.

... contd.