The Gorkha Heart: How Indian Gorkhas Stepped in to Help a Nepali National, When Nepal Embassy Refused Help
Meghlal Nepali originally from Pyuthan district, Pokhari Ward # 5 Bange Gram Vikas Samity – Rapti Anchal suffered a series of misfortune since February of 2015 in Delhi. Last night he was rescued by volunteers from Gorkha Youth and Students’s Association (GYASA).
This is what happened.
Meghlal had been living in Delhi for the past 25 years, where he worked as a driver. Back home, he has a loving family with wife – 5 daughters, mother and father. He had gone to visit them in early February and came to Delhi. On February 25, 2015 while on his way to join his work, he was struck by a motorbike – Royal Enfield.
The biker took him to AIIMS where he was treated for external injuries and let off. The biker offered to pay Meghlal Rs 5000 towards his treatment, which Meghlal refused, as he was grievously injured. The biker then offered to treat him at Shiva hospital in Gurgaon, so Meghlal went with him to the hospital, however there the hospital calculated a treatment cost of Rs 2.25 Lakhs.
On hearing the sum the biker refused to pay for the treatment, and argued that his bike itself wasn’t worth that much. Following this Meghlal was left to fend for himself.
Since then Meghlal suffered apathy and indifference from his own, and things came to such a pass that he was left in front of Sikanderpur Metro station in Gurgaon, with no money and no one to turn to. The wound on his right leg had started to get infectious and he could not even move. From being a hard working driver, to being homeless, Meghlal suffered a lot in these past 4 months.
Yesterday, a social worker from Manipur Mr. Edward while passing through the Sikanderpur metro station, saw a face that could belong to someone from the North East, so he stopped and asked Meghlal his details. On coming to know that Meghlal was a Nepali, Mr. Edward called up GYASA activist Dilip Kumar, who is from Prasain village, Senapati district in Manipur.
Dilip informed other GYASA members and along with his friend Suraj Shresht and another activist Mr. Matthew went to check on Meghlal, leaving his office two hours before he was supposed to get off.
On arrival, Dilip and Suraj found that Meghlal was suffering, there was pus coming out of his infection in the right foot. Lack of treatment had made his leg unusable and Meghlal was in tremendous pain.
Mr. Dinesh Sharma a senior member of GYASA was monitoring the situation from Delhi and suggested that they could call Nepali embassy and ask for help. Ms. Ashmita picked up the phone at Nepal embassy and informed them that they could not help Meghlal. They offered to trace his family in Nepal, and that is all, Ashmita said, they could do for him.
Frustrated, but determined, GYASA members tried to find a place for Meghlal to spend the night, so that he could be taken to a hospital in the morning. A Good Samaritan Mr. Sagan Moktan who is in Delhi offered to pay for a Hotel room, however, the volunteers could not find any place to keep him, even the hotels refused to give him a room seeing his distraught condition.
So the volunteers approached GJM Gurgaon leader Mr. NB Pradhan for help, and he told them, he cannot help them.
Tired and out of options the GYASA members contemplated on what they could do. Meghlal in the meanwhile could see their desperation and told them that he will spend the night outside the metro station, the way he had done for the past 4 months.
That is when Dilip realized that they had to take action themselves, and that he could take Meghlal to his place, and they did.
Once Meghlal arrived at their place, the first thing they did was helped him to shower and cleaned all his wounds. Rakesh Rai volunteered for the work, and made Mr. Meghlal look sparkling in no time.
With his wounds cleaned, and having eaten dinner, Mr. Meghlal looked entirely different than how the GYASA members had found him.
He is resting, but he will need all our help to get proper treatment done and get compensation from the biker who caused the accident.
Once again, we THANK the amazingly kind volunteers from GYASA who have time and again stepped up to help those Gorkhas who are in desperate need in Delhi, Noida, NCR and Gurgaon region, irrespective of the country or state they come from.
In particular, we thank Mr. Edward, Mr. Dilip Kumar, Mr. Suraj Shresth, Mr. Matthew, Mr. Dinesh Sharma, Mr. Sunil Bista, Mr. Raju Bhandari, Mr. Sujan Pradhan, Mr. Arjun Rai and Ms. Rakhi Pradhan for their incredible acts of kindness, and Mr. Sagan Moktan for offering to pay the hotel bill and his generosity.
All of you are our HEROES!! THANK YOU!!
Via TheDC
