Back on track

Professor Sandeep Desai is a popular face among daily local train commuters in Mumbai. Most of them recognise him as the man with a chevron moustache and a round pair of glasses, with a backpack on his shoulders and a transparent donation box. For years together Desai has been going around in Mumbai locals to raise funds to educate underprivileged children. However, the past few months the Good Samaritan was out of action. In September last year he was diagnosed with swine flu and also had some cardiac complications. However, coming to his rescue, we hear, was Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, who took care of his medical expenses. Desai is now back on his feet. By the end of this month, he hopes to resume his journey in local trains.

Recalling the hard times, Desai says, “I was very ill, in fact, my life was at risk. In about a month, I had seven blackouts. Eventually, I was admitted at the Fortis Hospital.” But he never had to pay the bills for his treatment at the lush hospital. “Although I have no proof of this, it was Salman Khan who paid my bills.” Desai recalls a time when he was on his regular trips seeking donation, he had got a call from the superstar. “I think he had read articles about me in newspapers and he promised to help me in whichever way possible,” he says.

Now that he has recovered, Desai feels fit to hop on into the next local. “Before I fell ill, I was 70 kilos, now I am 84 kilos. So it’s time to cut down some weight,” he jests. Desai now plans to expand his efforts beyond rural Maharashtra and Rajasthan, which have been his areas of focus until now. “By next year, we are planning to start our work in Bihar and West Bengal,” he says.

Desai’s journey in philanthropy began in 1997 when he quit his day job and took up other assignments to fund Shloka, a free English-medium school for children from the Goregaon slums. “After Shloka, which we started in 2005, we began our second school at Ratnagiri for poor rural children, but the construction got delayed due to a shortage of funds,” he says. That’s when he decided to collect money directly from the common man. Within a span of five months, he had managed to collect over Rs 4 lakhs.

Even though Desai is quite popular now, when he had just started out, not many people appreciated the idea of him “begging” in trains. “They supported my cause, but they didn’t like my methodology. But I had to involve common man, and what’s a better place than trains, where they cannot shoo me away or shut their doors on my face. They have to bear with me till their station comes,” he says with a smile.

The plan in Desai’s head is getting only bigger and he is optimistic about being able to materialise it. “I am planning to make at least one school in every state where underprivileged children can get education in English for free. We have ‘vidyasevaks’ in Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa and Tamil Nadu and they will raise funds the same way I did,” he says.

Currently Desai is raising funds for a school in Rajasthan.

For donations visit: http://shlokamissionaries.org/or look for Professor Sandeep Desai on Facebook.