THE KHAN WHOSE RELIGION IT IS TO GIVE TILL IT HURTS!

Ali Peter John

It was my first meeting with Mother Teresa at her very simple home in Vile Parle in Mumbai. My chance to meet her had come after standing in a queue for more than two hours and in the queue where leading luminaries like Dilip Kumar and Saira Banu ,industrialist and socialites .She was sitting on a coir mat dressed in her trademark cotton white saree with a blue border and her head covered and her gnarled hands folded and her feet bare .I had a bundle of currency notes with me to given to me by my friend, Mr. Mohan Wagh the noted Marathi theatre personality who was the father-in-law of Raj Thackeray. She looked at the notes and in her English said,"My son,this is what I need and not flowers and words of praise. My people are hungry and sick. They are dying. They need food. They need medicines, they need good beds and doctors. Flowers can look good,but money can do everything .Why don't people understand and give money till it hurts ?"People in the queue looked at me angrily but the Mother wanted to talk to me, I don't know why. That was the moment I told myself that she would be a Saint one day ....

I don't know why the gesture made by Shah Rukh Khan made fifteen days ago in making his donation towards the fight against COVID 19 tells me that King Khan must have read or must have been inspired by Mother Teresa.or someone greater who have given till it must have really hurt. How does even a King literally empty out his treasure box and all his trusts to bring out all the funds that could help hundreds and even thousands of doctors, nurses and patients in these times of an unprecedented crisis ? And doesn't it take the heart of a King to sit with his Queen (Gauri Khan) and decide to lend their entire office to the Bombay Municipal Corporation for its need to quarantine people ?

And if all that was not enough, The King has gone beyond human boundaries and has even included abandoned animals and stray dogs on his list to receive his kindness and help. He must be one of those rare Kings who must have seen the sadness and the tears of those homeless, hungry and silently suffering animals in the streets to take a humanitarian decision like this.

Shah Rukh Khan could have come up with all kinds of excuses to keep away from giving. His last three films, "When Harry Met Sejal',"Raees "and "Zero" have been major disappointments at the box-office. His children, Suhaana, Aryan and Abram are on the threshold of their youth and all his companies are still growing. But when a King with a heart decides, nothing matters but the good of the people who have done good and have been good to him. And as I write this piece news comes that Shah Rukh will also take part in the initiative of the World Health Organization to combat COVID 19.

Aise Badshah ke liye duaa mein haath upper nahi jaye toh hath uthane se kiya faaydaa ???