Maher -- Mother's Home

Maher means mother's home. And its an orphanage. Sarcastic isn't it???

It was one fine week when the humble and responsible human inside me woke up and said-- "Hey! Lets do something noble." And then i hit that little button to register for the CSR activity in my office.

Well CSR is Corporate Social responsibility. People get together and spend their weekend doing something good for the society.

This time we had a visit to this orphanage Maher. I wasn't knowing the meaning of this word until i reached there and read the board outside the building. And this phrase following the name of the orphanage caught my eyes and my heart.

A night before I couldn't sleep thinking how its going to be. How will be my experience. And I think like me most of us have this impression that orphanages are sad places. And we feel pity for the kids, sad feeling, tears, being grateful that we have a family ,comparison and stuff.I had never visited an orphanage until then. Though I was always active in social activities. My experience was with spreading awareness, visiting villages and educating them, visiting schools for special children, etc. Yet I was worried that m going with my colleagues, and then m very sensitive, i might feel sad and cry. And many similar thoughts haunted me.

Next morning I woke up, called a few friends and somehow went there. Once there, and met those kids, my feelings really changed. It was not a sad place, it was beautiful. All i could see was beautiful, shy and naughty smiles. Children of all ages. Who like every normal kid, just returned from their school. We played with them, danced and sang with them. It was amazing. Gave them little gifts. Though we were giving them materialistic things but unknowingly we were also giving them a million happy moments captured every nano seconds in their brains.

Now the question is why i felt weird at the name of the place? Is this name for us or the kids?

These kids amongst whom many havent seen their families ever, how will they know the meaning of a mother ? 

I think its for us, we emotional beings who just cant imagine somebody without a family and find something is wrong and feel pity. We just cant accept somebody different and feel their picture is incomplete. And try to complete their picture according to our perception. 

But for those loving souls, for whom relations don't have the same meaning as us.For them their mates are their brothers and sisters who stand by them, the visitors are their friends who help them learn, grow and share time. And their wardens their moms.

What we miss here is the fact to accept, and see everybody can be happy and have a perfect picture of their own. There's nothing wrong with anything that's different. Infact they might be having a better picture than many of us.

--RJ