Tete-a-tete with Nitai: KOLKATA NEWS LINE – INDIAN EXPRESS

Nitai Das Mukherjee began playing the Good Samaritan when he was 11 years old. Twenty-seven years later, he leads an organisation known for its selfless service.

Sharmi Adhikary

KOLKATA NEWS LINE – INDIAN EXPRESS  COVERAGE: “Make sure she takes ample rest. You do the cooking today. And don’t you beat her up in a drunk state.”  Broken pieces of a one-sided conversation floated through the faint telephone signal. Nitai Das Mukherjee was in the midst of an emergency rescue mission while we tried to extract an appointment with him.

“Difficult,” he said. “I have to take this lady, living under inhuman conditions, to the hospital tomorrow.” However, after much cajoling he relented to a one-hour tete-a-tete, albeit with a note of caution. “I am famous for missing appointments. Do bear with me if I have to rush out on a emergency,” says Nitai-da.

The next day Nitaida missed the appointment. After an irritating half hour wait, Nitaida rushed into the room apologising for the delay, “Sorry. But this blind boy got robbed. We had to rush to the spot and send him home safely,” he said.
But the wait was worth it. Recounting anecdotes 38-year-old Nitai Das Mukherjee proved to be unassumingly modest. “Everyone does work. I may have formed our organisation called HIVe India but my whole team work their hearts out for bettering the lives of the underpriviledged,” he said.

The first time he did a good deed, Nitaida was in standard five. “We had gone to play football. Two ill-clad boys were lying on the streets. We began our game but my mind was fixed on the sorry sight. After some time I left the game and went over to the boys. They were running a high temperature,” recalls Nitaida.

“My friends and I collected a paltry Rs 4.75 and bought the boys some medicine. That was my first brush with social work. After that whenever I used to see anything untoward on the streets I ran and told my father. He used to arrange for the help. Hence the seeds of social work were rooted,” says Nitaida.

After spending some years helping the poor and the homeless on the Kolkata streets who battle gross illness, infection and death, Nitai-da formed his NGO, HIVe India, six years back. “Initially we had thought about working with those afflicted with HIV. But then we added the e which stands for education, eradication of illnesses, emergency and empowerment. Ours is a 30 member team and all the credit goes to them,” says Nitai-da, showing us the pictures of some vagrants rehabilitated by HIVe India.

Hope Foundation supports the endeavours of HIVe India and donations also pour in from well wishers. Nitai-da and his team are into a host of activities. “There are programmes where we teach the street children. We provide medical aid to any person lying on the streets in a pitiable condition. There are people who have lost their mental balance and need immediate care and compassion. Then there are trafficked girls yearning to go home. Our teams take rounds of the city streets night long to come across any body who might need help,” says Nitai-da.

Nitai-da was inspired by Swami Vivekananda and Netaji. “But what touched me most was that a lady who did even belong to this place poured her heart out for the poor residing in Kolkata. Mother Teresa’s body of work was a big influence for me,” says Nitai-da.
“The street and slum population is gargantuan in Kolkata, so also are the emergencies relating to them. Even though we initially concentrated on HIV related work, our field of activities has expanded. Now we even go ahead to rescue those affected by major disasters. Our motto is that no person should die without getting any care. Every person merits a respectable death. We however, get ample help from government hospitals and the Kolkata Police,” Nitai-da says. “I have no intention to boast. But I would consider our job well done if others are inspired to do as much. We just want to prove that where there is a will there is a way. We can make a big difference even with meagre resources. There is no compassion in this world. Rather there is a need to tap that feeling in people. If responsibilities are handled a bit more passionately then the world will become a better place to reside in,” says the do-gooder with a shy and philosophical air.

The phone rings and Nitaida has to rush out to a woman lying abandoned on the streets, bitten mercilessly by big red ants. Without holding back the good samaritan back we wish him all the luck.