Bhubaneswar: The country celebrated June 17, as Father’s Day – a day earmarked to pay tributes to dads, thank fathers for their role in family and society and their contribution to paternal bonds at large.
Father is one who sacrifices his whole life struggling and toiling to give a better life to his offspring, complementing the mother’s role at the same time. However, fathers are left to fend for themselves in their sunset years when help from their sons are most needed.
Ironically, this poignant truth came to the fore on the Father’s Day Sunday when the Odisha Patita Udhar Samiti (OPUS) and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) rescued more than 100 fathers from footpaths and celebrated the day with them at the shelter home in Ganganagar area. In the city, many such people are forced to live on the footpaths after their children abandoned them.
Matrumayee Priyadarshini, a shelter coordinator from OPUS, said, “We may not give their children back to them but we can try a little to give them as a small token of love with a pure smile. On the occasion, a cake was cut and small gifts were given away to them.
Some of the shelter home inmates shared their emotions with Orissa POST. Gobind Chandra Dora (a beneficiary) said, “We are feeling very grateful to BMC and OPUS for giving us a dignified life… We are not homeless or hopeless now.”
Sarathi Dutta, another beneficiary, said he is living a dignified life. “My children abandoned me without asking me whether I can survive without him or not. I pray no one see what I had faced.”
Abharanai Chaudhary, secretary of OPUS, said, “Parents are not anyone’s garbage. Every child should know that their parents end their comfort zone to give comfort life to their children. Value of their life is not a sack and destination of their life is not the footpath. So, before you throw your parents out onto footpath give a ring to us. We will keep your identity secret because we don’t want to disclose the identity of worthless children of a worthy property.”
