A special brother-sister bond

SNS, Siliguri, 26 October 2014: For the past 10 years, the girls among inmates of the Chetna Leprosy Ashram and the Anubhab Creche Centre for Mentally and Physically Challenged mark the foreheads of the boys in the two centres with sandalwood paste and pray for their safety, well-being and success on Bhai Phonta day.

The programme is organised by Anubhab and Chetna.

The general secretary of Anubhab, Pradip Dasgupta, said 65 male and 70 female inmates of the leprosy centre and 12 girls and 25 boys of Anubhav took part in this year’s programme, which began at 12.30 p.m. in the Chetna premises at Darjeeling More yesterday.

He said Anubhab distributed new utensils to the men and sarees for the Chhat festival to the women among the inmates of Chetna.

Mr Dasgupta said the main objective of the programme was to make the leprosy patients at Chetna and the mentally and physically challenged persons at Anubhav feel that they were not alone.

“Both lepers and mentally and physically challenged persons are neglected by the society. Very few normal men or boys would allow a leper or a mentally and physically challenged girl or woman to mark their foreheads with sandalwood paste on Bhai Phonta day. Nor would many normal girls or women apply sandalwood paste on the forehead of such persons and pray for his safety. We organize this programme to make the leprous and physically challenged persons at Chetna and Anubhav feel that they also have brothers and sisters, who pray for their well-being on Bhai Phonta day,” he said. The general secretary said that Siliguri MLA Rudranath Bhattacharya, Sajjan Bansal, senior member, Anubhab, and the two Anubhab joint secretaries, Nantu Paul and Partha Sengupta were present at the programme yesterday.