Last Saturday was a revelation, an ego-bashing time-out that nonetheless refreshed my soul. The ego met its nemesis at SOFOSH, the adoption centre in Pune. SOFOSH is an acronym for ‘Society of Friends of Sassoon Hospital.’ The occasion–the celebration of birthdays of children adopted from the organisation. We went along with our elder daughter, our biological child, ostensibly to share her birthday celebration but with the latent desire to teach her a thing or two about life’s privileges. We came back re-educated.

The children who live there were turned out in their best, seven of them tagged with the letters of the alphabet that formed a whole to spell out WELCOME, an irony that didn’t escape me, enhanced by their smiles as they bowed and pranced about. My husband was carrying our younger daughter and one of the little ones there tugged at his shirt and heart all at once. She wanted to be cuddled too.

The social workers who had arranged the event were the ones who took my breath away. They do this every month–celebrate the birthdays of children adopted from there, prepare plates of goodies for the guests, buy gifts for the children, teach the children who live there to put up performances, and take care of the physically and mentally challenged kids. All this in the midst of their daily grinding schedule of doing social work with all its obvious and some not-so-obvious obstacles and paraphernalia–with a smile and loads of enthusiasm. Hard feelings and heartbreak is a part of work life and I am not naive enough to presume that there isn’t any at Sofosh; but they rise above it for the sake of the children.

As we entered the leafy surroundings of Sassoon hospital and drove towards Shreevatsa, the adoption house, I felt a sense of the enormity of what Sofosh and other organisations like it do. I looked around the building where children spend long hours and days waiting for a family of their own, a home to return to like any other privileged child with a normal family life. But those hours and days must have been spent in affection and attention, though regimented for the sake of running an organisation, for I have never seen the staff there respond with anything but dedication and a level headed, pragmatic affection.

One thing leads to another. Sofosh made me think of social work per se and the dedication and love that social workers need to possess. There’s another quality they need, a balanced approach to pain and suffering. I have often thought of putting in some hours with spastic children or at adoption centres, but each time I visit any of these places, I find myself extremely disturbed, angry with life’s injustices; can a person like me be an effective social worker? Brave goals need braver minds, and social workers are some of the most courageous people I think, for they come into contact with the negative aspects of life on a daily basis, yet keep a strong head on their shoulders to alleviate as much of the suffering as possible, in their own little ways. Getting merely upset and angry over what they find around them would not have helped them solve any problems. They are the doers, not people like me who can feel but not do something about it, or take too long to get around to doing it. They are the movers and shakers, quietly doing their work without flashing it on the Page 3s of the world.

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