Sindhutai Sapkal
the inspiring story of Sindhutai Sapkal who has nurtured over 1,050 orphaned children in her 40 years of social work. Many of the orphaned children have grown up to be doctors, lawyers, etc. and have started their own orphanages.
She was born in a poverty-stricken village in Maharashtra, India. She never really had any education. When she was a little girl and wanted to go to school, her family made her take care of the buffaloes. When she was 10 years old she was married to a man who was about 30. By the time she was 19 she had 3 sons and she was pregnant.
A mafia type of person who was exploiting the people of the village was especially forcing the women of the village to work really hard and paying them practically nothing and everyone was afraid of him. But Sindhutai told the local collector who was overseeing the police and that mafia person was stopped from what he was doing. This made the man angry and he went to Sindhutai husband and told a lie.
“You are such a fool, your wife is having affairs with so many men in the village, in-fact the child that is within her womb is my child not yours. I’ve been having sex with her. If you don’t kill the child and kill her, I will kill you.”
So the husband of this 19 year old girl went home and he kicked her in the stomach repeatedly to kill her and the child. She laid unconscious, he thought she was dead. So he dragged her to a cowshed where a whole herd of cows are being kept thinking that people would feel that the cows just trembler and that’s how she died. She laid unconscious and when she woke up, she found one cow standing right above her protecting her. There were all these buffaloes and cows walking around and they would have certainly trampled her. But one cow was keeping everyone away from her and even when her in-laws came to make sure she was dead, the cow chased them away with her horns and stood over.
Sindhutai came to consciousness and gave birth to a baby girl under the cow. She took a rock and cut her umbilical cord, took about 20 slices to get free from it. For hours and hours the cow protected Sindhutai. When she got enough strength she embraced the cow and promised
“As you protected me when I was in great need, I will protect others who are in need”.
It’s a long story, but no one would have her back, her own biological family rejected her. Because according to their tradition once a girl was married, she could never come back home. A foolish tradition as many are these days. In order to not be exploited, she used to sleep in a crematorium with her little baby child. She would collect wheat that people would put around the dead bodies and mix it with water and cook it on the dead and the fires of the dead corpses.
It became such a depressing life for her, she once decided I don’t want my child to live like this and she want to commit suicide. She went to a railway track with her child in her arms and laid waiting for the train to crush them. But as she was laying there, she heard someone crying in anguish, so she got up and she found an old man who was crying out. He was crippled. He was very invalid, he was crying for some food and water. She went out and begged to get him some food and water.
She started thinking that, she had a higher purpose in life than to commit suicide. She have something to do, something to contribute to the world but then later in the day she was sitting in a field wondering what am I going to do. I have nothing, I have no one, how can I help anyone. She was under a tree and she saw there was a branch of the tree that a woodsman with an axe had violently cut, the branch was just hanging by a single string but that branch was giving her and her child shade. Looking at this she found the answer — however much I have been beaten down, still I could do something for others. She started going and finding homeless abandoned orphan children and she became their mother taking care of them somehow or other. She learned how to sing really nice and she begged with her singing and somehow or other kept them safe.
After some time people saw what difference she was making for so many people, that they built an orphanage for her. Over the years she’s had about 1,500 children, over a thousand grandchildren. She’s made a tremendous difference in her life. All of her children had great education many are doctors, lawyers and farmers something she never had.
She has won many awards internationally for her accomplishments. But then she explains, what the most meaningful and fulfilling things she ever did in life years and years later after the President of India gave her awards.
This really old man came to her orphanage, he was starving, he was sick, he was homeless and he was asking for shelter. After a few minutes, she recognized this was her ex-husband – the person who tried to murder her maliciously. She said to him:
“When you left me to die I was homeless in rags, now you’re homeless and rags and I have a nice place with so many people”
She said the most meaningful thing in her life as she forgave him and she said “I will give you shelter, but I’m not your wife – I’m your mother and when people would visit the orphanage, she would introduce him as this is my eldest son and sometimes he’s very naughty.”
The girl who was born under the cow, she’s now a medical doctor and she’s taking charge of one of Sindhutai’s orphanages. She says “I consider all of the tragedies in my life, to have been gifts to empower me, to make a difference, to others.” She considered it all the grace of God.
