When the world was busy celebrating New Year festivities in hotels, pubs and bars, and youths went footloose in discotheques on December 31 night to mark the end of the year 2018, a woman from Japan led a group of young volunteers, hit the dark streets of Gurugram near New Delhi to spot homeless poor people shivering in bitter cold, offered them the warmth of blankets and food.
Far away from the high-decibel music of DJs, she was aghast to found downtrodden children, women and elderlies sleeping on city pavements without any shelter and enough clothing.
Without thinking a bit about her security as she was vulnerable due to dark patches, she roamed around on the city roads for the noble cause.
“More shocking was the fact that many of them draped in thin cotton sheets were making botched attempt to secure sleep and we found them shivering of cold. Besides bone chilling cold wave that has gripped the entire northern India, their empty stomachs too were giving them sleepless nights as they could not have managed to have enough food,” said Nupur Tewari, a healing expert in Tokyo who is touring India these days.
Living in Japan for the last 15 years, Nupur is a yoga and meditation trainer runs Heal Tokyo, which is a socially motivated movement focusing on the core problems of people in Japan and India. Education and Work Stress being the core problems of India and Japan respectively, Heal Tokyo is a unique way of addressing them at once.
Supported by the volunteers of a local NGO Socio Motto, Nupur approached the downtrodden at sites near main bus terminal, railway station and around temples as well as those sleeping under the flyovers. Blankets were provided by Socio Motto.
Socio Motto also ran a campaign named as “Say No to crackers, Plant a tree” around Diwali this year when it distributed thousands of saplings free to the people around malls and other places in Gurgaon.
According to an official data there are over one million urban homeless in India, although charities estimate the actual number to be three times higher.
“I am all praise for Nikhil Kukreja (26) from Socio Motto and my colleague Simarpreet (29) from Delhi who preferred to work for the poor over going to bar or discotheques to celebrate New Year festivities,” Nupur said.
She was born in India and has been living in Japan since 2003. So India-Japan being her home she is a bridge between the physically distant lands but historically united in the spirit. Education and Work Stress being the core problems of India and Japan respectively, Heal Tokyo is a unique way of addressing them at once.
Nupur has been the cultural ambassador of India in Fukuoka from 2003 to 2017 before moving to Tokyo, and also a Yoga ambassador of International Yoga day in Japan. She has been teaching Yoga for the past 12 years, associated with philanthropy activities in Japan & India
