Nirashrit Sevashram – An old age home for our abandoned elders

Learn from the people who have walked the path before you…respect them. Bcoz someday and sooner than you could ever imagine – you are going to be old, too!”

– Anonymous

At an age when most of his peers are busy minting money and laying foundations for securing a comfortable future for themselves, Yash Parashar is busy trying to make the lives of abandoned and homeless septuagenarians comfortable, by providing them a dignified shelter and old age home.

For the last 8 years now, he has provided 150 elderly people, with permanent shelters, whom he found on roads, streets, footpaths with no identity proofs and in debilitating conditions, giving them the love and care they need the most during this phase of their lives. 

The beginning of Nirashrit Sevashram

His journey started in 2014, when as a regular blood donor, to the government hospital in Indore, he came across an old lady in tattered clothes lying on the floor unattended, begging for alms.

On inquiring, she was not able to tell her name or address or provide her children’s names. Yash decided to find her a proper shelter; he hired a rickshaw and with the help of a friend, they visited all the old age homes in the city.

By late evening all the old age homes private as well as government had refused to provide a space to the lady.

While some of them cited absence of identity proof, others were blatant enough to admit that since she was immobile waist down (she pulled her body with her hands to move), they would not be able to keep her, others demanded money!

Not wanting to leave her at the same place, he took her home. After keeping her for a few weeks, he posted on social media for suggestions….what he got was more pics of abandoned oldies with request to provide them help!

Disowned by their own children!

Yash says – I was not only angered at the inability of the system to provide a proper shelter for persons who actually needed help and were unfit to take care of themselves, but more than that I was unable to understand the apathy of the family who had abandoned the parents like useless things to be discarded after their purpose had been served!

Baby Steps towards a Larger Vision

So he along with a few of his friends decided to bear the brunt themselves and rented a flat and keep all these oldies there. They started with 4 elderly persons, and a rent of 3k p.m. With a maid to cook and look after them, the monthly expenses came to around 10k which Yash and his friends shelled out every month.

Soon he was suggested by some intelligentsia to give this a formal structure of an old age home, as it might lead to legality issues in case of death of the residents. So almost after a year in Oct 2015, NDYSS took birth as an NGO. 

Challenges and Successes

By 2018, they had changed 3 flats and had 16 residents, the expenses grew to 35k p.m.

Facing a financial crunch, they decided to shut down the NGO…..thankfully a good samaritan came to their rescue and talked to all the persons to waive off all the debt which had accumulated. He also helped them to open a bank account and paid the amount for opening the account, publicised their work on social media and guided them for formal procedures for conducting the last rites of the deceased oldies. 

Learning from bitter and sweet experiences, Yash moved ahead, and with the help of veterans in the welfare sectors, finally achieved triumph in September 2021 when the administration ( Municipal Corporation of Indore) granted the NGO with a 25k square feet area near Pitra Parvat in Indore for the old age home.

Now the entire process of admitting the oldies till their cremation has been streamlined – with police verification being done at both the admission stage and the cremation stage, in order to avoid hassles with the relatives or the administration at any time.

The last time I visited this ashram, it had around 17 females and 15 male elderly persons residing there along with a couple caretaker, a cook and few volunteers! 

Future path

His next dream is to start an orphanage.

You can see Yash Parashar’s profile and activities on his Facebook page.