Alcoholic people's second home

Last year, me and my friends had visited "Mahashramdan" camp arranged by "Paani Foundation" -our little contribution towards drought-free Maharashtra. That was our first experience with "Paani Foundation". We registered online and received SMS. They allotted us a village named as Vadzire located in Sinner Tehsil, Nashik district as our work location. On the evening of 30th April 2019, We have started our journey from Kalyan to Sinnar. We are expected to reach sinner by 12 to 01 am late night , still we did not  decided our halt location. I remembered one of my friend from sinner-Mr. Kiran Bhavsar as we are working together with "Think Maharashtra.com" (an organization which works to collect information about Maharashtrian culture). We discussed our schedule with him and he suggested to visit "Sahara rehabilitation centre" run by Mr. Madhukar Gite, situated in Mendhi village about 25KM from Sinner. He also suggested to visit and explore the centre and assured for our night halt. At around 10.30 pm ,we had a call with Mr. Gite and told them about our visit. He agreed happily for dinner and halt arrangements. We just wanted sleep as next day was fully scheduled. We reached the centre at 1.30 am. The centre is situated at the entrance of the village-Mendhi. We met Mr. Gite & He was so happy and surprised to know that we have come along from kalyan. 

Sahara Rehabilitation Center

Gossiping started with tea in their office. Gite wanted to become a teacher. He has an idea of tribal area in Palghar as he had worked in Boisar MIDC. We get to know that Mr.Gite likes to learn new things. He used to conduct seminars on population growth, personality development and superficial elimination in schools & other places. At one phase of life, Gite was fully addicted to alcohol. He realised his addiction and visited "Muktangan rehabilitation centre" for getting rid of this alcohol habit. Soon he started feeling the difference and finally, he overcame the addiction but he remembered the exact date when he quit drinking. Once in 2000, Mr. Gite met Mr. Narendra Dabholkar in one program and that was the turning point of his life. He told Mr. Dabholkar about his alcohol addiction and last date of drinking. Then Mr. dabholkar said, "Having it everyday or once in a month ,that doesn't matter. Addiction is addiction no matter if its for a special day or every day. You can't get rid of it if you remember the last date." This statement carved on Mr. Gite's heart and then he started his work. Alcohol addiction harms human health as well as spoils many relations. To prevent this, he started a Rehabilitation centre in his own village at Mendhi. Mr. Baba Amte was his inspiration in this work.  He converted his large bungalow into rehabilitation centre and moved to small house for living. At the beginning, he had to face opposition of villagers but now situation has been changed and people are ready to donate their land for this good work. By listening his life journey, we just forgot about sleep. Then we visited main hall of the centre. There are some posters with names and photos of the donors. Amte family have appreciated his work and sent him appreciation letter. There is another poster of poem titled as "why we need a wife?". Prayer was written on poster besides it,  Which they recite daily as morning prayer. There is  a sentence which caught my heart and that is "You will get hope here, take some while leaving".

Mr. Gite talking about centre

Prayer 

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 

courage to change the things I can, 

and wisdom to know the difference.

People in the rehabilitation centre

The rehabilitation centre has been equipped with many things. It has a Library of approximately 1600 books & people used to read it. In this centre, People have come from Beed, Parbhani, Boisar, Nashik. They do their own work. Also they manage office work, extraction of cow's milk, grass cutting even they make drona's. The rehabilitation centre has a biogas plant as well as the solar system installed. There is also water filtration plant & they reuse water. Everything is well planned and well organised. Mr. Gite told us about their upcoming projects in coming three years. He is going to start a Competitive exam centre with the help of Mr Tanpure. (Mr. Tanpure is a Shahir who sings powada. Powada is a song written to praise the warriors.) This centre will serve the disabled persons as well as children of prostitutes. Their vision is to make the children self-reliable. This was too amazing to hear From Mr. Gite who was actually living their dream of being teacher.

Mr. and Mrs. Gite with us

We gossiped until 3 am. Then we went to sleep in a room in the centre, arranged by Mr.Gite. He had ordered all the people to wake up at 4.30 am in the morning. We also had to catch the same time. After an hour of sleep, one man came & awake us. After getting fresh, we went to the main hall and surprised to see all the people were gathered there to welcome us. Mr.Gite welcomed us again in front of all. Then some of them shared their before and after life journey and how they have changed. But they mentioned themselves as a bewada(Alcohol addict) & that was so weird to hear. But the change was so good & admirable. Mr. Gite shared a story of a man whose family members left him in the centre and told him not to inform them even if the person would die. That person recovered well  in the centre. It was 5 am,  Mr. Gite also had not slept the whole night, but the glow on his face was same. His wife was also there. This Gite couple reminded me of Mr. Prakashdada Amte and Mrs. Sadhanatai Amte. This is not too easy to sell own gold and even move to hut leaving behind the bungalow just to serve the alcohol addicted people. The whole family is appreciable, including their daughter,  son and daughter-in-law for their understanding and cooperation. Their simplicity in living teaches a lot. We left the centre at 6 am and drove towards our further destination, but the visit was immemorial. Do visit the centre whenever you get chance.

Written by : Shailesh D. Patil

Translated by : Vikas M. Thakre

Edited by : Mayuri Patil-Yevale