Pingalwara – The Sikh Version of Mother Teresa’s Ashrams

I think that lots of Sikhs that come from India have heard of Pingalwara.
However believe it or not, I had vaguely heard the term and knew that it was a charity or an effort to help those afflicted with leprosy but did not anything more than that for the majority of my adult life.

And then a few years ago, I read a book review of “His Sacred Life – Life of Bhagat Puran Singh”. I was amazed and ashamed that I as a Sikh had no idea about such a great human being. My eyes were opened and I began to look at the poor and the sick with a completely different perspective.

Bhagat Puran Singh was born as a Hindu, Ramji Das in 1904. Legend has it that whenever he visited temples, he was asked to clean them and then the Brahmins would proceed to eat in front of him without offering him anything. Once he chanced upon a Gurudwara where he was offered a meal without anything in exchange. That was the turning point was Bhagat Puran Singh.

For fourteen long years he carried a spastic child on his shoulders as they had no place to stay. But determination finally triumphed over adversity and was able to Bhagat Puran Singh ji was able to put up a facility in Amritsar that would survive him and continue to care for the really needy. Based in Amritsar, this facility, houses almost a 1,000 people today . About 7 to 8 people join Pingalwara every month. Bhagat Puran Singh ji passed away in 1992 but by then he had gained innumerable awards and a following across the globe. For more information please visit www.pingalwaraonline.org

I think that every one has moment of awakening in their lives, perhaps in some cases more than one such moment is required. That certainly seemed to be the case with me.

I had been a regular donor to the Pingalwara Society of Ontario for some time and decided to call them one day on an issue that I was having with their web site ( emails to them were being bounced back). I spoke to a really nice lady and came to know that the humble people that were running the Pingalwara Society in Ontario, were ordinary people holding down jobs that paid hourly. They did not have time for meetings as they were all busy making a living and doing the Lords work. Once again, I felt left out, so close and yet so far in being a part of a team that would “make a difference”.

I spent some time surfing around and reading about Pingalwara and once again I felt that even if I had managed to become a contributing volunteer for them, I would be far removed from the action (India) and no where in my web searches did I read anything about plans to double or triple the capacity of the existing Pingalwara projects. This was another Sikh charity that was either not for me or I was not meant for it. So the search continues.