After his father’s demise, one-year-old Palam Kalyanasundaram’s mother struggled to bring him up. Since there was no school, bus, electricity, or even a proper road in his small village of Mela Karivelam Kulam in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, the little boy had to walk ten kilometres every day to school and back. No other child in his village attended school, since they could not afford the monthly fee of five rupees. So through her hard labour, his mother paid for other children’s fees, books and clothes, so that they too could go to school with him. Thus, from childhood, Kalyanasundaram learned to share with others.

Kalyanasundaram desired to study his rich Tamil culture and history by taking up Tamil literature for his Master’s degree. Seeing his interest, the founder of MTT Hindu College not only introduced the subject in the college, but also sponsored his education. So again Kalyanasundaram saw others’ generosity in his education.

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At the time of the Partition in 1947, the 12-year-old boy accompanied his parents from Peshawar in Pakistan to India. The refugees first sheltered in a Patiala camp, and were later shifted to Amritsar and Mansa.

To survive, Jagdish Lal Ahuja joined his parents selling candies, bananas and moong dal sprouts on buses and on pavements. They would purchase two kilos of moong dal for one rupee and make packets of the snack to sell. Due to this, he could not go to school.

With a meagre savings of Rs 415, Jagdish and his parents moved to Chandigarh. With hard work and God’s blessings, Jagdish became a successful businessman there.

One day, while celebrating his son’s birthday, Jagdish realised that there were many who did not have food to eat. So he served food to underprivileged children on that day. That gesture gave him a special joy. Remembering his starving and miserable childhood days, the businessman decided to help others.

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