Published on: 12/23/2015IST

A few stories in life are touching to the point that they abandon you devastated. This story is similar to one of those. I figure a few encounters have such a profound effect in your life that it makes you follow up on things. Maybe that is the thing that happened with Dick and Chris.

Dick Smith, Australian business person, agent and pilot, was traversing India via train when he happened to go over a destitute family living under an extension. Some portion of the family was one young lady who was wearing only a pink wrist trinket. Resolved to make a move, he took a few pictures on his iPhone and noted down their GPS position. Dick then reached Chris and Jess Bray inquiring as to whether they might want to go to India to attempt and discover the young lady and her family, offer them some assistance with finding convenience, offer the young lady with instruction, some assistance with buying them life's fundamental needs and open the young lady a financial balance for Dick to routinely store cash into. The main issue was, they needed to do this in only three days!

This is Chris' record of what maybe is the most heart tweaking picture story you have seen all year. Santa Clause Claus exists.

1. Dick Smith demonstrating to us the photographs he snapped on his iPhone of the destitute family (counting a young lady wearing only a pink wrist trinket) that he spotted living under a train span in India a couple of weeks prior. He truly needed to check whether there was any way he could help the family into some settlement, maybe check whether he could subsidize the young lady's training and so forth. Very much aware they won't not be there any longer, that they won't not require or need assistance, and the complexities of endeavoring to, regardless he needed us to attempt..

Facebook/ Chris Bray

2. This far off photograph of the family and the Google Map area is all we needed to go off - and to aggravate it, as should be obvious, the young lady and all the fundamental individuals in the photograph were looking the other way - we couldn't even see anybody's face! In a nation of 1.25 billion individuals, and no chance to get of knowing whether regardless they'd be there or not, attempting to discover not to mention endeavor to offer this family some assistance with will be an incredible enterprise...

3. 3PM on Day 1, we landed in Vadodara, climbed into a crazy rickshaw and braved the traffic chaos to our hotel...

4. I'd emailed ahead and this receptionist girl, Jayati, was keen to try and help us, acting as our Hindi/English translator. She'd especially worked the morning shift so she was ready to go with us right away...

5. We made it to the bridge, known as 'Polytechnic Bridge' or 'Shastri Bridge', with the huge 'Study, Work & Settle in New Zealand' advert sign beside it...

6. Jayati suggested before we try to find the family, we should first buy some gifts like sandals etc to make our good intentions clear. But by the time we'd made it to the markets and back, it was getting dark, and she kept trying to just give the gifts to random families on the street. She couldn't comprehend why we needed to find this particular family...

7. We started asking around if anyone recognised anyone in Dick's photos...

8. Everyone denied everything - telling Dr. Chellani that they'd never seen any of the people in the photos before...

9. But then we saw this man in red with the plastic leg (turns out a train cut it off!) who was also in our photo! He agreed it was him, and then others started to admit they recognised others too...

10. That's her! She's the girl in the photo! She still had the pink bracelets on too! Amazing! Her name is Divya, meaning 'divine light', and she's 8yrs old!

11. I handed Divya a copy of Dick's photo, and it was explained that my friend had passed by in a train a few weeks ago, and seen her & her family, and taken a photo, and we were just here to give her the photo...

12. Everyone warmed up then, and we met the whole family. She has two brothers, 7 and 2yrs old, both who were also in Dick's photo...

13. The parents had been living under the bridge for 12 years, and Divya had been born there just under the bridge without any nurse etc. As the father was away at work (a plasterer, earning $4-6/day, not enough to afford even a slum house while also caring for three kids) we decided it was best to wait until the dad came home from work to discuss with the whole family to see if there was a way we could help. Dr. Chellani told them to meet at the Bank that afternoon. We even had to pre-warn the security guard to actually let them in...

14. So on the afternoon of Day 2, the whole family filed shyly into the bank managers office and sat down...

15. We met the dad for the first time, and mercifully it turned out that he doesn't drink or smoke (The whole state of Gujarat is a 'dry state' and alcohol is illegal but there is of course a thriving black market). We believed them too, he certainly presented better than many of the other red-eyed, hungover men under the bridge - he seems like a genuine, hard working man, loves his family, and just struggling to get ahead. Thankfully it seems they weren't under the bridge because he has some hardcore addiction or something - they seem like the perfect family not only in need of some assistance, but able and willing to be helped...

16. We explained (via Dr. Chellani) that these were our friends Dick & Pip who'd passed by in a train a few weeks earlier who'd spotted them, and wanted to know how he could help the family, if they wanted...

17. Next morning, Day 3, we all met up again in the bank, and first things first, we wanted to open a bank account for the girl, with the mother as the guardian, so that Dick could deposit rent etc every month, which would then be automatically transferred to the rental account etc. However they didn't even have the most basic form of ID that identified them even as an Indian citizen, no fixed address, or anything. Amazingly though, Mr. Ratan found a way to help, opening them what's called a 'Smile' bank account, a new initiatve for people with no ID...

18. Still quite shy, Divya was starting to warm to us...

19. Dr. Chellani suggested we write up a formal contract linked to the account, specifying what the funds are allowed to be used for (Rent, and furthering the girl's education), and to give them confidence that this was to be ongoing, a minimum guarantee of 2yrs of an agreed level of funding, after which it will be reviewed etc (although the plan is for it to be more than 10 yrs). We later added a condition that Divya must attend school regularly else funding can be stopped (the principle will provide monthly attendance reports to Dr. Chellani, who is also a 2nd signatory on the account, to oversee & ensure the funds are spent correctly)...

20. To kick things off, we deposited the equivalent of about 3 months' rent into the account...

21. And then Jess and I then took the family shopping! Somehow we all fitted into the back of one tiny rickshaw...

22. It was so wonderful taking the family shopping! They were remarkably responsible about it too, we really had to force the mum to allow us to buy clothes & shoes etc for her too, and to allow us to buy more than one set of clothes etc. And when she saw the price we were spending, several times she was horrified and tried to put everything back and walk away saying it was all too much... (it was like $25 each for a complete set of jeans, top, shoes etc), she haggled all the prices way down for us, walked out of several stores etc...

23. Christmas came early this year! We got several sets for each family member, let them choose what they wanted, mostly very practical stuff, but Divya did fall in love with this dress so we got that too!

24. A fairy-floss seller walked past, and I saw the little brother's eyes following it, and to be honest I really wanted some too (haven't had any since I was a kid!) so I bought us a little bag of pink fairy floss to share! Yum-o!

25. We are so lucky to have been able to make this come true! Thanks so much to Dr. Chellani (left) and Mr Ratan (right) - without whose help I'm sure we'd have failed to even find the family.

26. And here's us in a rickshaw speeding crazily through the traffic chaos one last time to the airport! What an amazing story to be a part of! :) India is such a wonderful country, so busy, so colourful, full of surprises and full of people with big hearts!

If someone can come from abroad, and just change a needy family's life, what's stopping us?

All images have been sourced from Chris Bray's Facebook page.

12/23/2015 | | Permalink