Mysuru: “Their mother was raped and murdered, and their father committed suicide. Now Ullas (8) and Anand (9) are being given away, ostensibly for adoption, by a children's home in Mysuru, without informing the boys' poor and illiterate guardians in unwarranted secrecy. But Deccan Chronicle is on the trail.”
This was how it began. The report on the fate of the orphaned children that appeared on page 1 of the October 27, 2013 edition was followed every step of the way by Deccan Chronicle as the authorities squabbled over their future with the poor guardians, taken unawares by the decision to give them up for adoption.
It took a struggle of several months for the children's maternal aunt and uncle,Neelamma and Nataraj, to stop the adoption by an Italian couple. But even after winning the legal battle, the travails of the guardians continued.
“It is not that people on the streets do not love their kids, but they just cannot take care of them,” says this messiah of the people on the streets, who is the guardian angel of 61 HIV infected children, including 27, who have lost both their parents.
Fifty one -year- old Tracy from San Francisco in the USA threw up her high paying job as an investment banker in New York to devote her life to the street children of Mysuru and their parents 11 years ago.
She was just another tourist visiting Mysuru in 2003, when she saw a HIV positive adolescent girl on the footpath of the KR hospital at the junction o f the the Sayyaji Rao road and Danvanthri Road and was deeply moved by her condition. She returned to the USA with a mission to set up an NGO in Mysuru.
While it took her two years to open “Operation Shanthi” cutting through all the red tape, she did not let that stop her and took nine children off the streets and put them in a residential school.
Since February 2008 she has taken 48 children off the streets and not only given them a loving home in “Kaarunya Mane”, but also admitted 15 of them in an English medium private school.
"Their parents visit them on Sundays," says the woman who has not even married in her quest to help these children, who also get to learn self defense and classical dance in their leisure.
In fact, they have won over 40 trophies in karate competitions and several more for many other co-curricular activities including sports.
One of the 26 girls has won the best student award in a primary school and another in middle school. Tracy has also made sure the mothers of the 10 children don’t live on the streets by paying the rent for their houses, and meeting their medical and household expenses.
She takes the critically ill to the Columbia Asia hospital, and also provides a monthly care package to 61 HIV infected kids, which includesRs 500 in cash, dal, biscuits, horlicks, and bath and wash soaps.
With her friends from the UK, Australia, Canada and Singapore contributing generously, Tracy has had no trouble helping the poor of Mysuru for over a decade.
Some of her friends from abroad who come to learn yoga in the city often visit her to see her work with the children. This Christma saw four of them from the USA arrive bearing gifts as Santa , giving the children the best party of their lives.
