Omkar Nath Sharma

Omkar Nath Sharma India was still seven years shy of attaining independence; the year was 1940. Omkar Nath Sharma or Medicine Baba as he came to be known arrived on planet Earth. Certain metaphysical schools of thought believe that souls decide at a certain point in time to choose their parents, place of birth and mission on Earth. The estimable author, Louise L Hay concurs with this viewpoint. She emphatically states that ‘each one of us decide to incarnate upon this planet at a particular point in time and space and advance upon our spiritual, evolutionary pathway’. The eighty year old retired blood bank technician from Kailash Hospital in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, voluntarily collects unused medicines from people, which he then distributes to the needy without charging anything. People collect stamps, paintings or coins, but this geriatric individual collects medicines. There was perhaps a double whammy which fuelled the mind of this gentleman. One, he was crippled at the tender age of twelve and second he was witness to the horrific sight when two migrant labourers lost their precious lives and scores injured when the scaffolding of a bridge under construction by the Delhi Metro collapsed in the year 2008, in East Delhi. The local hospital merely administered first aid to the labourers and did precious little. Rankled and overwrought by what he saw, he made a solemn resolution to himself that never would lives of patients be treated in such an uncaring and stony-hearted manner. Though physically incapacitated so young in a car accident, Omkar Nath Sharma walks five or six kilometres every day. In a methodical and meticulous manner at the end of every collection, the Medicine Monk diligently catalogues everything in his binder: the name of the drug, the manufacturer, where he collected it and the expiry date. The elderly one makes no killing from these priceless collections; nothing but succour to those suffering from various pestilences. Every morning Omkar Nath Sharma embarks upon this odyssey and gathers medicines to help the infirm. Nothing deters him from his mission. The Sharmas have a mentally handicapped forty –five year old son. But these tragedies and tribulations in life have only strengthened the steely resolve of the eighty year old in his mission. A nameless face, whom no one would recognise or bother to give a second glance has been feted by the Government of Delhi with the Gaurav Award. In 2017, the Maharashtra government decorated him with the Shoorveer Award. The man, his madness and method are obscured from reality. In fact it looks so surrealistic that it is hard to believe that such a Gandhian still exists.