Venezuelan’s thanksgiving
EXPATRIATE SAYS SHE WAS INSPIRED BY MAHATMA GANDHI’S TEACHINGS THANKS TO A TRIP TO INDIA AND HER CONNECTION WITH A KERALITE
ALatin American woman in the capital, who generously donated relief materials for flood victims in the South Indian state of Kerala, said it was a gesture of thanks for the “idea of life”|she received from India and a friendship with a Keralite living in Abu Dhabi.
Wilma J Burton, from Venezuela, purchased many items, including clothes and shoes, and gave them last week to a Keralite volunteer who was sending relief items back to his ravaged home state.
She said one of the world’s most iconic figures, the Indian independence leader and activist Mahatma Gandhi and his countrymen caused an ‘awakening’ in her life when she visited India four years ago.
Wilma is also reciprocating the love and care of a Keralite friend in Abu Dhabi, coming to the aid of his people who need support, after heavy rains and subsequent floods in August left large parts of Kerala devastated.
Touched by simplicity
“When I visited Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial in Mumbai and saw the biggest possessions of his life, it caused an awakening in me. He just had six or seven items, including a pair of glasses, sandals and some basic utensils,” Burton said.
Although she had read about the famous man’s simple lifestyle, it touched her heart when she saw it with her own eyes. “It reminded me he had a great life without material possessions.”
Thousands of poor people she came across on the streets of Mumbai also provoked similar thoughts in her.
“I saw the levels of poverty ... the way people live without even basics in life. Yet, they are happy with what they have,” said Burton, who spent several days in India, including in Kerala, taking a cruise trip there.
“I came back from India after that awakening. For me, it was bigger than the Emmy award I had won,” said Burton, who has won the Emmy, an American television award that recognises excellence in the TV industry, while working as a producer for a TV station in Los Angeles in 1995. She bagged the award for a promo she produced about a local festival.
She said her personal transformation after the India visit further strengthened her childhood resolve to live in a simple manner and help others whenever possible.
Her connection with India had begun well before her visit to the country, through the friend in Abu Dhabi.
When Burton and her husband first landed at the Abu Dhabi airport seven years ago, the driver assigned by her husband’s company did not turn up to receive them.
A stranger, Abdul Kalam Azad, 50, a limousine driver from Kerala, came forward to help the stranded couple and became their friend for life.
Later on, when Azad mentioned he had never brought his family in Kerala to Abu Dhabi for a visit, because he could not afford their accommodation, Burton offered to put them up in her apartment.
“They [Azad’s wife and three children] stayed with us for a month. Although his wife did not speak English, language was not a barrier at all. We communicated through sign language!” Burton said.
Azad said his wife and children enjoyed Burton’s hospitality and went back touched at the Venezuelan woman’s kind gestures. “She [Burton] even gifted a laptop to my children,” said Azad, over the phone from Kerala, where he is on vacation.
As Azad was away when the floods occurred, Burton sought her other friends’ help to donate relief goods. A Keralite volunteer visited her to collect them. “He thanked me over and over again and I saw tears in his eyes,” she said.
Nooruddin Abdul Rahman, 38, a volunteer with a Facebook group, said he was surprised to see the large amount of brand new items Wilma had bought. “I could see she had a sincere heart. It was a rare experience and tears started rolling down my face,” he said. His group had, at that point, stopped collecting relief materials. “But we took hers because it was a rare gesture of solidarity from a fine human being who comes thousands of kilometres away from Kerala,” Abdul Rahman said.
Azad said his wife and children enjoyed Burton’s hospitality and went back touched at Burton’s kind gestures. She even gifted a laptop to Azad’s children.
Hers was a rare gesture of solidarity from a fine human being who comes thousands of kilometres away from Kerala.”
Nooruddin Abdul Rahman (above) | Volunteer