She inspires many

Vandana Shukla / TNN / Jan 2, 2007, 01:39 IST

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A lovable teacher, a self-made woman, who struggled all her life against all sorts of odds but never compromised.

CHANDIGARH: People close to certainty of death develop a strange kind of beauty about them. On first meeting with Picky Panwar, writhing under pain and discomfort due to after effects of chemo, everyone would be surprised to witness a clear gaze from her crystal clear eyes.
She was not in the least apologetic of her dishevelled looks. Despite almost a missing crowning glory, swallowed by chemo, eye sockets bereft of lashes and brows, Picky's eyes spoke with a kind of honesty that was unsettling.
Reminding one of the trivialities of time and money spent on preserving that which lends only an outward temporary appeal. Picky's gaze said she had discovered what truly matters, the beauty of her being and of the people around her.
In the final analysis of her life, only one truth remains, that is people love her and she is returning their love manifold.

A lovable teacher, a self-made, fiercely independent woman, who struggled all her life against all sorts of odds but never compromised, Picky has finally come to settle peacefully for the inevitability of life, death, at 55.
She has lost her kidneys to cancer, after as many chemotherapy sessions that can be given to a patient. She is now waiting, suffering under devastating discomfort of chemo, to meet death.
Though, even in her death Picky wants to make a difference. She has willed her two-canal house in Sector 10 to Chinmaya Mission.

She wants this house to be used for providing a shelter to terminally ill people like her, to have a counselling center for the young, who need help most, and to open a library and meditation hall in the house she bought with her own hard-earned money for ' old age security'.
At seventeen, Picky lost her father and at nineteen while she was still a student of Senior Cambridge, she began teaching ninth standard students at Tara Hall, Shimla.
Picky taught at AVM, Bombay, Mayo Girls School, Ajmer, and YPS, Mohali. She lost her mother to cancer and the last seven years of her struggle against the same disease turned her to a spiritual path from where it was difficult to return.
She had severed all ties with the world, but at some juncture she transcended her detachment too, pulled by compassion. "I came to a point where my life was nothing else, a strange wave swept me off my feet.
I did not need to look out of the window, I did not need books to read, I never wanted to come back to this side of the planet, it took me so far away from the world," she says of her spiritual association with her guru, late Swami Ram.
After this complete obliteration of the worldly, there came a feeling to her, "How can I be deaf to other people's problems and only understanding their problems is not enough, I need to do something."
So, Picky came out of that phase, while fighting cancer, she helped many who came her way, who needed more help than she did. This well-intended gesture resulted in a chain of goodness. Today, Picky is flooded with messages of goodwill and concrete help pouring in from across the world.
"We were strapped for money, now the world has opened to help, money comes from unpredictable quarters, even Dalai Lama sent her message of love and some medicines to heal," informs Kalpana Ghai of Ma Sharanam, an NGO, that extends help to single women in need.
" I am not afraid of leaving, I am not afraid of anything, I can see that surface of life that others are not able to see, I am ready to leave with a complete sense of freedom," says Picky from her death bed, content and liberated for living a life and leaving it.

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