Every year at Ganga Prem Hospice the festival of Rakhi is a day when patients and their caregivers feel extra-special. A surprise cart is prepared decorated with flowers, rakhis, sweets and chocolates. The GPH team goes around to each patient and their caregiver, tying a rakhi on their wrists and offering them sweets and chocolates.
In the year 2026, the festival of Rakshabandhan fell on 28th of August. From the early morning itself, the team was abuzz with excitement, readying the cart with flowers. A friend of the hospice had sponsored sweets, chocolates and rakhis. A plate with the customary tika and rice grains was also decorated.
The nurses and other team members visiting each patient to tie rakhi on their wrists brought a smile to everybody’s face. A patient’s daughter got emotional seeing the rakhi and said, “you have made the atmosphere today such a happy one. This was a surprise for us.” Another caregiver cast an appreciative glace at the trolley and commented how beautiful it looked.
Somebody asked for an extra chocolate and others for another gulab jamun, with childlike happiness. A patient commented poignantly that it was he should be tying a rakhi on the nurses’ wrists, as they were protecting him for illness.
For a few hours, everybody forgot that they were away from their homes on Rakhi. They had their own family right there at Ganga Prem Hospice.
