As I walk across the corridor of the Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Rohini, I mentally run through the instructions given to me the previous day by Manasmita Patra at the Make-A-Wish Foundation’s (MAWF) Delhi centre. Talk to the children with care and understanding; give them hope and make them feel good; and most importantly, find out what their most cherished wish is—a wish that is not influenced by their parents.
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Prabhjot, a six-year-old leukaemia patient, is lying on the second-last bed of the children’s ward. I accompany two other volunteers—Nidhi and Kanika, both undergraduates at Delhi University. He turns our way and a wide smile lights up his face when he sees Nidhi holding up a gift-wrapped box—after all, his wish is going to be fulfilled today! He tears open the wrapping to reveal a shiny red car. “It is much nicer than cars my friends have,” says a shy but radiant Prabhjot.
We then make our way towards the ward’s newest member, five-year-old Neha, to find out if she has a wish. The tiny tot, who also has leukaemia, is slightly sedated after her first chemotherapy session. We start chatting about her school, friends, what she likes, what she doesn’t. As Nidhi takes the lead in finding out more about Neha’s wish, I begin to see what it means for these children to have a wish-granting “Santa Claus” at hand.
Common wish requests include a desire to meet celebrities (actors Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan are popular), and going for a trip with their families within the country. Normally the MAWF volunteers take down three wishes that a child has and work to grant the most cherished one, if possible. “We have always managed to fulfil at least one of the three wishes,” says Patra.
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Apart from the age bracket (3-18 years), the only criteria that MAWF applies while choosing a child to grant a wish is that the child should be suffering from a life-threatening illness. The children are chosen on recommendations by doctors from different hospitals. “We don’t look into the child’s social background or financial circumstances. We are just concerned with what his or her most cherished wish is, and we set about making it come true,” says Patra. Most of the funds that make these wishes a reality come from companies, individual donations and through donation boxes left at shops.