Recently, Khushmita and I found ourselves in a 4 hour interaction with Bhavesh Bhatia, who has had an truly inspiring journey. He lost his complete eye sight early in life, and decided that he wanted to live as independently as possible.

What started out as an small step in early 90's with Bhavesh selling his hand made candles on a push cart on the streets of a small town named Mahabaleshwar, today is an inspired small scale social enterprise called "Sunrise candles" where over 90 visually impaired folks work together to help create a shift from darkness to light.

When one of India's top industrialist heard of this work, he promptly sent in a donation of Rs 25 lakhs as his support. Bhavesh humbly sent back the check with a note that he would rather have a corporate order for the same amount to engage his friends with rather than free money. He feels that free money without work leads to wasting away of the human capital. Long story short is that the same industrialist has been ordering diwali candles for his 28,000 staff for the last 7 years.



Bhavesh's backbone is his lovely angel of a wife named Neeta who takes care of all the admin and running around that needs to be done. While on a vacation almost 18 years ago, Neeta a typical Mumbai girl met Bhavesh selling his candles. So intrigued and inspired was she by this man, that she ended up spending her whole week with him getting a deeper insight into his "vision" for a better world for others like him.

At the end of the week, she knew in her heart that this was the person she would be spending the rest of her life with. After huge resistance, both from Bhavesh himself and her family, love prevailed and today they have a happy 16 year old son.

In a touching moment, Bhavesh shares: "Whenever we are out walking, and if there is a pothole or stone in the way, Neeta, will say that there is a obstacle ahead and we both need to be carfeful of it".

Bhavesh is an incredible poet, philosopher and guide to many people all over India, being a sought after inspirational speaker and I pray that you too are touched by his "vision" one day!

He was recently featured in Aamir Khan's Satyamev Jayate series thru this 2 minute video clip.
http://www.satyamevjayate.in/the-idea-of-india/lighting-up-lives.aspx