Source: Verve Online
Subscribe to Verve and sponsor a child. The success of this scheme, kicked off in April 2003, has encouraged us to do more for the underprivileged girl child who receives an education with each issue of Verve that is subscribed to. Around Children’s Day, the Verve team, inspired by publisher and editor, Anuradha Mahindra, who is on the Executive Committee of the Children’s Film Society of India (CFSI), decided to plan a fun day for underprivileged children. We discovered a more-than-willing accomplice in Bollywood’s comeback kid, star of the hit, Koi…Mil Gaya, Hrithik Roshan, who also starred in Verve’s last issue. And so was hatched the plan to invite 20 kids supported by Nanhi Kali — a special project of the K.C.Mahindra Education Trust, which has been working since 1996, to promote the primary education of the underprivileged girl child — to Film City, where Hrithik was shooting his latest celluloid offering, Lakshya.
The superstar suggested that the kids meet with him in the garden at Film City. The children arrived in a bus and danced, as they waited, to music from Koi…Mil Gaya. Some of them really had their steps perfectly memorised from the film. And when Hrithik made his appearance, they mobbed him with excitement. He autographed their Hrithik T-shirts which we handed out, distributed chocolate boxes and even scrawled his mobile number on a piece of paper. They, in turn, invited him home to meet their parents, danced with him and felt his worked-out biceps to make sure he was for real. The rapport was instantaneous and heart-rending. The event, a huge success.
"When you work with children, especially those with special needs, it is a win-win game; there are no losers," Mahindra has written earlier. Hrithik left after presenting a contributory cheque from himself and another from Verve, to the nanhi kalis — a small gift of education from a superstar and a magazine that believes in the power of the word and the empowerment of women.