A Donegal teacher and her friend have gained celebrity status in India thanks to a bizarre chain of events involving the Donegal football team and an honourable Rickshaw driver.
Annette McGroary from Donegal and Elaine O’Leary from Limerick made primetime news on four TV stations in Bangalore – which has almost double the population of Ireland – last week after their heart-warming encounter with an ordinary, decent rickshaw driver called Mr. Khan.
Two days before Donegal lined out against Tyrone in the Ulster championship, the pair took to a shrine in Frasertown armed with some green and gold paraphernalia, hoping to bring luck to Annette’s county team ahead of the clash.
When they left their camera along with a homemade Donegal T-shirt behind in a local rickshaw, the ensuing mission by the teachers volunteering with the SERVE charity in the city to find it ended up becoming national news in southern Indian.
It may sound like a simple lost and found case but the tale behind their reunion with Mr. Nathan and the Canon camera has been beamed into millions of homes across the southern Indian city this week.
“We were on a day off from our volunteer work here so we went off for the craic, to get a few funny photos and videos in support of the Donegal team who were playing last Sunday”, explained Elaine.
“We made signs with ‘C’mon Donegal’ and ‘Donegal Abú’ and made mini jerseys with the logo of the KN Group sponsoring the jersey and everything. We have no television over here”, she said laughing.
“We went around the temples and put Donegal coloured flowers on the shrines and lit incense.
“Green and gold are the colours of India as well so we were joking that the whole of Bangalore had gone green and gold for Donegal. The rickshaws are also in the Donegal colours and we did a video of the rickshaw driver saying ‘C’mon Donegal’.
“But with all the messing, didn’t Annette leave the camera in the back of the rickshaw.
“I had the video of the driver and you could see the number plate in it. He was a really nice man and was having a laugh with us. We showed his picture to all the other auto drivers and couldn’t find him.”
The rickshaw driver was also going to extraordinary lengths to return the camera to the Irish teachers who are volunteering with a charity who works with people with disabilities, HIV and leprosy in the city of over 8 million people.
Mr. Nathan turned detective to find the Irish teachers and even tried to contact the Donegal sponsors, the KN Group, who were on the homemade mini jerseys left at the shrine in a bid to find the GAA fans.
“He looked up the KN Group who are the Donegal sponsors on the shirt online but couldn’t make any sense of it and couldn’t find any pictures of us”, said Elaine.
“Eventually Annette sent the video to the Frasertown police who couldn’t make out what was going on with these two girls with Donegal signs.”
So when the driver walked into Frasertown police station in Bangalore – the nearest station to where he dropped the girls off – he was instantly recognised by the detectives.
In the wake of the solved mystery, there was a ceremonial handing over of the camera at the station over cups of tea in the inspector’s office.
“The police then tweeted the whole story about the honesty of the driver and how the police connected us.
“We were on four TV stations. It is priceless. They were very proud of the honesty of the driver. India Independence is coming up and they are all very proud of India at the moment.”
The feel-good story about Irish fans on foreign soil had shades of the country’s soccer fans in France earlier this summer.
But the real uplifting story about the teachers is the volunteer work they are carrying out with SERVE charity, a development and volunteering organisation working with partners in India, the Philippines, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia.
In Bangalore, the volunteers, who live with local people, work with children with disabilities along with people at a leprosy and HIV rehabilitation centre in Bangalore.
Elaine, who is a Team Leader in Bangalore, said her experience during her four-week stints in India over the past two summers have been a privilege.
She said: “You share the lives of people who wake up every day and suffer from hunger, people who suffer injustice every day because of their gender, because they have leprosy, because they suffer from HIV and because they live in extreme poverty.
“One of the most important and rewarding experiences is in spending your time with different organisations around the city, who are doing incredible work for those living with illness, disability, and from the effects of poverty.
“Our role can be as simple as sitting with someone with has suffered so terribly with leprosy and has been excluded from society. The simple act of listening means so much to them.
“Like our experience with the taxi driver, we aim to bring our good spirit, talents and energy to those we work alongside, and spend time with.”
For more information about SERVE go to www.serve.ie
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