It was a sight worth seeing. The rain pelting down on the floodlit football pitch of the Jogo ground in Kochi. A group of footballers soaking it up and too happy to be deterred by it. A petite woman in a maroon T-shirt and white slacks stooping with a grin to cut a chocolate cake inscribed with the words, ‘Best Wishes to Team India’.
The chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to you’ mingling with the pitter-patter of the rain. It would have been an ordinary sight in a football stadium, in spite of the rain. But there was a difference. All the players were blind. And the cake-cutting ceremony was happening at the Blind Football Academy where Indian team coach Sunil Mathew and MC Roy, head of projects at the Society for Rehabilitation of the Visually Challenged, were present. The woman was Dubai-based Jani Viswanath who had arrived in Kochi to boost the spirits of the players a few days before they jetted off to Thailand for the IBSA Asian Championships in Pattaya, Thailand, in early October last year. Jani is co-founder of the Healing Lives Foundation and its major sponsor.
However, the team lost the first two matches to higher-ranked China and Thailand. Jani called them up and said, “Look boys, this is your first international tournament. I don’t care if you win or lose. But I do care that you lose in a way that makes us all proud.” It had the desired effect. The next day, the Indian team beat the higher-ranked Malaysia and came fifth in the tournament.
Serendipity had brought Jani to support blind football. She was told by some friends in Mumbai about the travails of a well-meaning National Award-winning filmmaker from Assam named Bidyut Kotoky. He had run out of funds while making Xoixobote Dhemalite (Rainbow Fields). Jani stepped in as the producer which led to a chance meeting with Victor Banerjee who was acting in the film. Victor told Jani that he ran the Moran blind school at Moranhat, in Dibrugarh, Assam. “I was intrigued and wished to see it,” she says.
She was impressed and moved. “I watched blind football for the first time.” Jani had attended the North-East Blind Football Tournament in Shillong in January last year. She says, “From then on I have been backing every tournament where blind players play.” It included Victor’s school where she is a member of the board of trustees. The funds for the NGO comes from her family. Her husband Jonathan Jagtiani is the founder of Home Centre, a part of the Landmark Group, one of Asia’s largest retail groups.
“My late father, Dr TK Viswanath, was an educationist and a diplomat. He taught me the importance of giving back to the community.” Healing Lives also pays the tuition fee of medical students in Kenya who lack the resources to continue their study. They conduct free medical camps in villages and slums twice a year and have adopted five villages in Bundelkhand.