**Paradip:** The real essence of the maxim “Service to Mankind is Service to God” is followed by this quintessential good Samaritan, Jaladhar Paikaray, a 52-year-old driving instructor in Paradip.

When Jaladhar saw the ugly looking, shabbily dressed with unkempt hair people roaming on streets, feeding on the remnants of dustbins, he was greatly moved and decided to do something for them.

“People despise the mentally deranged as they go by their looks. So I decided to change the looks by grooming them personally so that people do not look down at them with contempt. It gives me immense pleasure to help them as they are also human beings like us,” according to Paikaray.

He goes around on the streets of Paradip, finds them and grooms them by shaving them, giving them a haircut and cleaning them.

“When I started doing this, people called me mad. But if doing this job is madness, them I am mad,” opines the self-proclaimed social worker.

Hailing from Khordha, he has a wife and two children there, a 25-year-old son who is an event manager and a 19-year-old daughter who is preparing for her medical entrance.

His wife Shakuntala is proud of him now, though initially she opposed his ways.

“He seldom visits us and we have accepted him as he is, because he is indeed doing a great service to mankind,” she said.

“My father has been doing this kind of service for years together. Now I am earning for the family as he is unable to send his earnings. He spends them for the wellness of mentally deranged people and we are proud of him,” according to Sunil, his son.

Orphaned at a very young age, Jaladhar spent a major portion of his childhood in an orphanage. He had a tilt towards social service from his childhood. Helping the street dogs and cats in distress to anti-alcohol drive, he did his bit in every possible situation.

He has no home in Paradip. Sleeping in the car itself, he spends every penny to bring smiles in the faces of these children of lesser God. He gets the hand-down clothes from some benevolent local people, and uses them to dress up these people.

He is a mobile helper, moving around the streets of Paradip in search of such people and rendering his selfless services in true letter and spirit.

“Paikray has been doing a great job. We are planning to ease out his efforts by arranging some funds on behalf of the government,” informed Basant Biswal, Chairman, Paradip Municipality.

People don’t ask for his help. He just jumps into the fray to lend out a helping hand, not knowing that he has learnt the best lessons of life though uneducated in the worldly term.