Doctors at the health camp that was organised there were amazed at the numnber of polio victims they came across. Twelve physically handicapped children visited the camp within an hour, one of the doctors said.

Sharma, who belongs to Jehangirpuri, wanted him to start the centre there. The patients in the age group of six to 20 will come to Sahyog from Monday onwards. The school, which will be run from two rooms in Sharma's house, will have three craft teachers including Sharma. It will also have a music teacher and weekly visits by speech therapist Rajeev Nama of Batra Hospital and ENT specialist I.C. Upreti of Jeewan Nursing Home.

The school will be a second home for the children who will stay there between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. every day. ``The parents are mostly labourers who can now leave the children with us when they go to work,'' says Pant. The children include those with mild mental aberrations as well as spastics.

Yogdan is three years old and Rajeev Pant, who is an employee of Sardar Patel Vidyalaya (SPV), started it after his own son fell ill as an infant. ``While nothing happened to my son who I feared would be disabled, I saw how children with disabilities suffered for want of facilities, especially physiotherapy,'' he says.

``I adopted three government primary schools in Gautam Buddha Nagar in Noida and got Sharma and some other artists to give them integrated education comprising creative work in craft, music and clay modelling, besides refreshments to make school enjoyable,'' he says.

Pant met Sharma in SPV where he also met all the doctors and artists who are now part of his health projects around the city. Most doctors who help him organise health camps in various parts of Delhi are parents of children in SPV. ``I go to parents for donations too,'' he says.

At Jehangirpuri, Sharma, who also has a mentally retarded child, plans to teach doll making, pottery, clay modelling and papier mache.

Asked if mentally retarded children would respond, he says they do. ``At the inauguration some of the children were asking me why they could not start classes right away,'' he said.

Pant says he will ask for government aid after he has done enough work for the children. For now there are several doctors, several artists, including graduates from Baroda and Shantiniketan like Prashant Mukerjee, Manoj Kar Chaudhry and ceramist Ela Mukherjee, who are helping him in his projects.