First Ekadashi Of The Year, Make It Count For The Forgotten!

On Shattila Ekadashi, millions of devotees across India observe fasts, offer prayers, and seek divine blessings. It is believed that even a single grain of sesame offered on this sacred day carries immense spiritual merit. Homes are filled with devotion, temples echo with chants, and hearts turn inward in prayer.

But today, we ask you a quiet question.

Who fasts for those who have no name left? Who prays for those whose families never came back? Who lights a diya for the ones no one is waiting for?

At Bright The Soul Foundation, we witness a different kind of devotion, one that doesn’t happen inside temples, but beside silent, unclaimed bodies. One woman stands there when the world has already turned away. Pooja Sharma.

While most of us remember our loved ones through rituals and tears, Pooja becomes the family for those who have none. She performs the final rites for unidentified, abandoned, and unclaimed bodies, souls that leave this world without a hand to hold, without a name to be called, without a prayer whispered for them.

For them, she is not just a volunteer. She becomes their daughter. Their sister. Their mother. Their friend.

She speaks to them softly before the cremation, apologizing for the loneliness they faced. She ensures their final moments are filled with dignity. She arranges every kriya karam with the same care a family would, collecting ghee, wood, cloth, flowers, incense, and all the sacred essentials. She doesn’t rush. She doesn’t treat it like a task. She treats it like a farewell.

On days like Shattila Ekadashi, when people fast to cleanse their souls, Pooja feeds souls their final peace. Because someone must.

Unclaimed bodies don’t just disappear. They wait. In morgues, in hospital corners, in silence. They wait for someone to care enough to say, “You mattered.” Pooja Sharma is that someone.

But love alone cannot light a funeral pyre. Compassion alone cannot buy wood, ghee, or sacred items. Respect alone cannot cover the rising costs of last rites.

This is why Bright The Soul Foundation is reaching out today.

Each final ritual costs money, money for cremation wood, ghee, flowers, sacred cloth, transportation, priest services, and basic dignity. These are not luxuries. These are the last acts of love a human being deserves.

On this auspicious Shattila Ekadashi, while you seek blessings for yourself and your family, we invite you to bless a soul that has no one left. Your donation can become a prayer. Your support can become a farewell. Your kindness can become someone’s last memory.

Pooja Sharma continues this work every day, not for recognition, not for praise, but because she believes that no soul should leave this world unloved.

If Shattila Ekadashi is about purification, then this is its truest form.

Help us stand with Bright The Soul Foundation. Help us honor the forgotten. Help us light one last diya for those who never had one. Donate today. Because even in death, dignity should never be optional.