Madhu Kalia has delivered flowers, sometimes 60 bunches at a time, to hospital patients who rarely receive visitors. Photo: Canberra Hospital Foundation.
When Madhu Kalia was very young, her mother split a piece of chapati in two and handed her half.
“Before you look at your own needs,” her mother told her, “you must look to the needs of others.”
It is a lesson the Canberra philanthropist has carried from the crowded courtyard of her childhood home in Delhi to almost every corner of our city.
For four decades, she has cooked for strangers, provided warm clothing to those in need, and delivered flowers — sometimes 60 bunches at a time — to patients who rarely receive visitors.
“I’m not doing it for any acknowledgment,” she says. “These small things have become food for my soul.”
Today, however, Madhu is asking the community she has spent a lifetime nurturing to give back to the thousands of people who will be diagnosed with cancer this year.
An experience, the lifelong giver now knows all too well.
Around Christmas last year, a routine scan revealed Madhu had advanced ovarian cancer. “I had no symptoms,” she recalls.
“People still tell me, ‘you don’t look sick.”
Madhu’s treatment days at the Canberra Region Cancer Centre haven’t slowed her generosity.
She’s still answering the phone to provide support where she can for those who rely on her.
“If I can still do my own things,” she insists, “then I can help.”
Madhu is generously sharing her story for the Canberra Hospital Foundation’s (CHF) Tax Appeal to call for more research and earlier detection in Canberra.
Every month, approximately 2400 patients like Madhu rely on the Canberra Region Cancer Centre.
This financial year, CHF is raising funds for the Deborah Rolfe AM Perpetual Grant for Research, which could support research for early detection, local clinical trials in Canberra and breakthrough studies.
A gift of $50 could seed new detection technology, $100 could keep a clinical trial running, $250 could propel a study that changes outcomes for women like Madhu.
Madhu hopes her story will spur action.
“The numbers came down for breast and testicular cancer once screening improved,” she points out.
“Why not the same for ovarian cancer, or any cancer?”
Her broader message is just as clear: “A life that is lived for others and done without expecting rewards is a life worth living. Whatever we give back to society is not even one fraction of what society gives us.”
Madhu’s chapati rule is simple: keep half, give half of what you can.
This tax time, she is encouraging the community to make the same choice.
To donate to the Canberra Hospital Foundation’s Tax Appeal, visit Canberra Hospital Foundation. Donations over $2 are tax-deductible.
