by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 6, 2005 | Uncategorized
Two recent occurrences set me thinking about the new lucrative field that I will just call giveBizMess and the new meaning of words like ‘giving’,’charity’ and their XXI st century mutations ‘development causes’ and ‘NGO sector’ etc..
A quick glance at history and quotes from the world over read like:
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger by it. Francis Bacon
or
If you haven’t got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble. Bob Hope
or
Charity never humiliated him who profited from it, nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude, since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made. Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The list is endless, but there is one common thread and that is that giving is a one way street and not a business transaction with strings tied to it.
My half a century journey on this planet has shown me time and again that when we humans are uncomfortable with something we tend to marginalise it and kick it off the mainstream. Hence one who does not play by today’s rule is at once branded as ‘silly’ ‘stupid’ and more of the same.
Now to come back to the two incidents that started this stream of thought, one is the unending stream of donations tagged ‘tsunami’, whereby people or institutions have unleashed a wave of giving bigger than a tsunami wave, and that is also likely to have as negative an impact.
The second incident is the one that began by a simple offer to help a child and has also unleashed a rather incomprehensible stream of events where one child’s case has brought to light the ugly or rather sad connotations that charity assume in our day and age.
I think one needs to be ‘charitable’ in dealing with these issues or otherwise one is at risk of being drawn into the givBizMess Syndrome where the one who gives takes on the bigger role defeating the act of giving itself.
What a bit of humour would lead one to ask is:
How come people who normally do not find the time, inclination or need to part with a few coins for simple day-to-day activities such as education, nutrition or old age care – to name a few – to people around them, acquire an impatient eagerness to do the same when a tsunami (word unknown till 26-12-04) hits lands they will never see?
How come one child’s surgery assumes so much importance that money that could have almost paid for one such surgery is spent on phone calls, when a simple request for help for two little girls needs a Board of Directors to meet?
This is the result of giveBizMess, where what was intended to be an almost subliminal act becomes a pure commercial activity where every one wants its pound of flesh.
Giving is an act of love, an act where the only reward you can truly seek is the one you have to look for deep in the eyes of those you sought to help.
But it requires you to make the effort of looking into those eyes and the terrible risk of losing yourself in them!
note: the word bizMess is the brainchild of my friend DV; i just thought it fitted the picture like a glove!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 3, 2005 | Uncategorized
what is essential is invisible to the eye..
was the secret the fox gave the little prince.
as i watched arun sleep today on his hospital bed, his heart beating valiantly and with great effort, these words came to my mind and i wondered what aruns’ heart had ‘seen’ till now.
adults for whom the dead were more important than the life of a child; adults who sat helpelessly cursing life and everything and everyone around but not really doing anything..
children play and run while this child lay helplessly just trying to get from one heartbeat to the nxt…
children learning while this child was stopped from going to school because he may have got hurt..
did arun question the unfairness of life..
or did he just smile thorugh it all with a wisdom born from years of suffering in silence, i do not know..
i still remember the first time i saw him: he just smiled and that smile conveyed everything he wanted to say. I knew arun wanted to live, to make up for the lost years, maybe to run and laugh like other children..
and i knew i would do everything i could to make it possible..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 2, 2005 | Uncategorized
look at this lovely face.. it belongs to Durga, our very own Utpal’s half sibling, and his only family!
this morning I was shocked to see large welts across this beautiful, innocent face… she had been beaten by her mother..
Durga’s story is what movies are made of.
Many years ago her mother, a child herself, was ‘married’ to a man in a remote village in Bengal. The man left the woman and never recognised the child. Another man wanted the woman but not the child. So Durga was left to the care of an ailing grandmother and a reluctant uncle, while the mother decided to live her own life..
Durga grew fromm child to ‘ little woman’ and somewhere along the way the grandmother died. The uncle was not willing to take on the responsibility of a young girl and Durga was packed to Delhi, to a family she never knew.
In the small room where they live, this young girl brought memories that the mother did not want revived, and the new ‘father’ found more ammunition for the unkind words hurled in drunken anger.
Yesterday, Durga was beaten, for being born, for being alive…
Did anyone hear her when she whispered: But I never asked to be born
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 2, 2005 | Uncategorized
watch these little bravehearts as they petition the God of of the lesser ones…
and you wonder what they are seeking when everything in this world conjures to harm them!
some cannot hear..
simple minds cannot fight the daily abuse they are subjected to..
and an intelligent mind locked in a useless body brings daily sneers…
as a guileless smile cannot convey the scars left on a violated body..
and yet when they come piled in limousine 1472, their three wheeled cindrella coach steered by the big hearted stern looking coachman, a palpable feeling of joy and hope fills project why, infusing large doses of cheer in all of us..
they leave their dark world at the stroke of 8.30 am and till 4 pm walk into light… they set about their chores in an environment when they know they are not judged, laughed at or belittled.. in a place where they can just be themselves…
yes the clock will strike 4 – it does every day – but that is a long time away for these lovely souls who live instant after instant and laugh, fight, cry, play or to sum it up simply live…
so I wonder as I watch them every morning eyes shut and hands folded : what is it that their almost incomprehensible words are saying to the one we all turn to in our moments of despair..
and sometimes the wind blows back two gentle words to me… thank you!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 28, 2005 | Uncategorized
a child will get a new heart, two little girls may be able to live a normal life, a bunch of kids people had given up on cleared their Xth boards with marks as high as 75%, a little girl who could barely hold her head two years ago at age 5, dances and laughs..
and we do feel proud today…
because we never gave up, because we never turned anyone away, because we always took on challenges and above all because we learnt how to kneel so that we also could stand tall!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 26, 2005 | Uncategorized
everyday, when I leave for project why, I always wonder what will happen, as every day I learn something new that often makes me change my ways…
It can be something a child says or does, some wondrous achievement that fills you with delight and joy, it can be a mishap that makes you hare down in many directions..
But sometimes nothing prepares you for the encounter of the day… like today!
Preeti and her sister had not been coming for many days. The family had recently shifted to a make shift camp nearby, the father being a construction worker, but normally the children did come, even if it was a little late..
We had been a little worried and tried to find out why the girls had not come.
One of our staff members was sent out. Hew came back and told us that little Preeti’s finger had got stuck in the fan…. what I never could have imagined is what I heard next. When the father was asked how the child was, the answer was: the blade of the fan broke…!
A thousands thoughts crossed my mind: how bad was the hurt, was a tetanos shot given, had infection set in… Tomorrow we will find out what happened and we will see that Preeti is given the care she needs..
Later I sat back thinking at how those words uttered by a father showed the total lack of concern about a girl child, particularly the second girl… that she was probably in pain did not matter, that she needed medical attention did not cross anyone’s mind.. some dirty rag would have been tied, and the god of lesser children would have, once again to work his miracle!
