Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway, said Elbert Hubbard. Maybe that is why a blog written a few days back has been lying unpublished. Each time, my finger wanders towards the publish button, something holds me back.
Wonder why. Is it because what has happened looks so terrible, because it holds within it so many assumptions each needing to be addressed and denied? I do not know.
Is it because a touch of that key will maybe alienate many forever and leave us rudderless, or is it because one is afraid of tarnishing one’s now glowing image needs?
Let me explain as best I can now that I can view things with a little distance and less anger and even some hum our. Let me start by a asking you a question: what would you do if one day for not fault of yours, without any prior information you received two envelopes with two drafts, no letter or explanation barring a mention of the counterfoil stating that your accounts stand closed?
After wondering for an instant who the generous donor was, I read the words with horror and felt my whole world crash as innumerable images rushed helter skelter in my tired brain. I am sure my head grew a few more white hairs!
To cut a long saga short let me just say that as an easy way out and after operating our accounts for two whole years and not finding any fault, a huge bank decided that we were non-grata and just threw us out without any professional ethics probably thinking that we were to small to react. Surprisingly the same giant sent us two letters dated later than the draft that asked for a certain papers and with no mention of the closure.
When we asked for a reason and explanation and at least for a letter to the authorities stating the reason for such action, we just got wishy washy replies and a vague reference to Bombay being the ultimate authority.
Had this been a personal account of even a business one, I may have thought twice before taking Goliath but 600 pair of eyes was all that was needed to realise that at least the God of Lessor children was with me. So knowing that had done no wrong I wrote a letter to Bombay which had been held to me as the ultimate Goliath!
An answer came and then phone calls and vague explanations. The battle is still on and though I want no one hurt I still want to know why I was treated this way and above all a way to redress the tort.
The battle is on and I will no rest till it is won. However if I stand by what I was taught as a little girl my a doting father: always look for the larger picture, maybe there is a lesson to be learnt: work like ours will only succeed when the basic support comes from within. So no matter how things end, one has to work towards the elusive one rupee option as all other solutions, no matter how easy and comfortable, are fragile and finite.
True one will have to deal with the there is no smoke.. types, they always lurk around as it would give them the awaited opportunity to slime out of commitments. One will also have to explain and vindicate one’s self and the trust painfully and patiently gained over seven long years
Yes one will have to pick up the pieces carefully and gently, and weave them together again with the hope that no cracks remain. And yet there is another lesson to be learnt, one that corroborates my almost intuitive vision when I wrote the first official document for pwhy, one that highlights the vulnerability of any developmental work that depends on outside support: true success lies in one’s ability to build a support system within the group one works with. One that is so small that it escapes all possible attacks, and yet powerful enough to grow by the day.
I just hope that those who stood by us will continue to do so.
Note: For those who are curious the problem seems to have arisen from the fact that someone forgot to look at all the documents filed and took a hasty Poncus Pilate way out.
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