Tuesday 16 October 2012

That one deed


That one deed…...



Little Jamy was gifted a penny by his mother for having his choicest ice-cream. What did he do? Did he have the one with the extra topping on it? NO! After school, he had the regular ice cream for half a penny and bought another for the poor kid at the school gate who would keep looking at him from a distance. Jamy might not have had the best ice-cream available but he sure did feel the best that day.  

When did you last leave studying moral science as a full-fledged subject? I remember having left it at Std 4. Most of my friends like me loved the subject. Mostly because it was scoring, hardly had anything to do with the use of one’s grey cells and probably because we all loved the teacher it was taught by. What moral science did to others is difficult to assert. My memory of what exactly formed the crux of the subject is beginning to blur by now. There was however a pic of a young boy giving alms to the poor, that has always remained etched in my memory. The young boy’s act exemplified a beautiful seven-letter word that seems to have evaporated from our daily practice-charity!

Among the several hundred tasks we do every day there is one common denominator. Anything we do to help others gives us an immense level of satisfaction. Try it out sometimes! The sweetness of slumber then has no match. The inner self emerges victorious. Remember the last time you patted an orphan on the back? Or donated clothes to the underprivileged? You can feel the joy within. We are all born that way. Like little jamy, we are born with sympathy for the lesser privileged. It’s all natural. Try giving 2 candies to a little child and you would find him sharing it with another standing close by, who is crying because he hasn’t been given any. What on earth causes our humane spirit to turn bestial as we grow up? When I come across a little child begging on the platform who should be playing with toys and going to school at his age, my eyes well up with tears. What makes it even more sad is the indifference that people show towards them. And then there are few who take the defeatist approach of blame-it-all-on-poor-governance.  How I wish all this blame game could be of help!

India has more billionaires than most other countries, yet they are the stingiest lot it seems. These cheese-paring, penny-pinching billionaires could have done the trick for India-start a culture of donations and charity programmes where the whole of India could be roped in. Unfortunately it did not happen. It might be more fun to build an Antilia and not spend in charity but it’s certainly not refreshing. Indians have been known for charity for quite a long time but the quality seems to be long lost. It’s time we become honest to ourselves. Instead of doing too much of lip-service, let us take a stride towards helping those who haven’t ‘made it large’ in life (Boy do I hate that beverage commercial!). Helping out financially is not the only way of involving in charity. A word of concern, a polite response, a little help to cross the road-every little act might just be charity enough to make our days beautiful. I avoid suggesting people too strongly in favor of something, lest they should take it to be a panacea for all worries. Well, believe me, this one is!:)