Poverty is like a punishment for a crime you didn’t commit – Eli Khamarov
If you follow the news in India, you probably would know that around 2200 people have died due to a heat wave in the country. If you didn’t know, I would not blame you. Placed at the bottom of every national news website, at a corner somewhere, this piece of information apparently is not important for the citizens of our country. Why should we care if some poor chap who doesn’t have a roof over his head, air conditioning at his house or even portable water to drink dies due to a very natural phenomenon?? I mean summers are supposed to be hot in India! Duh! You stupid poor people! Sometimes you sleep on the pavements at night while some drunken film star runs over you with his car while other times you die of heat and hunger!! You deserve to die!
Salman Khan’s case gets the front page while 2200 lives get a small mention somewhere. Sigh! Compassion is passé and humanity is so u not cool. Right?? Apparently, Salman Khan’s bail is more important to us than a poor guy’s life. Well, to be honest, I would not blame the Indian media completely for their coverage of unimportant and impertinent issues. They feed us what we crave for. Moreover, I have seen just one status update on Facebook in the last 7 days regarding this heat wave, so it’s very apparent that no one really gives a damn about the lower sections of society.
Rather than depending on the media or the government, I believe each one of us can bring about a change in our own small way. Nowadays, with immense exposure to social media, our country’s youth gets galvanized very quickly for a nationalistic cause. Whether it was justice for Nirbhaya, the issue of net neutrality or communal tension, the Indian youth is much more aware and confident then it was maybe a decade ago. But unfortunately nobody has addressed the plight of the lower sections of society till now. I believe a lot can be done for the needy. It’s the government’s responsibility to take out schemes and pump in money but it is our responsibility to work at the grass root level. I believe a lot of lives can be saved if each one of us targets improving even a single needy person’s life. Some of the blogs on this website get more than 20 thousand views, so assuming that every person who views these blogs has a clear intention of making a difference, then at least 20 thousand poor people can benefit!!
You don’t have to do anything extraordinary either. For example, you see so many people from the lower strata of the society working as vendors, porters, auto drivers etc every day of your life. As desperate as they may be to be toiling this hard in the scorching heat to feed their families, it’s quite possible that they need a helping hand. It’s not like you have to go and buy an air conditioner for the fruit seller outside your housing complex or pay his kids school fees. But you could do something as simple as providing them drinking water every now and then, or pay for their meals once in a week or even buy them slippers or shoes if they work bare feet. They might be small gestures but if everyone starts to contribute, then this could make a difference. I mean if the stupid ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ generated so much of interest worldwide then paying for a ‘SabziWala’s’ drinking water definitely deserves to garner some attention as well.
Unlike all great countries in the world, at present India lacks the sense of community service. We are usually so self-involved with our own lives that we forget that we have a responsibility to give back to society as well. For example, a firefighter is considered a hero in the United States, whereas in India no one cares about them.
Similarly, community service is considered an honorable activity in most developed countries whereas in India, we offer more to Gods and temples than we do to the hungry and needy. Our social involvement is weak, we have to accept that and move forward to a more holistic approach. An approach that involves and protects the poor and the downtrodden. So let’s promise ourselves first and foremost that we will not crib about the poverty in India, rather we will make our own little contribution of eradicating this problem altogether. I mean, come on guys, I know and I am sure that you know as well, that we are good enough to be better than most countries when it comes to compassion and humanity!! So what are we waiting for?? Let’s begin the movement then!!!…:)
