Are you angry, Mama?

Are you angry, mama?

Rain, rain why won't you go away? Little Chelsea would like to go for a walk today!

It's been raining pellets for over three months now, and there are times, when I am at my brooding best, wondering if God is angry. Well it just feels that way, you know. Lightning, thunder, heavy downpour... as if at any moment, the Earth will come to a halt. But imagine a population of 1.25 billion plus ants coming to a stop. Would seem unlikely right?

Whenever you’re out and about this larger-than-life city, do you see and I mean really 'look'? If not, take a pause now and then, when you're sitting in your car at a traffic light, or when you’re waiting for a train to come. Just look around and what do you take in? Do you observe the pain and suffering going on in those less fortunate than us?

I question. Aren't we all God's children? Hasn't He said - Love one another as I have loved you? Somehow I see a lot more hating than a lot more loving. Makes you wonder - if you're one of those people who takes the time out to 'wonder' - when will it all cease to exist. When will we stop making mothers and babies cry, while men sigh silently and look away. When will we heed nature’s war cry while her womb is stripped bare and dry. When...

As far as I can remember I have always called Nature - Mother Earth. In India we haven't really been taught to love and nurture nature. For a country so plentiful in everything, we have learned to take our abundant supply of the goodness of her bounty for granted. Take food for example. Inflation is what, 10% plus? When was the last time you saw a news piece of how the grains in our godowns are being feasted upon by roaches and rats? When was the last time you read about farmer suicides? When was the last time you read about drought and starvation?

In a certain way it does feel as if all these flash floods, tornadoes, El Nino's, earthquakes, are a sign for our time. A sign maybe telling people to wake up to the fact that we are exploiting Mother Earth to her bone. Telling us maybe we really are sucking out way too much marrow. Leaving just figs and leaves. In my mind, I really believe Mother Earth isn't punishing us, or threatening us. How about just cleansing us?

Stories appearing in the papers everyday about how some conglomerate or the other, whether domestic or international is eating away our land. With international avenues drying up, the rich fertile lands of India are today prime targets for land acquisition. What does our government do?

Sleep.

What irritates me is how low people can stoop or even how low people can turn a blind eye to the stench of corruption that plagues our nation. Why do we wait for reports and court order judgments when blatant corruption is caught on tape? Why are the rich allowed to post bail when they commit fraud? Why are people in positions of power always ALWAYS allowed to escape courts because they get medical ailments ONLY after they siphon off crores? Why is it that our press is spineless as to not dig deeper, and get more details? Why are we stuck on PR and Bollywood and Cricket?

What are my options again?

The time is going to come and soon for people to stand up and face up to reality. Every time we turn a blind eye, there is someone getting raped and murdered. Every time we glance away, someone's home is bulldozed or we lose an entire culture and civilization because land is cleared off, of 'so-called' encroachment by tribals or as I like to look at them the indigenous people of our rich heritage. Every time we look away, someone is stealing tax payer’s money; someone is robbing the poor and making themselves even more wealthy.

Every time.

"If we cannot love the person whom we see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see..."

Mother Teresa

Words that shape my World

How we respond to what God asks will define our lives and our world. The choice is ours. - Fr. Joseph Langford.

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do. - Helen Keller

It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.- Helen Keller

Scars are there to remind us where we have been, but they do not have to dictate where we are going. - David Rossi

Your friendship can't satisfy me, Anne. I want your love -- and you tell me I can never have that. - Gilbert Blythe

Is this drain on public funds for the greater common good? How can we forget that we could have established primary schools and health centres in tens of thousands of villages? Can we ignore this splurge the next time a malnourished child looks at us in the eye? - Azim Premji (On the Commonwealth Games 2010)

Back to School!

A pilot project…

Or a pilot thought because I am still thinking things through.

[Image]Let me start by saying this post is only for those who:

-  Cringe internally every time they see a beggar child on the street. You want to give something, not money, but something that will bring about a change in that child’s life

-  Cringe internally every time a child sweeps their compartment in the train, you feel like strangling someone, not the child but maybe the government for not doing enough

-  Cringe internally every time you see an adult begging while holding a child who looks like he’s been slammed against a wall with a huge bloody wound wrapped in gauze

- Cringe internally that after seeing scenes like this daily you wonder what it would take to do something, you think you will do something for sure, right after you get their life sorted out-          

But that day never comes…

Here’s the deal.

Let’s say you don’t trust today’s NGOs or social service organizations because you don’t think the money really filters down to the people who need it (I know I suffer from this disease)

So I put on my thinking cap, sat in the train for 45 minutes while watching an able bodied 7 yr-old sweep the second class Churchgate bound compartment clean. Why isn’t he in school? I mean isn’t education now a fundamental right? So what do I do, what can I do, what should I do?

Second incident which got me thinking – we have a really nice kid who works at the office canteen. So I had some spare time to kill and while he was serving me some sev puri I asked him the usual questions, where you from, what do your folks do, how old are you?

So when I learned he didn’t know how old he was I got visibly upset. Here was a kid with no birth certificate, who definitely was underage to be working almost 12 hours, six days a week and making less than five grand a month. Inhumane, yet he worked with a smile.

So I called up an NGO (CHILDLINE 1098) and found out details about how I could get this kid to school since he said he regretted dropping out of school. You can put in a minimum amount to cover his expenses such as buy him stationery and a uniform. But most of all you give him an opportunity rather a choice to make him take his life forward. When I looked at it as an investment, a human investment, it brought an even greater feeling than the monetary investments I keep making.

It’s not as easy as it seems. You become a kind of Godparent to the kid and try and take it forward even more by doing something else for him, but with no expectations. I think that is the best gift of all.

So my idea ideally is you don’t have to be part of a mass movement or a formal group of people trying to change the world. You can make a small difference in your own little way. For me it’s about kids. For you it may be animals or the environment or even human rights. But by making time out from your hectic schedule to do something you normally would think about but never dream of doing it really makes a life altering change. Once you start you may never want to stop.

Just being human nowadays is tough and I get that. If by being an educated human is tough try and imagine what it must be for someone who lacks the opportunities we get, who has not been given the right to choose for himself or herself but has circumstances making those life altering decisions.

It never ends. It will never end. This is just the beginning.

Keep your pennies, I want change.

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me.”

Matthew 25: 35-46