(1 Jul 12)
Forty-seven lakh people in the North East have had their homes,
livestock, selves, villages washed away by the floods. Those in Central India
are suffering from no rains at all. Both need money and the television channels
that I’m watching request me to donate for their 'good cause'. Out comes the
cheque-book. It hasn't stopped me from wondering why the people themselves
haven't, over the centuries and in recent times, thought of tackling the
problem on a more permanent basis? If there are people protesting and fasting
again against the presence of the Army in the NE, then why aren't there any
doing the same for demanding methods for channelizing these regular, mean acts
of God?
Then there are
tigers to be saved. Money needed there. The children dying of malnutrition in
Maharashtra prompt me to courier groceries to the CM's office. Oh-oh, just
remembered, the CM's office there has been burned down. Every time I go to a
wedding, I see electric cables running from hither to thither and wonder how we
have so few fires in this country. I’ve begun to comprehend why: it's
because of all the punya we kamao when we give daan to
beggars and other 'good causes' that has saved India from many disasters.
Deaths due to rash driving, not wearing helmets or seat-belts, all aren't are
fault at all, it's our naseeb that does it. And we can counter it, as we
do droughts: by doing poojas and giving more daan.
Beliefs apart,
money is needed for all 'good causes'. Raising funds for cancer treatment and
AIDS research is big business. You get money from a donor and the receiving NGO
might even give you a commission for it (this is my imagination at work,
resemblance to any individual, department, company NGO or other organisation is
coincidental and not intentionally done). I can't say no to those 'sales'
persons who ring my doorbell on lazy afternoons 'requesting, not asking' as one
such person said, to write out a cheque for CRY (this is not my imagination,
this one's for real). The person had a target to meet. “Raise Rs xxx amount and
you get …” smart tactics, I thought, but irritating. For once I didn't give
anything because I thought the timing and the concept didn't match my way of approaching
anyone for daan. As also because around that time, the pass-book had
given me troubled looks or vice-versa.
There are a
million opportunities (sorry, good causes) out there just waiting to be tapped:
for spreading awareness about diabetes, heart ailments, obesity, osteoporosis,
stress, baldness, pimples, dimples, the list is long.
Religion is the
other thing that tugs at my heart-n-purse strings. There's always a need for
yet another temple or roadside cross or bhajan mandal. There's annual expenditure
on the sarvajanik Ganapati celebrations (this in Mumbai; in Goa it's for
the Old Man at New Year's). Further depletion of bank balance.
More... charitable
dinners, exhibitions, music programs, all costing a month's income (or more, in
my case) for Sailors' Wives' Welfare Association. You could substitute the
Sailors' Wives with Air India Pilots, Policemen's Children or Retired Playback
Singers or Stray Dogs. Oh yes, how could I forget Freedom Fighters. My
arithmetic tells me very few would be around today, but the fund-raising is
likely to continue for a couple of decades more. How can one refuse time after
time, cause after cause? I end up leaving very little for my favourite charity:
Me.
The next time I
feel generous, instead of donating something to help the Blind (ouch, Visually
Impaired, which means the same thing), I’m going to search around for a more
novel program. Better still, start one. Maybe one for owners of borewells, so
they could prevent curious reporters splashing headlines about children falling
into them?
Hmm, lemme think
some more: I’m going to take a certain temple to task for not praying hard
enough to pressurize God to stop epidemics. But the Almight might retort: 'you
can't look after your garbage, don't expect me to do it for you.' Hmm again.
Let me check the news for some other way to increase my bank balance so I could
continue to donate for the other 'good causes'. @@@@
No comments:
Post a Comment