BITS AND PIECES

My new found appetite for grilled mutton ribs has finally led me into writing something that is beyond meat and drink. Yes, it was after getting back to my car from one of those take-away orders that a child walked up towards my window. Dressed in oversized raiment and looking untidy, I waved him off and made to leave. Before I sped away, I took another look at his direction and just then saw him opening the thrash can in the car park. At that point my heart sank and I called him over and handed him something more than he’d asked for.

These days, it has become common place that all celebs run or are at least involved in a non-profit organisation. It is almost as if every one of them wants the world to know they are given back to the society. The list of such activities ranges from driving eco-friendly cars, fund raising for relief projects to the adoption of babies from third world countries. While all these are laudable in themselves, they all become ridiculous when one considers that it’s just a minimal percentage of the benefactor’s wealth that is thrown into these endeavours. The popularity of these activities bears little correlation with the true impact. I once saw a news clip in which the van of one of those donor groups in a war zone was moving at considerable speed and biscuits were being thrown out a chasing crowd!

Our world is plagued by hunger, disease, armed conflicts and disasters- both natural and man-caused. Our specie also lives in a societal set up in which social and economic classes exist; the have and the have-not, the able-bodied and the sick, etc. The privilege of possessions and high positions ought to stimulate an overflow to those on the other end of the spectrum. Political semantics to consider certain words like “handicap” discriminatory is denying the obvious. Human needs should be called what they are without a subjective feeling of being looked down upon. Ok, may be people should be made to believe that an individual’s right to be treated with dignity is as basic as the right to free speech; irrespective of one’s bank statements or the neighbourhood of one’s abode.

My disposition has always been to consider the glass half-full rather than half-empty but has the third world become the dumping ground of half-hearted sympathies? Never mind that some of these donors still imagine that Africa is a single country where most people are living on trees! Having a desire to offer a helping hand is just a starting point. The actions generated from that desire should seek true effect. Else, these isolated drops will never fill the ocean of human needs. To quote my elementary school teacher, anything worth doing is worth doing well.