Normally I avoid or to be more honest I ignore giving words to my every day experiences, may be because this IT industry has sucked us to such an extent that when we are not on work the only thing we tend to do is to relax and meditate and that to just to compliment each other . But at times like any human beings I too just go helpless to write down anything about some of my experiences. I actually do not know what I am writing but I am writing because my hands are following the commands of my heart and that too, to word out my experience to an orphanage!!! I have met the kids around me who fortunately or unfortunately HE knows better, do not have their parents. Some might have lost their father or mother or both in accidents, some due to diseases and some in communal riots or followed terrorist attacks. But I feel they are still fortunate enough at least to know who their parents were. Tomorrow when their kids ask them they can answer.But what about those toddlers who do not know who they belong too. What made their parents, their mother and father to throw these innocent lives out of their life. It was my very first experience to visit any orphanage. With some of my colleagues (I should rather say my friends, my own dear friends.) When we planned to do some charity work, obviously I should give credit of this notion to my company, which is worldwide known for its mentor and morals, Infosys. We tried to make some of collections among our project mates, and when we got some substantial amount with their above expectation participation, we finally prepared to realize our plan. Being a weekend it was not possible for most of us to get out of our houses and put some of our endeavors to the cause for which we do not see any materialistic gain in our account. I have seen people mingling their days and nights in stock trading and chain marketing because there they see benefits in fraction of minutes no matter how. But here, probably we five were trusting on Somebody invisible; for he promises to give hundred times of what we spend on His way .And this is the best preferred His way sans any exception. And so the initiative actually initiated and led by one of our friend Krishna(very much fulfilling the demand of his name), we rest four people Dattaprasad, Biswajit, Tusar and me were all set to meet at the gate of the orphanage ‘Preetmandir-A Balwant Kartar Foundation in Klyani Nagar- Pune’ It was 4:30pm, when we five gathered at the decided place, after buying some and as much as we could do, with our limited (Irony!!!) resources, we moved inside the orphanage. It is a registered charity organization so we could see lot of donations and contributions there but still we felt that all were insufficient. There was some kind of stinking environment inside the orphanage but it was better and much better than the places where the kids of below poverty lines live in India. I liked the way they checked our identities and verified the edibles that we brought for the kids. After getting through all the technical formalities, we were exposed to those kids who actually wanted nothing from us but just expected our love, our lap and our words with affection.We were in the orphanage’s park. We could see dozens of kids playing and running around the park. When we actually entered in the park at first, they were scared of the strangers entering in their area but as soon as we gave them sweets and chocolates, they felt relaxed and accepted us in their domain of joy and care freeness. It was actually filling my eyes with tears when I could see very categorically that the kids were not actually running after sweets or toys or chocolates but their eyes were silently requesting to embrace them, to hold their hands, to hug them and to play with them. They were not looking for fruits and crayons, we were carrying but they were looking for love, for attention. They wanted to make us realize their importance, their skills and their feelings.Their response to our love that we were trying to exhibit there was much more pure and true than ours.At the beginning of this tryst I was feeling uncomfortable to embrace them with my fullest, but soon I questioned me do they not belong to the same God as me.The answer was sufficient to change me from my innermost. When people can spend thousand of money and shower their love to animals, if I fail to love these real true, innocent children, who are deprived of their natural rights of being loved by destiny itself; I can not claim to be sensitive human to my inner most. It’s a week passed yet I can remember most of the kids name with their faces, not because I have good memory but shear because the way they cuddled me left profound impact upon my life.I have always trusted upon God like a damn illiterate superstitious person, but I can never figure out the secret behind His method of transferring punishments from parents to kids. For the mistakes (Or may not be too.), parents of these kids might have done but either it is He who punishes these kids or it is society which enjoys by punishing these innocent children. I remember Payal, Puja, Radha, Ankit, asking me speechlessly, will they ever get the flavor of mother’s warmth or father’s support. And I had no answer. From park we went to a classroom where there were kids with their teacher. Who was teaching them some thing, in her effort to make these parentless kids proud or petty citizens of this mighty country. And then we saw an infants section, where perhaps kids were yet to learn how to stand and walk but they have lost dad’s finger and mom’s hand for sure which my mom says I used to hold when I was trying to stand and walk, but I say I need and hold them even now.We spent around 2 hours with those kids, but they made us to flashback whole 20years that we have passed till now with our cognizance. My mom running after me with mug of milk, my dad analyzing my report cards after each test I gave during my school days, my mom and dad buying new uniforms and new dresses time to time and the kind of effort they used to spend on my future planning. What is the sin of these kids that they are deprived of all these. It is always easy to advise to anybody. But I strongly feel, If I could have stopped using deodorant and perfumes, I would have just saved 100 bugs from each of my dresses that I have bought till day or I would have watched movies just after 1week of its release, I feel I could have saved hell lot of money to help these heavenly kids who have to depend upon donations for every meal the take in. It is a questionable reality that when a country has 30 million working people, why can not they pledge to provide a better future for 12.44 millions orphans in India.The more questionable catastrophe is that the number of official adoptions in India is just 5000 as per the yesteryears’ data. I don’t know where the world is going. But I strongly feel, it is multifold better not to give birth rather than to give such a miserable future to those who are born. We are spending innumerous amount of money to stop child abortions. It is good and very applauding but what about those who are born??? Why do we want to give birth to the kids whose future moves around begging, pedophile, drug addiction, criminal activities, human trafficking, child labour etc. the list is perhaps never ending.Just have a look of the report published by government of India focusing upon child abuse in different forms in India.1. Where every fifth child of the world belongs to India, every third malnourished child also belongs to India.2. Every second child is underweight and every three out of four children are anaemic3. Every second new born has reduced learning capacity due to iodine deficiency4. Decline in female/male ratio is maximum in 0-6 years: 927 females per 1000 males5. Birth registration is just 62% (RGI-2004)6. Retention rate at Primary level is 71.01% and Girls’ enrolment in schools at primary level is 47.79% (Elementary Education in India Progress towards UEE NUEPA Flash Statistics DISE 2005-2006)7.1104 lakh child labour in the country (SRO 2000)8..IMR is as high as 58 per 1000 and MMR is equally high at 301 per 100,000 live births (SRS- 2005)See, this is the status of average kids of this country, so what future can we think of our country and our coming generations. At one hand we have people, those business tycoons having literally infinite amount of money and on the other hand the normal kids of the same country are having above statistics. Our population which used to be a global problem one upon a time has now been transformed into the biggest existing market. All those who were dropping their sincere tears a decade back for our population blasts and our pathetic conditions and now dried of their tears because it is this population who is their vast customer spectrum now. But the open secret is that today also, the problem of poor man remains equally poor rather it is actually creating more complicated predicaments like SEZs, Dams, AIDS,. All these issues are affecting those poor innocent people and their next generations very straightly. If we are not going to handle channel these people and provide a better future to their kids, it is but obvious that they are going to follow the path that is not socially acceptable.It is again ridiculous and I would say it is an outcome of present social setup that most of the scholarships, child rehabilitation programs and so called social initiative are mainly benefiting to those who are already benefited and those who are not they are the one still not. They are diseased, deprived and dying out of their ignorance. At times they become pray on the hands of missionary and anti missionaries. But at the end of the day they are left with nothing.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
My Visit to a Mandir!!!
Normally I avoid or to be more honest I ignore giving words to my every day experiences, may be because this IT industry has sucked us to such an extent that when we are not on work the only thing we tend to do is to relax and meditate and that to just to compliment each other . But at times like any human beings I too just go helpless to write down anything about some of my experiences. I actually do not know what I am writing but I am writing because my hands are following the commands of my heart and that too, to word out my experience to an orphanage!!! I have met the kids around me who fortunately or unfortunately HE knows better, do not have their parents. Some might have lost their father or mother or both in accidents, some due to diseases and some in communal riots or followed terrorist attacks. But I feel they are still fortunate enough at least to know who their parents were. Tomorrow when their kids ask them they can answer.But what about those toddlers who do not know who they belong too. What made their parents, their mother and father to throw these innocent lives out of their life. It was my very first experience to visit any orphanage. With some of my colleagues (I should rather say my friends, my own dear friends.) When we planned to do some charity work, obviously I should give credit of this notion to my company, which is worldwide known for its mentor and morals, Infosys. We tried to make some of collections among our project mates, and when we got some substantial amount with their above expectation participation, we finally prepared to realize our plan. Being a weekend it was not possible for most of us to get out of our houses and put some of our endeavors to the cause for which we do not see any materialistic gain in our account. I have seen people mingling their days and nights in stock trading and chain marketing because there they see benefits in fraction of minutes no matter how. But here, probably we five were trusting on Somebody invisible; for he promises to give hundred times of what we spend on His way .And this is the best preferred His way sans any exception. And so the initiative actually initiated and led by one of our friend Krishna(very much fulfilling the demand of his name), we rest four people Dattaprasad, Biswajit, Tusar and me were all set to meet at the gate of the orphanage ‘Preetmandir-A Balwant Kartar Foundation in Klyani Nagar- Pune’ It was 4:30pm, when we five gathered at the decided place, after buying some and as much as we could do, with our limited (Irony!!!) resources, we moved inside the orphanage. It is a registered charity organization so we could see lot of donations and contributions there but still we felt that all were insufficient. There was some kind of stinking environment inside the orphanage but it was better and much better than the places where the kids of below poverty lines live in India. I liked the way they checked our identities and verified the edibles that we brought for the kids. After getting through all the technical formalities, we were exposed to those kids who actually wanted nothing from us but just expected our love, our lap and our words with affection.We were in the orphanage’s park. We could see dozens of kids playing and running around the park. When we actually entered in the park at first, they were scared of the strangers entering in their area but as soon as we gave them sweets and chocolates, they felt relaxed and accepted us in their domain of joy and care freeness. It was actually filling my eyes with tears when I could see very categorically that the kids were not actually running after sweets or toys or chocolates but their eyes were silently requesting to embrace them, to hold their hands, to hug them and to play with them. They were not looking for fruits and crayons, we were carrying but they were looking for love, for attention. They wanted to make us realize their importance, their skills and their feelings.Their response to our love that we were trying to exhibit there was much more pure and true than ours.At the beginning of this tryst I was feeling uncomfortable to embrace them with my fullest, but soon I questioned me do they not belong to the same God as me.The answer was sufficient to change me from my innermost. When people can spend thousand of money and shower their love to animals, if I fail to love these real true, innocent children, who are deprived of their natural rights of being loved by destiny itself; I can not claim to be sensitive human to my inner most. It’s a week passed yet I can remember most of the kids name with their faces, not because I have good memory but shear because the way they cuddled me left profound impact upon my life.I have always trusted upon God like a damn illiterate superstitious person, but I can never figure out the secret behind His method of transferring punishments from parents to kids. For the mistakes (Or may not be too.), parents of these kids might have done but either it is He who punishes these kids or it is society which enjoys by punishing these innocent children. I remember Payal, Puja, Radha, Ankit, asking me speechlessly, will they ever get the flavor of mother’s warmth or father’s support. And I had no answer. From park we went to a classroom where there were kids with their teacher. Who was teaching them some thing, in her effort to make these parentless kids proud or petty citizens of this mighty country. And then we saw an infants section, where perhaps kids were yet to learn how to stand and walk but they have lost dad’s finger and mom’s hand for sure which my mom says I used to hold when I was trying to stand and walk, but I say I need and hold them even now.We spent around 2 hours with those kids, but they made us to flashback whole 20years that we have passed till now with our cognizance. My mom running after me with mug of milk, my dad analyzing my report cards after each test I gave during my school days, my mom and dad buying new uniforms and new dresses time to time and the kind of effort they used to spend on my future planning. What is the sin of these kids that they are deprived of all these. It is always easy to advise to anybody. But I strongly feel, If I could have stopped using deodorant and perfumes, I would have just saved 100 bugs from each of my dresses that I have bought till day or I would have watched movies just after 1week of its release, I feel I could have saved hell lot of money to help these heavenly kids who have to depend upon donations for every meal the take in. It is a questionable reality that when a country has 30 million working people, why can not they pledge to provide a better future for 12.44 millions orphans in India.The more questionable catastrophe is that the number of official adoptions in India is just 5000 as per the yesteryears’ data. I don’t know where the world is going. But I strongly feel, it is multifold better not to give birth rather than to give such a miserable future to those who are born. We are spending innumerous amount of money to stop child abortions. It is good and very applauding but what about those who are born??? Why do we want to give birth to the kids whose future moves around begging, pedophile, drug addiction, criminal activities, human trafficking, child labour etc. the list is perhaps never ending.Just have a look of the report published by government of India focusing upon child abuse in different forms in India.1. Where every fifth child of the world belongs to India, every third malnourished child also belongs to India.2. Every second child is underweight and every three out of four children are anaemic3. Every second new born has reduced learning capacity due to iodine deficiency4. Decline in female/male ratio is maximum in 0-6 years: 927 females per 1000 males5. Birth registration is just 62% (RGI-2004)6. Retention rate at Primary level is 71.01% and Girls’ enrolment in schools at primary level is 47.79% (Elementary Education in India Progress towards UEE NUEPA Flash Statistics DISE 2005-2006)7.1104 lakh child labour in the country (SRO 2000)8..IMR is as high as 58 per 1000 and MMR is equally high at 301 per 100,000 live births (SRS- 2005)See, this is the status of average kids of this country, so what future can we think of our country and our coming generations. At one hand we have people, those business tycoons having literally infinite amount of money and on the other hand the normal kids of the same country are having above statistics. Our population which used to be a global problem one upon a time has now been transformed into the biggest existing market. All those who were dropping their sincere tears a decade back for our population blasts and our pathetic conditions and now dried of their tears because it is this population who is their vast customer spectrum now. But the open secret is that today also, the problem of poor man remains equally poor rather it is actually creating more complicated predicaments like SEZs, Dams, AIDS,. All these issues are affecting those poor innocent people and their next generations very straightly. If we are not going to handle channel these people and provide a better future to their kids, it is but obvious that they are going to follow the path that is not socially acceptable.It is again ridiculous and I would say it is an outcome of present social setup that most of the scholarships, child rehabilitation programs and so called social initiative are mainly benefiting to those who are already benefited and those who are not they are the one still not. They are diseased, deprived and dying out of their ignorance. At times they become pray on the hands of missionary and anti missionaries. But at the end of the day they are left with nothing.
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