After a long hiatus on the blog, I thought I should post something.. A lot of my Indian colleagues and friends are back from their trip to India over the holidays, and it has been interesting to listen to their tales.. Ofcourse, besides the usual " India has become so polluted,dirty"etc, type of comments the " India has changed so much, consumerism,fat paychecks,fancy cars are the norm of the game" type of comments are now common.
One of my friends had another complaint, the lack of public bathrooms.. Most of us living here take if for granted that we will find clean ( most of the time) toilets with water,toilet paper,wash basins with running water to wash hands,etc. She was pregnant and was appalled at some of the restrooms that she was forced to use..
Sudha Murthy, wife of Narayana Murthy of the "Infosys" fame has written a few collections of short stories,some of which are supposed to be anecdotes about her various experiences. One of them is about how the "Sulabh Shouchalaya" concept began.. She says, appropriately, that while most people will happily donate thousands of rupees to Temples, few will think about spending money on a charity that will benefit the society, especially to build public toilets, because us Indians are hesitant to put money into something that does not have "Punya" associated with it! Gosh! Now, please don't get me wrong, I am not criticizing those who donate to Temples, after all, its their money. I am merely musing as to how as as a society in India are so conscious about accumulating "Punya".
Ajji and Thatha, on my annual trips to Mysore ( and sometimes more often than that!) would often tell us how the whole concept of Madi, and Punya came about only go help guide people to be clean, pure hearted,etc. Haven't we distorted these concepts totally now? If only there was some "Punya" associated with donating money to poor children's education or any other social service related activity,the "haves" in our society can do so much more for the "have-nots". Wonder how long it will take for that kind of a psychological revolution in our society..
All the talk about India INC makes us feel proud of the way our country is progressing,but the flip side of the coin is that, there is little that has benefited the poor and the have-nots.. Granted, with many more jobs available,the middle class society is growing,but there is still a vast majority of our population who leave us with depressed thoughts as to how our country still has a long way to go!
The current economic revolution is great for those that are working in the IT/Finance/High Tech type of an industry, but the sky-rocketing inflation levels are affecting the common middle class family in all walks of life..
If only we as a society can work united to help each other regardless of caste,creed and social strata,we as a country can emerge as a much more powerful super power!
Any thoughts here?
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3 comments:
I had read that article on public toilet issues, by Sudha Murthy and I totally agree. I dread those public toilets in India. I don't remember if she said Infosys donated money towards this cause or not. I guess individuals like us like to donate to temples in small amounts and still gather some punya in the process. It's like we get a bang for the buck! But Rs1000 towards a humongous problem such as public toilets may not amount to much or accomplish much. Besides, there is certainly that "worthy cause" debate in our minds and toilets don't quite figure in to our minds, compared to millions of children starving and so on.... Besides that, there is the civil conduct of people using those toilets and that requires constant maintenance to keep it clean so people feel comfortable using them. A "funny" story that comes to mind is the snake catcher in Mysore who had come to my m-in-law's place to catch a snake. He was bitten by another snake a few months earlier and to get rid of the venom, he had to drink several litres of water each day. He told me that his biggest problem was to find public toilets around town after drinking so much water! How ironic! So...first corporations/people have to donate/build toilets but also think of daily maintenance and more importantly, knock some civil sense in to even the educated who don't leave the toilets clean after using them. Secondly, but more importantly, our country needs to mature and tackle bigger issues like poverty etc and then people will feel like tackling these types of issues which seem secondary to poverty. Like any civilized society, tackling bigger issues will automatically lend itself to solving secondary issues. I can think of many people (perhaps in our own family) who would say "when there are millions of people starving in India, why don't you donate money to help them instead of building toilets in public places?".
True, toilets are lower on the priority when people don't even have enough to eat.. But the concept of "punya" really made me think.. I think there is much more hope now then ever before for social reform, with a majority of people getting educated.. Hopefully, we will be able to partake in some of that reform,not sure how, but eventually, hope so..
This article defenitely tests us...
1st of all,let us all accept the fact that we are selfish,(atleast I know I am)...we always fear that things have to be done in the proper way(translates to===when we buy a vehicle-we need to get the proper puja done by spending money,we buy a house-it has to have a proper gruhapravesh done by spending more money, we have to marry in a proper way-by spending even more money),how many of us do have the courage not to do such things in the "proper" way and donate that money to charity just because we want to help people and not because we have to worry about punya, paapa,karma???
we always fear the consequences of our bad thoughts & actions and somehow think that a 1000 rs might buy us that much worth of forgiveness...we know thats not going to happen & yet we never stop trying...or rather we are just AFRAID to stop PAYING!!!I wish I had the courage to stop myself from doing that!!! and I know thats never going to happen because I know I am not pure by heart, if I had been,I woudnt have been TRYING to please god(through the pujari)!!!
So for now, I guess I will accept the fact that even though I feel donating money to help starving people/build public toilets is far better than donating money to temples, given a situation where I need to choose b/w a satyanarayana puja or a donation to such a cause I guess I will choose both!!!
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