Do not serve the poor!

Serve the poor!

Help the needy!

Assist the unfortunate!

...these are the few things we grow up listening. For me these 'quotations' were(attempted) imbibed much deeply because of my great parents. I hail from a family where helping the needy & serving others is the motto of life. Since childhood my parents have always taken me on donation trips to small villages or to the local slums. Sometimes it would be old clothes, sometimes old books and at times it would be huge budget. For example, few years back my parents raised funds with collaboration with few trusts and donated washing machines to the leprosy patients accommodation in my native place.

In these trips I would always observe them like a third person and act as if I didn't exist there. Seeing me my mom would ask me to participate & I had to, I bet no living thing in this world has the courtesy to disobey my mom. 

Anyways, I guess I've kind of portrayed myself to be a very stubborn and selfish girl. But let me explain myself now. What I really feel is that all of us are born on this Earth for a purpose. Being blessed with the life of Human Being is the greatest thing that could have ever happened. We all should work to earn our bread and butter. According to me depending on others for survival is equivalent to living a life of a parasite. 

I see so many people from villages or slums doing nothing & merely waiting for the government to give them Ration. They do nothing but get drunk & beat up their wives. I remember visiting my Nani's Hometown, Vhadhona, close to Amravati. I happened to ask I rickshaw driver to give me a ride, which was long enough to fetch him a descent sum. But he bluntly refused and once again engrossed himself into his game of cards.I'm sure that even Viswanathan Anand doesn't concentrate on his game as much as this rickshaw driver did. Seeing me like that a passing bullock cart driver volunteered to drop me to my destination, the farm. I merrily hoped in and enjoyed that topsy turvy ride  In the farm my Mama told me that they didn't have many workers. I was always under the impression that India suffered from the disease of unemployment, seems like the rural scenario is completely opposite.How on earth is our Country going to progress if the interiors are dump with this sluggish attitude? 

Now coming back to my parents, let me talk about the case where they donated blankets to people sleeping on the roads in winters. After two weeks, my dad visited the same place to find so3/4 of the people sleeping without their blankets.Not because the mice had eaten them up but because they had sold them to treat themselves with a hefty dose of liquor.

I do agree that there are people who really need help and life is miserable for them. But the kind of help we or our government provides should be thoughtful. According to me it is wiser to go and teach a person some sort of craftsmanship or vocational training. So that he can earn enough to afford himself a blanket rather than just taking it from someone & acting like a pest . We should volunteer to work with NGOs to teach these people and help them build up a future rather than just tossing off a bundle of notes as a donation & inviting some more poverty.