“Experiences – of a different sort !”

August 12 2006 8:30 pm

“How is everything going?”
“Oh. I had a great time today. As part of our social service drive today, I visited the small village behind our colony – where all the daily wage workers to the nearby factory stay. We distributed sweets & bars of soap to them. The urchins ran towards us and snatched the sweets & soaps! We had a doctor with us as well who was explaining the importance of sanitation to them. Women were checked for any elementary diseases & the children were told to keep themselves clean.

And yah, do you know what the children did with the sweets & the bars of soap?”

“No. Tell me.”

“They gave the sweets to their mothers to save it for their next meal & tried tasting the bars of soap – to see if they tasted good enough to eat!”

I am speechless!

What my mother witnessed was something that was very close to an India that we often only talk about but seldom try to change. One of the women, who stay in that village, comes to our house as a maid. Her 7 year old adopted son studies English, Social Science & Mathematics from my mother, every afternoon. In 2 years of teaching, he has reached to the top 10 in his class from the 76th rank. He says that his Mathematics teacher does not teach in the local language but in Hindi, so they only try to infer what is being taught in the class from that is written in chalk on the black board! Mathematics has ended up only being numbers to them!

I am thinking!

What my mother does is probably each one of us want to be a part of. We want to now change things at the micro level! We tell each other – “Charity begins at home”! But what the adopted son of my maid is influenced by is not only poverty at his home – but also – population explosion (think of a 100 student classroom for small children!), faulty Government implementations (a Hindi speaking teacher in a Bengali community!) and obviously, abject poverty!
I have often asked her does it really make a difference to them when you go to such places every Sunday to perform your acts of social service. How much change have you brought in the society? I am reminded when I used to go to a nearby art school in my colony in my childhood, to learn painting and drawing, the children of the officers of the company (in my case, Tata Steel in Jamshedpur!) were asked to sit inside the hall by our Art teacher and the children of the workers, used to sit outside the hall – to learn art! Now, I cannot locate my teacher as this happened too early in time - but didn’t we sow the seeds of poverty based on discrimination at that time? What we are trying to correct or amend right now is an outcome of our own deeds in the past!

March 30 2006 9:30 pm

“Yes. What news at this hour?”
“Subu just died in a road accident in Bangalore. I don’t know what will happen to your sister now!”

I was in a state of shock! My first cousin’s husband, Subhajit Dutta, died in a bike accident, on a highway 34 kms away from Bangalore. She is 3 months pregnant! Next morning, at 8 am, I am at their BTM layout house in Bangalore. The body is in the hospital for post mortem. My sister has not spoken for hours but just burst out crying on seeing me arrive!
The toughest part for me, besides handling my sister, came about when I had to get the Death certificate of my brother-in-law made, for any further official or insurance paper work. With no fault of his in the accident, he had been charged with negligent driving by the police in the FIR. (Probably, the truck driver did his job well!) Not being a localite and with an FIR, Hospital Discharge receipt and Cremation Certificate in hand, I ventured to get the Death certificate made.

Coming from Bihar and now Jharkhand, I used to think that only the machinery in Bihar and surrounding states are corrupt. Well, my belief was shattered within a week. The FIR cost me 1000/- and 3 days. The Cremation Certificate cost 200/- instead of 30/-, and the person/agent who offered to get the Death Certificate made, started with 2000/-.

Is there anyway I could have avoided it. Whom do I complain to?
I don’t know the answer to a lot of questions but one thing I know for sure, people are just opportunistic!

December 27 2006 11:30 am

“Who is lady Sir and why was she in tears?”
“Oh, Sanat – Its just one of those cases! Her husband, an auto driver in Delhi, died last week in a road accident. Now she is helpless and has 4 mouths to feed. She wants me to tell her a way out of this situation.”
“So what did you suggest her?”
“What else? Like every other reservation, I told her to get a certificate made from this person I know – of being an OBC & then, I will get her, a license to set up a small shop at the Old Delhi Railway Station platform.”
What a way to help a person out of such misery! My client is the brother of a prominent Rajya Sabha member. Doesn’t he know very well how to bend the system? Getting an OBC certificate & manipulating the tender system of shop allotments – is there anything left that people in power cannot manipulate?
Last year, my friend from school, who I didn’t know was an SC (who notices all this in school anyway?) was thrown out of IIM Calcutta, for failing in first year. I was so proud of him till that time when I heard this news. Within a week, he called me up and informed me of his joining a company at almost one and a half times my CTC.

I didn’t know what to feel about it. I had a Masters Degree before joining my job and he was a simple engineer and an IIM failure! He used his SC certificate to move up the chain all this life and now, a company recognizes his true potential? (I still don’t know how he managed the entry in that particular organisation but I am assuming it not based on his caste!)
How does one decide the true potential of a person?

August 13 2006 10:30 pm

As I sit back and think on any aspect of the society I can influence, I am at a cross-road. As I said in my second presentation in class, I am an optimist – I would like to re-iterate that I am not an ostrich either! There are issues which each of us has seen happening around us – which render all efforts helpless!
When I say I am an optimist, I don’t mean I don’t see the negatives. I mean I see the light at the end of the dark tunnel that we are trying to venture into. The presentations & group thinking tasks have right now made each one of us aware of each other person’s background. I now know that there is someone in my class, who has been sexually harassed; there is someone who doesn’t believe in marriage; there is someone who likes to question all efforts an individual wants to make; and more importantly, there are ideas in class which we agree to disagree upon!
I am now aware of my surroundings. Till now, I used to think that I was only one of the few people in my generation who are not going to accept dowry during marriage! But looking at the number of students who raised their hands to that question, I realized that I am a part of an evolutionary society!
There are some evils that are man-made like dowry, drug abuse, terrorism, corruption, which creep out of greed, social unrest and insensitivity. By abstaining from them individually, I think we can play a part in the social reform that we intend to bring out.
My maid’s adopted son should not grow up to become a terrorist. The agent who got me the Death Certificate should not be able to fleece any more people. That politician should not play with the aspirations of the deserving people. My friend should not admit his children to any institution through the SC quota again.

May we not need any Civic Behaviour classes in the future to realize all this!