Saturday, February 23, 2008

Dignity

DIGNITY

In life one meets a lot of people – of different castes, creed, religion, and race. There is only one thing common about all these people. They are human beings; they are superior living beings in the animal kingdom, due to their thinking process, their intelligence and their capacity to use their intelligence. Though it is sad that they mostly use this intelligence to the detriment of other living beings.

In a country as poor as India where people do not manage to get two square meals a day, children go undernourished and impoverished, begging is the only way to fill the stomach for a lot of people.

There is so much want and there is so much plenty too. Those who have, have so much that they do not know the right avenues to spend. Is there no other way than a revolution to enable everyone to get a proper square meal, a decent shelter, and enough clothes to wear?

A number of organizations and industrial houses come forward in times of natural calamities to help and rehabilitate and reconstruct the villages and towns that have been devastated by the calamities. Does devastation of these magnitudes only make us wake up and think? Can we not spare a thought for that child begging on the street or that child working in your house or in the neighborhood shop? It is circumstances that are making him do these chores or beg. Today, a lot of people have taken to begging, as that is an easy source of income. Can we not try to make a difference to their lives? Give them the right attitude, teach them the dignity of labour, give them enough to keep their stomach full and then give them the correct values. When the stomach is full, the mind is free to think about other things, a person can think of education and studies. When the prime thought is of the next meal then nobody can understand good thoughts.

Every profit making organization has a social obligation to fulfill. Every organization should take up a few families as per their capacity, rehabilitate them, give them occupation, change their attitude and make them more human. It will not only change their lives for the better, it will also bring about improvement in the lives of those “haves” who have nothing better to do in life. These tasks must not be taken as ‘must do’ jobs, - because this is what the boss wanted, or it would sound good as a topic for the social circuit.

As individuals we all come across a number of persons whose lives can be enriched by our positive intervention. Each one can do something to improve the life of our domestic help or her/his children. We can help-how is for each one to decide.

Do we have to perform Pujas and go for pilgrimages? Treating our poor brethren as humans and giving them back the dignity of being a human being would be the salvation that each one of us is looking for. A culture must evolve amongst all of us to want to do something for society, humanity and human beings. In the process we shall not only be serving mankind and giving back to society something that we owe it, but will also be giving ourselves the inner peace and happiness that can only be experienced and not explained in words.


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