Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Should we? Yes! Will we? Not sure!

Just imagine this ...
A woman, left by her husband, works from 6 in the morning then walks for more than an hour to reach her second work-place and then walks back to her rented room, with her two daughters to feed. The same woman fasts twice a week. She faints one day and is taken to her room by her colleagues. The next day, she is diagnosed with jaundice. She still insists on working....

This is not a story but rather life of a cleaner at Tribhuvan International Airport. My mom, who is in-charge of the cleaning project of airport, but also an employee, had to hear such disheartening stories every now and then. Just comparing our day-to-day lives with theirs, we are in heaven - all of you who are reading this blog. Computer/internet is a luxury though we say we can't do anything without computers/internet. The world has become mean - in the road to development, billions of people are neglected and left behind on their own. I asked mom to give her a thousand rupee, from her own pocket, and ask her to take leaves for another two weeks. Jaundice can get very complicated and may even take life if neglected.

The same story may be lived by lots of people all around the world - mostly concentrated in developing countries. Most of us may never come across such stories - I wouldn't myself if my mom didn't tell me. Can we do anything to help them? I hear you saying "Yes we can (if not all) and we should." But will we? I don't know. It's hard because we all have our own problems - and sorting out problems of others, whom we don't know at all - is definitely to be pondered over.

Though our individual effort may not bring drastic change in this selfish world but it definitely helps those who are being helped.

I remember a nice story of a small boy, who is throwing the starfishes to the sea one by one, from the beach where these starfishes are being washed away due to tide. The grown-up person, seeing the futile effort of that boy, approaches him and says, "There are thousands of starfishes here, you are not going to make any difference." The boy picks up a starfish and says "I know, but I made a difference to this one", and throws it back to the sea.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, we should try to. We can surely make some difference however small it may be. Small efforts gather up to make big differences. Lets make the world a better place to live in, for all ;-)

Ann (MobayDP) said...

I suspect that if every person in the world committed to helping just one other person in whatever way we could, we all would be happier and the world would indeed be a happier, better place to be in.

Will we? Hmmm...Not sure either.