While I was working on my book(my favorite pastime),someone knocked the door. I get maddened when someone disturbs me when I work.In that enrage, I opened the door to find a beautiful baby, around 6 years old named laskhmi.She came along with her mother,our housemaid.It was her first visit to my house.I found her cute and her innocent smile melted my anger.
She at her best ability was trying to assist her mother and this altruist hard-work that she was putting and the gestures that were appearing on her face while putting those hard efforts were making her even more beautiful.
My house is not a one bedroom house. It can be called a mansion with three big rooms, a huge hall and a big kitchen.Her mother was washing utensils in the kitchen,so as a sort of time management,she picked up the broom to start cleansing from my room.
Now here my idiosyncracy started.
“What is your name?” I asked not to find any reply back.I tried 2-3 times both in English and Hindi but to no gain.
“Ok, tell me in which class do you read,” I opted to ask another question, but in return found that twinkly face turning grim. I could apparently feel a sad,sorrow heart.The heart which my question and my ignorance had brutally pierced.
Her eyes got brimmed up with tears and she started weeping with those innocent hiccups.Her small hands were continually wiping the tears off her eyes but her eyes were shedding the tears eternally to keep her wiping them forever.Her mother came from kitchen to mollycoddle the baby.She carried lakshmi in her lap and uttered something in Kannada,which I am not good at,hence couldn’t grasp. But it was inferable to me. She was luring the baby that in the evening papa will come back from work with a doll and after few such baitings, the baby came back to smile again and picking up the broom returned back to assist her mother.
What I later found was that my housemaid(who calls me Ravi Bhaiya) has 3 daughters with lakshmi being the oldest. Her husband is a labourer who earns 80 rupees a day. The combined income of the couple is appx 4500 per month,hence they can’t afford the schooling of their kids in a big metropolis like bangalore. Ignorant of these realities,when lakshmi sees other children of her age going to school,she gets immensely hurted and sometimes her sorrows come out in the shape of tears.And every time her parents allure her with the promise of getting her a doll which they never bring.
They left for another house and I returned to my laptop working on my book. Then the thought struck me that one day I will become a great storyteller,a millionaire, but what will happen to lakshmi? What will be the fate of thousands other lakshmis?Her tear-wiping hands were still vivid in my mind.I wasn’t wanting to work on my book. Her tears had pierced my heart massively.
In those thoughts,I opened my mailbox(which I unconsciously do many times a day to find no new e-mail) to find a mail from my organization about the need for sponsoring lifetime or yearly education,books and uniform of impoverished and needy children.The mail had been sent late previous night.Had I checked my mailbox before meeting lakshmi,it could have been another shift+delete for me.But this time I dared not delete it.
Yes,this is what I need to do,to sponsor the education of one innocent baby,whose fairy-land is the school where she/he wants to go in uniform,to study,play and become a self-dependant and confident citizen.Then I googled in my curiosity to find any NGO working for this cause and was surprised to find many volunteers and NGOs working and awakening privileged people like me who can contribute a drop for this cause to turn it into an ocean one day.
Next time,when I will meet lakshmi,I won’t have to pierce her heart when I will ask her the class she reads in.She will have the answer that she is in first standard and will tell me her name and her class in English,Hindi as well as in Kannada.And when I will write her an e-mail 10 years down the line, she will reply me on e-mail and probably 15 years down the line, she will also have written a book, the bestseller of that year.
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29 comments:
Reading this short piece of awakening paragrapgh, i felt something chilling down my spine. The helplessness of Lakshmi & the vision for education for all. I believe together we can win this battle , so this is the duty of every Indian who is resourceful enough to pay back to society from which he owns so much.
'hatsoff bhayya ur an excellent being
Hi Ravi,
I read through your first blog about Lakshmi and felt really sad.What
did you do to help her.
I occasionally donate to WorldVision.Which NGO did u contact to
support children for education.
I want to donate to them throught internet transfer or some means so
that children are benefited.
So it would be nice if you could pass on some details about the NGO.
Your blog was very good.Keep it up.
I was more focussed on the first issue u discussed rather than ur
other blogs.I will read ur other articles later.
Cheers,
Uma
Interesting, "Well known and Ignored" cause. India a country of Free Education was Tagore's dream but I do not remember any Political Parties thinking out loud on this. Nothing in poll manifestoes.
But I do belive that there are State Governement Schools which provide Education for Poor for free. These are very much functional, even though the standard of Education is not very high, still better. Then, there are initiatives like TeachIndia from Times of India and there would be a lot of NGOs working for this cause as well. Obviously these would be less than what need of the hour really is.
I am not sure what exaclty is Lakshmi's parents take on these, but I am quite sure that there are a LOT of parent like these who "DO NOT WISH" to send there children to study and would want them to be Working ASAP, NO MATTER WHAT.
So we are dealing here not only with resource crunch and lack of focus, but also "Lack of awareness and **WISH**"
Even though goverment has invested a lot funds in Creating Awareness on Education [i can remember some Ads on TV still .. Padhna Lokhna Seekho o Mehnat Karne waalo ... etc etc already] I KNOW there are other Initiatives also taken by the governement to create Initiatives viz z viz ... Door to Door Awareness etc ... but some how the "WISH FACTOR" needs to be created still ....
If we work on this .. we address the problem in a better way.
Just curious : Ask Lakhsmi's Mom if she would send her daughter to a free school you know of and listen what she says ....
The lack of awareness and willingness are the two prime blocks to think about kids like Lakshmi. There are many initiatives of NGOs and State Governments for providing very cheap education (if not free).
Moreover, things are changing in good direction. There's a small ray of hope. How many times have you heard that a boy or a girl living in slum cracked the board exam and is in merit list? The children of not-so-affluent family work hard. Even, parents do not wish their child to get into same shoes. Parents want to educate their children and wish that their children get better life. For instance, the maid who used to come to my house is working to complete her brother graduation.
So my friend.. don't be so pessimistic about the future. Having said that, we should not sit ideal and hope for better future. We all should in some way spread the awareness about free education and urge people around us to help their children finish secondary school atleast.
i proud on u bro
all ur creations are so hard-hittin and thought provokin.they make me cognizant of my duties and responsibilities as an educated indian citizen.
keep it up.
xpecting a lot frm ur future blogs
Hey Ravi, completely agree with you on this. If we each one of us adopts a "Educate a Child Program" we would do a great deal in making our country a Global super power
every indian must work for the betterment of their country.if each one of us takes responsibilty to educate one child of poor family,we can make a lot of difference.we should pay back to our country which has given so much to us.i hope people leave their selfishness n work for their motherland.
Hey ravi this a very nice article..nice thought..honestly u have are a very nice human being...
Recently while surfing one of the news website, I came across something which is so close to my heart - helping needy children to get education. The site I am talking about is - http://www.worldvision.in. Its a great organization helping poor Indian children who are chosen from different parts of the country. It connects people who want to help these children and the people who want to help them - "YOU". You can select a child and start donating Rs. 600 per month. The organization will look after the education, nutrition, health, clean drinking water, etc. They send you a snap of the child so that you know whom you have sponsored. They keep you connected to the child by keeping you updated about the progress of the child, sending their mark sheets to you, etc. You can even write to the children or even meet them up if you wish to.
For most of us Rs 600 would be a very small amount - it could be a bill for the dinner at a restaurant or watching a movie at a multiplex or subscription to a service like internet or cable or a magazine. But, for the child we sponsor, it means a lot - basically a change of life not only for the child but for its entire family or probably the entire village!
There is one other great organization which has changed the life of 1.5 million Indian children till now - CRY. You can try out this site too, if you want to help.
I am looking forward to the day when I would have helped the child get through his graduation and then may be I can meet them.
hats off.... as a proud citizen of india, i want to see india strong, literate and corruption free. all the things could be achieved by education. this comes from awareness and it will bring more awareness. the ppl like lakshmi really need to be educated if they want to. i have been in touch with kids like lakshmi who beg for food, money and all that. if u talk to them about studies, they ignore u or may laugh at u. these things happened to me several times. These are the examples of lack of awareness... u cant educate them b4 fulfilling their vital things like food, clothes n shelter. coz to survive these are the necessary things not education. u could stay alive without studies but not without food. we need to work on it first and the rest will be automatically done.. may be i contradict u but this is my perception. anyways great thoughts... i m with u.
very Common in India .But its not very common for everybody to take minute in helping them .That's where we can make difference .we the lucky ones,where we have been granted everything more than we need .This helping nature is what should become a part of our culture and not the superstitions.This should become a part of the school teachings and the corporate environments .The children from their young should be seeded with such thoughts ,which will empower a better Human Kind .
Hmm..interesting
very enlightening!
Very touching.. Felt really sad reading it. Education is so important and it must be sponsored.
well that was your first blog i read and it was heartening to know that this girl was at least fortunate that someone cared . the problem stems due to over population of our country where there are so many people like Lakshmi that we tend to ignore them. it would have been better if you had sponsored Lakshmi's education directly than channeling it through an NGO.A percentage of what we give to NGO also goes in to manage its office expenses. For people like me who do not have first person contact with them an NGO is the only option though
i think you are a really nice man at heart ravi. You are so right when you say that if you had not seen Lakshmi that day you would have deleted the "support a child's education program". So many of us do that everyday not thinking that our small actions can mean so much to so many.
This is the thought which often comes to my mind when I see children on the streets,wiping cars,selling flowers,begging.Feels really sad that they have to do such work rather than attending school and gaining education . It would be really nice if each of us could sponsor education for one child.
Touching story man....
All of us feel sorry for a lot of things... but there are only few people who get up and do something about it.... They are the ones who make a difference to the world we live in...
If we could make a difference to one person's life it is something that would be worth living for...
This story has pierced my heart deeply and children should not be deprived of education due to poverty.More and more NGO's should come forward and help the poorer.
Please take care of spellings when you post your blog.
wow, that was very moving!
The best blog piece of the entire lot. It is time the youth of the country rise against the umpteen social ills - both inherent and thrust upon.
There r many NGO's n groups in Mumbai which not only monetarily but also they themselves n their volunteers help educating these poor children.
One such NGO I am aware of is SOSVA they r connected to many other NGO’s in mumbai n help educating children of laborers working on construction sites etc free of cost.
If each one of us culd take of an hr or 2 from r daily routine or on weekends n help for this nobel cause wount tht be great?
Hope ppl not only reading these posts of ur’s for the study material but also understanding n taking some action for change
There r many NGO's n groups in mumbai which not only monetarily but also they themselves n their volunteers help educating these poor children.
One such NGO i know abt is SOSVA they r connected to many other ngo's in mumbai n help educating children of laborers working on construction sites etc free of cost
the government should sponser all the basic education
Education is the single and the most potent weapon that can change this country into the best place to live.
But education shouldn't be responsibility of the government only.
Government is already playing its part through numerous NGOs and other schemes and the corrupt babus who are a part of this mechanism are also religiously playing there part.
But if each one of us blessed with education who love to type on a blog on the net in a a/c room , understand our responsibilty then obviously the dream of Dr.Kalam will be a reality in 2-3 decades.
One thing more that has to be looked into is that we have to take care of not only kids but their parents also have to be given some education so that they appreciate its importance and encourage it.Coz in most of the cases its not the money that stops parents , its their attitude towards education..
Hi Ravi –
Very touching post. I think on this subject our thoughts are very much the same. I am actually sponsoring a little girl as well for her education and am planning on starting an organization to help women and kids in our part of the world.
May be one day we will be able to make the change
H_Raja79
hi ravi,
nice article... i had a similar experience few months back. it opened my eyes like yours. a fundraiser from CRY came to my house last month. I was so inspired by her presentation about CRY that I readily donated some amount of money which would cover the education and healthcare cost of 6 underpriviledged children. It is such a wonderful experience.
thnx for the article.
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