It's free for the little one

We need to contribute to charity. We need to be socially responsible and need to help the unprivileged ones.

Let me start with the key message today. There is a reason behind this. Couple of days back, my friend Sachin shared one of my posts to his friends telling them to “read till the end”. Though he mentioned that in a different context, it was an eye opener to me. I realized that I was counting chickens too soon, by patting myself at the back seeing those number of page views of my blogs in the stats page. There would be people who would get retired hurt, after reading first few lines. So this time I punched those lines upfront, so that everybody sees the key message at least before they switch. There could be more drop outs this time; I don’t mind taking that risk on this topic.

For those who are still with me, let me continue.

A few years back, it was a pleasant evening. We were returning from the musical fountains, the place I love to go any time. Neither music is good there nor the fountains, but the open air atmosphere, lots of lung space, greenery, sweet corn vendors, defunct windmill, childrens park all these attract me. I was at a traffic signal. The boy was trying to sell those small tricolour flags, as it was Aug 14^th. He approached a car on my right from the driver’s side. The father who was driving the car vehemently nodded, indicating a big no. I couldn't blame the father, one should not encourage such things. The boy didn't give up. He came to the other side of the car much closer to me this time. There was a small kid smiling and waving hands sitting in its mother’s laps. I knew, this boy spotted an opportunity, the “little one” would demand one and the parents have to buy. As I expected, the enterprising “little one” picked up one of the flags from that bunch, even before the boy could offer. The boy didn't wait for the money, he just moved to the next vehicle behind. The mother hurriedly picked up some money and gestured the boy to come back. The boy just smiled and said in Kannada, “Puttanige free. Duddu beda” (It’s free for the little one. No money required).

I hoped, sincerely hoped that this boy reached to somebody’s hands who can provide him education and guidance for a bright future. I saw goodness in him. I saw love in him. I saw value in him. There are many such people who are equal or more than equal to me in intelligence, talent, willingness to work hard etc. But they were not privileged like me, so they could not become like me.

I know many NGOs are into social activities. Many corporates fund these initiatives. Many people do this on their individual capacity.

I do nothing. I don’t contribute to any NGO. I don’t help any underprivileged.  I go to a good restaurant for lunch. I go for a movie if the review is good. It is not that I can’t spare some money for charity. It is not that I have the willingness to contribute for a social cause. The problem lies somewhere else.

I, being a miser (let me correct it, a person looking value for money that I spend), am not aware of any genuine organization which does social service selflessly with no corruption. There may be people who would be contributing without worrying about how their money is spent, I salute them. There may be people who take interest and evaluate the genuine options and then contribute. I salute them more. I simply don’t have the mind-share or time to do either of these.

Is there way I can be influenced? Yes. The media can cover more of these initiatives, vouched by credible personalities from the society. They can cut down 0.0005% of their going around sensational news like suicides, murders, terror attacks, political issues, sports and use that time for promoting charity. One does understand that they need to cover those sensational news to increase viewership/readership for their own survival.  But a bit on this side can bring in change in people like me and much more to the needy. I may forgo one of those lunches or movies for a social cause.

I see very few posts in FB promoting charity. Are all my friends like me? I hate to believe that, if at all it is true. When people come across such good initiatives, they can share more details of those in social networking platforms in addition to sharing weather reports, stock updates and other “interesting” stuff. People like me would then start contributing.