20 April 2014 at 20:26 ·
Kala, Narendra and their small children Vaishnavi and Teja have just finished their month-long stay in the field for the jaggery making work. This is a most demanding operation, involving being day and night on the job ... The three phase current comes only at night, and the family is up thro' the night extracting the juice. Thro' the day the vats boil with ferocious heat. The sun is also at burning heat these months . After a month the family returns home, darker, thinner ... And that is how we get our jaggery in cities.
For some two years I had kept
telling Kala, that Vaishnavi's jaundice needs to be treated, and also her and
her husband's unbearable headaches. I had asked her to come to Chennai and said
that I would pay for the medicines, and the doctor would charge nothing and
that they need to only pay the bus charges. This was with a belief that unless
they pay something towards it, the process will not be respected.
Kala did not come. Now when I have said that they do not need to worry about the bus charges ... they are coming.
Kala did not come. Now when I have said that they do not need to worry about the bus charges ... they are coming.
We live in completely different universes - the poor, and the rich. There is no way we can even remotely understand their situation, their pressures, their balances, the state of heart when a loved child cannot be treated because there is no money, when one is told that the child needs milk and there is no way to procure it, when the little money at home is taken away for drink , the heart that gives to every mendicant who asks even then stocks have dwindled.
We do need a theoritical framework for action, but finally we need to just act and give, and do our best in our best understanding.
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