The value of what is given ...

Long, long ago when I was with a dharna of the dam displaced and we were collecting money many wealthy people brushed us aside. An old begger woman stopped us, asked about the issue, listened intently, and took out a five rupee coin from her tin and dropped it in the box. Even today when I think of it I am left shaken. and as I grow older, and am less sure of anything, I feel that that blessings and goodwill circulate in many different planes. That which is given at a high cost, carries with it that much more power to relieve the other's sufferings.


(This was long ago when i spent some years with Medha and the others with the struggle of the tribals against displacement and dispossession. Some truths seen and heard in those days became pointers for a lifetime)

...

Many years ago, I was with a bunch of kids from the villages slated for submergence (my the sardar sarovar dam on narmada) going to bombay. This was a protest meeting to ask to not be driven out of home and hearth, without any land compensation.

The village hildren were hungry when we got off, money was as always limited. And then when i saw the biscuits stacked up in shiny covers within glass cupboards - i felt the sheer obscenity of the display. When hunger encounters such display of food ... then is paapam born.

Do we realize that many eyes that fall on the bakeries and food stalls stacked with food, are hungry eyes of poor children ? It took me this situation to realize the crime of display of wealth, even of food.

May we be forgiven ...