Let's Make a Difference!

I hate waking up early... even if that means getting late for office...
Yet, i wake up early every weekend.. so I don't get late for my guitar lessons...

Every saturday morning... when i'm up & having my tea or reading the morning news; there is a bell that goes off... sometimes i ignore it.. sometimes they go away... other times they ring a bell again... sometimes i just scream whose there... at other times i answer it... i inevitably always know who it is going to be... yet, sometimes, i just go & see & from the balcony of my 1st floor, i look down upon an orange singlet clad Shani Maharaj.. I look at him in anger & scream "kitni baar bola hai humari ghanti mat bajaya karo! (how many times have i asked you not to ring our bell)"... it angers me how an able-bodied man can go door-to-door begging... for God's sake, his belly is bigger than my dad's... this begging thing, really gets on my nerves!

If you have your hands & feet intact, why resort to begging? there are a million things you can do... pull a rickshaw... polish shoes.. mop the floors... you can even do nautanki.. at least you will entertain people in exchange of the money... what about selling balloons, or books on the roadside.. or even home made candles & agarbattis... there are so many things you can do apart from begging! I know people say, don't say you understand, cuz you don't, you are not in those shoes... but the fact is... i have seen poverty.. & begging is no way to emerge out of it... there is no pride in it.. there are a million who are poor... just go to the villages of Kerela (my home town) or Bihar or you know what, i can count multiple poor places.. & none of them take pride in begging... they take pride in their culture & stand for themselves... just check out Raghurajpur... the people there are poor.. but they don't beg... in fact, they have created a legacy & made Raghurajour the heritage crafts village of Odisha.

Isn't it a wonder that a poor farmer started a legacy? he turned the whole village into a sea of artists.. have you ever witnessed such fan following of a poor farmer that the whole village aspires to be him???

Can you imagine, that to ensure his legacy continues, the village has a Gurukul that is free of cost??? Here in Urban India, we pay tons & tons of tuition fee for vocational trainings for our children that they are least bit interested in pursuing as career... & there, they create employment opportunity absolutely free of cost... they create their own motifs.. natural colors... & their own artwork.. it is creativity at its best... & what makes them happy is the awe-d look on your face when you see it... buy it... that is the real passion for work... isen't it? & how fair is it that these artist put in all their creativity.. all their passion... all their hard work into a piece of art that they create in time ranging over days & weeks & sometimes even months; to get not a fraction of the real value of the master piece that they so rigorously created? How fair is it that the middle-men pocket almost all of the profit? How fair is it that these people do not fall down to begging but the middle-men fall down to stealing from them? Of course this is stealing... mark ups are not supposed to be more than 17%!

It's not fair & it's not right... If these artist are in the lines of utmost dignity, nobody should have the right to leech off them... there should be a way to surpass these middlemen so these artist can get what they righly deserve... Let's give them a platform that they rightly deserve... a platform that can help them showcase what they have to the world.. & it does not take a lot.. all it takes is a website that links them to the whole world (of acknowledgement & opportunity)... These artist with their everyday moves makes our lives colorful... let's return the favor & make their lives just as colorful! Let's make a difference!

This post has been written for the "Do Right!" contest.
#DoRight helps many such causes... Want to help the poor stand for themselves... visit DoRight!