To walk the talk is no easy task especially when it comes to
social commitment than trivial day to day matters. I think and dream a lot on
what all ways I can be of some use to the society rather than just eat, drink
and die off. But except for some occasional spurts of community work till date
Iam unable to produce anything worthwhile. And there comes the eminent sunday
columnist of The Hindu, Harsh Mander, among the myriad heart wrenching tales he
narrates fortnightly, with the eye popping acts of Matt and Tushar.
Ah, Matt and Tushar are two young swashbucklers who dared to
live on Rs. 26 a day, the income of the officially poor in rural India as fixed
by the Planning Commission of India for ex-urban areas. They restricted their
diet to parboiled rice, a tuber, banana and black tea, finding it almost
impossible to have a balanced or decent diet a day within this amount, leave
aside other necessities of daily life. They
resorted to walking, saved money on soap and avoided all means of
communication, mobile and internet. They struggled to keep themselves healthy
as falling ill will leave them with no choice at all. They found that it’s the
ordeal of feeding oneself the biggest hurdle and no other ethereal thought will
occupy our minds unless this is met.
They got the valuable insight that starvation is the biggest
foe and hunger can make you angry not allowing you to be human enough. For a
man to have ulterior thoughts and deeds the basic food rights should be met
first. Only then the next levels of individual development can be mooted and
planned. In a country where thousands go hungry the focus should be first on
feeding them before implementing anything further-on. A hungry man will hear
the echo of his empty stomach only and no logic or ethic is going to work
there. We need rigorous policies keeping this in mind as nothing else is going
to work ignoring the basic tenet of food.
Another paradoxical finding (already known but now
reinforced) is that the marginalised lot harbour lot more love and generosity than
the ones with the wherewithal in spite of their indigence. A spark of
consideration can go miles sometimes changing the life of an unfortunate for
the better forever. A momentary act of spite is enough to make an outlaw out of
an ordinary.
Matt and Tushar turn me green with envy with this act of
bravado. They chucked their elite corporate jobs in MNCs abroad to fulfil this
make me go black. Even without any experimentation the Indian truth is evident
to all. Still we are reluctant to leave the coziness of our couch to take that
plunge. Iam still waiting for that invisible hand to push me in to the deep as
I truly believe in their dictum that empathy
is the essence of democracy as endearingly showed by these lovely boys!
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