“Khana nahi kahaya babuji, paisa de do”, “Bhookh lag rahi hai babuji, subah se nahi khaya”. These are the recent chants which bang my ears everytime I come out of any mall/multiplex. Thanks to Bangladeshi infiltration, the problem of Beggary has aggravated only in these recent years. Earlier the usual hub of these beggars used to be religious places of worship. Compelling urges also have seen dramatic changes and serious mind boggling sessions must have been done by these beggars. Earlier they used to just sit by the roadside with their “katora” and look hauntingly at all the visitors. Then realizing that almost everyone abuses them of their healthy physique, they started the trend of asking a share in the “prasad” being carried by the devotees. It was a type of emotional atyachar since Prasad is ideally meant for sharing and hence everyone had no other option but to give them a share. But as mall culture has grown, the recent touching attack adopted by beggars is related to hunger and death.
Even this senti might be trivial for quite a few; I am always deeply moved and quite certain that this sight haunts others as well. Last time when I was at outskirts of a mall after having delicious pizzas at Pizza Hut that cost us around Rs. 600, a young girl came to us and started her usual ringtone. Since she was hungry, my brother offered to give her some food but denied giving her alms. The issue that disturbed me then was that we are spending hundreds of rupee just to satisfy our tongue’s whim and could not spend a single penny to fill the stomachs of hungry people across world. What kind of society we are living in nowadays?
Here I won’t ask my friends to eradicate poverty, but something really needs to be done. Every time we see such sight, the question that arises is that when would we give something back to our own society? Being youths, finding solution of these problems is much easier. Once a person gets married, he is generally occupied with long term plans of future requiring huge investments, so he generally gives the excuse to himself- “I am already feeding a family of five, hence God would forgive me”.
To avoid this guilt feeling, to come across these overwhelming sentiments, I propose all dear youth readers to at least get involved in some good social activity. This would give us a backing and hence help us overcome from such arousing assaults. Being pragmatic is most necessary as it gives the maximum satisfaction. Here I have tried coming up with few ideas:
1. In case you are a student, there certainly must be any student body working in this direction such as educating poor children.
2. Even if there is a huge shortage of time, we can cut our expenditure in branded clothes and junk food and donate at least some amount of money to any such honest organization
3. Minimum effort we all can do is to educate at least one child. It sounds hypothetical but is as easy as a cakewalk. Personally I can say whenever I have tried to chat with any of mess worker/ child labor, they were always enthusiastic to study
4. Giving a healthy childhood to everyone is very necessary. I would let you know how. Consider 2 children, one properly brought up in a good environment and the other who lived a typical slum life, now at a later stage both are jobless due to illiteracy. Who do you think would resort more easily to social crimes to earn money? Considering this, our effort should be to give all slum children a life which is full of values and opportunities. Let us start a trend of interacting with young children. Let us talk with them, let us give them a worthy glimpse of this world. We can let them know of this country’s glorious past and make them aware of social challenges. At least we can play with them and help in demolition of these social barriers.
