spreading happiness

sadhuji

It was a pleasant surprise to hear a screen personality explaining how he plans to extend assistance to the tsunami victims of the Andamans. His ideas are impressive – whether he is able to carry them out remains to be seen.
He is clear in his mind about what is needed – he sums it all up succinctly. Food, clothing and medicines are a must. Especially for the women and young girls – as one victim said on one of the TV channels – ‘girls need more clothes, for obvious reasons.’

Our Good Samaritan explains the basic needs - prefab houses, water purification plants, portable communication equipment, and electricity generators. He knows that collecting funds to purchase these items and shift them to the site will be time consuming. Therefore, he plans to approach the manufacturers and distributors directly and tie up with them for a comprehensive system by which these can actually move to their destinations.

Whenever disaster strikes, it leaves one and all dumbfounded.

We have seen it happen from time immemorial. We blame every one and every thing. We form help groups, we mobilize public support, and we go from door to door collecting old clothes, blankets and whatever people may like to offer to their needy and less fortunate counterparts. Relief material is shown piling up waiting for transport to move them to the affected areas. But – does it finally reach where it is required? We are familiar with the workings of various departments, we know to what length red tapes can extend to tie into knots the best of intentions. We have witnessed similar scenes over and over again – during summer, we are shown parched wells and dry river beds, we are shown long queues of women waiting their turn to fill up their buckets from the mobile water tankers; during monsoons, the scenes shift to floods – to cattle being washed away, to helpless people clinging to branches of trees, to the minister surveying the damages from his helicopter, to men, women and children running to grab the food packets being air dropped. The mockery goes on unabated – we have become accustomed to ignore all such activities where self advertisement plays a predominant role.

A good husband spreads happiness by helping out in the kitchen by shelling the peas or by skinning the garlic. Sometimes he may even try his hand at peeling onions. A good mother spreads happiness by assisting her children in their studies, by remembering her in-laws on special occasions. We now have a screen personality who is also trying to spread happiness in his own special way. My best wishes to him and all those like him who do not wait for things to happen but make them happen.

Advertisers have mastered the art of selling dreams – why do they not try to extend their sphere of influence by telling us how to spread happiness?

other interesting links:
http://peekayjee28.blogspot.com - destination india
http://peekayjee29.blogspot.com - indian satire
http://peekayjee34.blogspot.com - sweets of india
http://peekayjee35.blogspot.com - festivals of india
http://peekayjee40.blogspot.com - wonder women of india