Vision of Life; by Sanjay: Ek Diwali Bina Hungerwali!

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” … Mahatma Gandhi.

No need to introduce this name though of-late the great man’s name is mostly correlated with wrong things for e.g. Note i.e. currency & when the entire country awaits its biggest festival Diwali, you must be wondering why I used this quote of his to start my sharing! Well because while all the news papers are full of advertises of sale of every sort of commodity, bikes to watches to clothes & yes sweets too, we as usual forget to take notice of a news which was carried on inner pages under the burden of full page advertises & that was, our dear country ranking 102 in the list of 117 countries for most hungry stomachs! Great, isn’t it as I don’t know how else to react because on one side we are busy in deciding what we should do (read buy) this Diwali & make ourselves as well our family & friends happy by gifting them something wonderful but at the same time we have millions of people (who are our countrymen only) with empty stomachs & they don’t care for Diwali as they just worry for their today’s meal!

This is why I recalled Bapu’s quote & now I want to ask each of us, do we deserve to celebrate Diwali with loads of shopping, which in most cases is just because we have the money to shop! Let me be clear, I am not a Saint neither I want to make your mood dark by such philosophy, as each of us has his or her own struggles (read as problems) & if because of some occasion which we call a festival, we are going to forget our problems & be happy for a while, with some shopping which we can afford; then who the hail I am to object it, is the question many of the readers may ask & they are right! I am not saying don’t celebrate, don’t shop or don’t spend on sweets & chocolates & don’t make your close ones happy by gifting them, all I am saying is while doing so just try to make one hungry stomach gets rid of its hunger! And you can see many of hungry faces around; all you need is, just think for one such face!

Friends, Diwali comes every year & by the grace of god most of us don’t need any occasion to shop or eat at exotic joints but for millions of people, Diwali just comes & goes, as for these people there is no such thing as festival, all they know is survival & that too by day to day! And at Sanjeevani we also started celebrations with Diwali Faral (eating snacks together with family & friends) but with all those associated with our work, clients, vendors, contactors & yes even the labors at site. We had one more guest with us & she was Sharada Sawant, a lady auto-riksha driver in Pune. She lives ina home near ambil odha (its 10ft x 8ft room) which accommodates her two kids & parents. This year’s monsoon floods saw her home got submerged with 10 ft high water, destroying whatever the family has. So we decided to help her financially, whatever we can from our side & make the family joins us in diwali faral. To our pleasant surprise, Vidarbha Wasi Pune Niwasi Sangh team (an organization for natives from Nagpur region in Pune) also joined hand & helped from their side financially to her, making our belief grow strong that a good work always gets supported by the society & there is still lot of goodness around!

I didn’t shared story of Sharada Sawant here to tell how great or philanthropic we are but just to make people know, a lot can be done on Diwali for the real needy ones, along with our fun & shopping. Just give a try & see how more joyful your Diwali can be & then we live in a world where bad things gets publicity very easily & that’s the main reason we start thinking world has gone bad; so, sharing good things around is one sure way to curb the badness around, is what I personally think!

Many will say, what’s our fault if so many people around are with empty stomach or there are thousands of people who has lost their homes in disasters like floods & such lists of unfortunate souls is unending, what we can do about it! We have our problems & we do pay our taxes, so what the govt is doing & why we should be upset on festival thinking of all such people which is not our responsibility! Again you are right, its not your fault that there are so many hungry stomachs’ around but let me ask you, does our responsibility ends at paying taxes to the govt? Are we just identified by our Pan-Card number or the post we are working at & have we forgotten that we are a human being also, which makes us blessed with a quality named as humanity! And if we consider ourselves as humans then what are we doing to deserve being called as humans! So, friends, this Diwali while you make yourself as well your close-ones’ happy, just make someone joins you in celebrations, who isn’t lucky to have a spending brother, sister or a friend like you are! It will be great if you do it for ever (read year long) but then however long journey it may be, yet it starts with a small step, isn’t it? Let’s make this Diwali that small step towards a hunger-free world & then you have earned your celebration in true sense!

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at U-Tube link below..

https://youtu.be/al0NZ-7Zhq0

Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)

http://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2018/08/pune-city-no-1.html