I met a human!

26 February 2009, 8:45 PM

Standing near a little corner shop, off the main road and traffic, I met a human!

An ordinary (please excuse this strong word, but that only portrays the actual condition!), an ordinary man, must be in his 50s, old before age, and with an empty three wheeled pedal came to the shop and bought something. This man, who must have ridden his pedal for the whole day, must have earned merely 100-120 bucks and he has not yet reached home, and not yet reached his loaf of bread. He bought a pack or two of biscuits and for those four dogs roaming around!

I shouldn’t utter a word more…

The Much Needed, Real Effort!

It is an effort of its kind, which also has been made by honorable Gujarat Vidhyapith last year. The second ‘Gandhi Jayanti Gramjivan Padyatra’ organized from 28th September to 2nd October this year. 700 villages were covered, where students, teachers, volunteers from NGOs and so many other people talked with villagers about Gandhian values and ideas of life and to make the people aware.
 Along with connecting rural and urban, it will allow the rural population to really understand their own situation, applying ideas with which they can improve their own lives by staying only in villages. Migration from villages to cities is taking toll on the balance of the population and economy that is where this kind of event can help villagers to know their own capabilities, strength of their own villages and a better life there. There were four basic issues – literacy, cleanliness, panchayat rights and de-addiction to be addressed. Also, it would help to come over rigid rituals, traditions and will encourage women empowerment in each corner of Gujarat. It is known that most of the villages did welcome ‘padyatris’ last year and they appreciated the motive of this ‘padyatra’.
There is a lot of buzz about technical happenings around the city from the Media, addressing issues like what you can do with your mobile Bluetooth, how harmful the mobile towers are, an author caught a guy for not respecting our national anthem. I really appreciate everything coming to the platform in such a new tabloid. But, should we miss such core news? I believe, we must give full coverage to such an event, with photographs, stories and testimonials by media people, going in villages with these teams and participating in this evolutionary event. Only these things will bring the core values and humanity back to the urban and rural people. Roots are being detached, and we must prevent. All the newspapers of different languages should remark and encourage this as a significant event and display that it is not that difficult to spread a message if we really want. “Hats Off!” to the efforts of Gujarat Vidhyapith and the team. Even a few percents of success would turn into gold and nothing else.
Heartily wishes and gratitude for all the ‘padyatris’!

Sarkar Raj – Prerelease

Ambalal Kausty – an active, experienced and a person with involvement in political activities could not get help for his own family from the authorities. (“BJP can’t protect my family”, 25 March, Ahmedabad Mirror) How much assurance ‘Modi Sarkar’ provides that they would protect our families, our daughters
from anti-social elements? Bugle blower of fighting terrorism, Mr. Modi & party appear to be unable of handling the social violence. It is alarming for any of us to be alert and aware of the domestic issues around our neighborhood. It is very usual to find bigheaded individuals in every locality. We ignore such things and our liberal approach towards them is often encouraging for such people, as Ambalal Kausty had their daughter-in-law left harassed by a local garage guy in Kankaria. They were even threatened and attacked with weapons. It’s a shame that even being an active member of a ruling political party Ambalal cannot get justice for his family’s honour. Why should someone even have to use his political connections to protect the women of his family? Are the law system and the police completely handicapped? Does a victim always need a political relation to get protected or to get justice? Common men’s honour and security are at stake, and have no value in this Modi’s hierarchical power planner. You will be served better, how better your relations are! This government is reaching the highest number of rapes, women assaults, child abuses and there are countless little problems around us. “The number of rape offences registered last year in Gujarat jumped from 253 in September to 336, by 2005 end.” (16 Feb 2006, Sourav Mukherjee, TNN). Our faces are still red with the shameful slap of Patan college incident.

A few anti-socials are not just troubling some women or individuals but they are murdering the social dignity in daylight. Any development and technological industrializations are futile when they are ignoring the social security of the citizens, especially of women. No political party or no government had such an extreme dominance over the people and the social system in past, if we talk about Gujarat. We seem to be least secure with our lives, our dignity and our social disposition at present. Human lives have gone cheaper compared to material development. It is also not restricted to the individuals only, there are convicts who are pain for the whole locality, or to the organizations and still they roam free despite of getting charged for serious offences. They get out of jail merely within two days with their political powers. For instance, Gandhi Ashram residents suffer including some local innocent families and even some gandhians too. They are humiliated with the indecent activities around; they are abused with their belongings and bearing the damages to their reputation and businesses. Gandhi Ashram itself is being disgraced falsely by some individuals on regular basis. Ashram trustees are inactive and ignorant even about such serious tribulations in this heritage premises. Spiritless local authorities and political backing to such anti-socials work well and social integrity get killed here every other day. An immense amount of pain spills over when such things happen in a place which is the source of inspiration to non-violence, peace and humanity through the whole world. It is the place which gives Gujarat and Ahmedabad an identity through the world to feel proud of. It is up to us how much should we care about it?

Sneh Bhavsar | 25 March 2008, Ahmedabad

A Little About Lending

India is the place to be. Growing economy, developing businesses and booming employment. Survey said Indian youth seems the happiest in the World and enthusiastic as well, and obviously the reasons are mentioned. They are more financially adventurous than before. India is experiencing lending boom which is a well-known characteristic of an economically growing institution. Banking sector has gone beyond the horizons and we are having a huge number of Business entities providing loans, mortgages and credit services. It has became more easier for a common man to reach his pictured dreams of having a beautiful house in a  suburb, having an A-class car in the front patio and having all technological joy-toys. Where do all these things lead to? Recently, Britain’s Northern Rock has faced a tremendous crisis. They asked the Bank of England to cover the crisis and that means heavy money. Due to the democratic policies it is all transparent to the general public. Hundreds of people queued up to withdraw their life savings and they could not convience themselves even though the British Government assured that their money is safe.

People withdrew nearly 3 to 4 billion pounds in 3 days and more are awaited. Result, it gets worse. Northern Rocks shares are broken by 58%. The government is calling it an international crisis but it is solely a British constitution and it has nothing do with any of the international economic event. The complete blame goes to the Northern Rock management and they did not control the way it went to that stage. And in fact, over 500,000 owe more than 20,000 pounds in one or the other way. (Source: BBC News UK website).
In India, it may be just the beginning. It has happened before as well and we have seen the crowds not the queues in front of broken banks. The scene was significantly smaller. As recently read in a local newspaper, borrowing money from the banking societies and other financial bodies has been easier nowadays. You just have to providing proof of address, proof of identity and salary slips and you will get the loan by end of the day if it is not a huge amount. Financial companies are not the less to do anything to get the customers Who invest the money as well. Home loans, business loans, personal loans and car loans, we know them all. But let’s hear some more, loans for home appliances, electronics, furniture and many more. More amazingly, people are buying cooking oil and grains with the installments like ten rupees a month. People are not hesitated to borrow money for anything. It sounds a positive change if we take the availability of the resources in account, to everyone and it also leads to a standard living style for a common man, but just the external. Consequences are not foreseen yet.

We are not unaware about the outrageous national debt. It is true that we are an upcoming economy but still we don’t have enough resources to cover any huge crisis as such. Financial Companies are making most it, and there is nothing wrong but they must be sure to whom they are lending and how much they should!? Government also must have the control over financial activities around the country. We will not be able to appreciate any crisis as such but till then enjoy the credits; I call it plastic money…

Sneh Bhavsar
London, 21 September 2007