Philanthropy really matters
Shaadaab S. Bakht
Shaadaab S. Bakht, who worked for famous Indian dailies The Telegraph, The Pioneer, The Sentinel and wrote political commentaries for Tehelka.com, is Gulf Today’s Executive Editor.
- 23 Jan 2020
ON SHARING
Some people, especially the morally coarse, are happy to hitch their destinies to materially galloping values, in return for a life of ceaseless luxury.
But some people see life differently. They believe in giving. Do permit me to discuss some such emulative givers.
The word actually is share. If one understands the meaning of that and nothing else, it’s more than enough. If one doesn’t understand the meaning of that and everything else, it’s not enough at all. And to understand that one doesn’t have to revisit collegiates’ obsession — Communism — and seminaries.
Hardship was simply like the desert where nothing blossomed like aridity
Listening to one’s instinct should do the job because man is divinely designed to share.
A publication long ago had the pleasure of publishing a photograph of a man distributing drinks — tea, coffee and milk — among people who are without shelter during the whole of winter. That’s so nice. But what is really nicer is that the man who finances the extremely humane exercise each year refuses to be identified. He spends hundreds daily on the drinks.
I know one more guy who buys meals for rank outsiders each day of his life. He too prefers anonymity.
However, unadulterated humanity, like the moonbeam, has never been restrained by geography.
Thousands of miles away from here some time back a car came to a halt in front of an orphanage and from it emerged a middle-aged man. He opened the car’s boot and gave away hundreds of presents to the inmates of the home for the unfortunate. He said he did so because he had lost his parents to tuberculosis when he was just 13. He said he understood the inmates’ anguish.
The dark days, not his childhood memories, were over, he said. He added everybody needs help and a little support. A friend helped him a lot to take on the vagaries of existence. The sight of every poor man still depressed him because he felt it was the most destructive of life’s experiences and was often a cradle-to-grave experience for a huge part of humanity.
He said hardship was neither chastening nor educative. It was simply like the desert where nothing blossomed like aridity.
The orphanage was in Los Angeles. The city is certainly not all about casinos, we were thrilled to discover.
In another continent, a man who scooped more than 72 million euros on the Euro Millions lottery decided to give 50 million of his jackpot collection to a charity.
Like all men, who love to share without publicity, the Frenchman too didn’t want to be identified.
The world of the ordinary would have been a painful and a festering wound if the caring played truant.
