article by Nikhil

"the art of giving"

- Nikhil Handu

Having made decent strides in financial independence riding on the back of a booming economy, most of us want to give back something to the society, with the only question left unanswered being HOW? This is an underlying change that I have observed between the present crop and citizens of India 10 years ago when giving back to the society carried the rather uncomfortable tag of ‘charity’ and was primarily the fiefdom of the rich and accomplished who could afford to ‘donate’. Herein lays the inherent difference. When your social duties get tags such as ‘charity’, ‘donation’ etc the whole purpose gets defeated. It becomes more of an ego massage than a humbling experience.

The correct manner to give back to the society, in my opinion, is to do your bit and simply move on… not wait for people to take note of your efforts and bask in the adulation that those people may shower for the noble step (not the person, mind it). This is the underlying philosophy of AKSH and something that made me want to be a part of this noble endeavor. Just the mere fact that my small efforts are going to benefit somebody in making a decent life for himself and hopefully his family is rewarding enough, if you ask me.

A group activity like the one AKSH undertakes is of manifold importance. It prevents people like me, who independently would probably not be in a position to support the education of a deserving student, from having an excuse to shirk from their social responsibilities. What AKSH does is collect the good intensions of many like minded people like me and accumulate it to translate into a life changing effect for a person who is the deserving candidate. What such an effort also does rather efficiently and effectively is that it helps weed out personal prejudices/ favorites. I must confess here that this fact did not come to mind till very recently when while interacting with a rather respectable person, in our efforts to mobilize support for our cause, I was conveyed that we must concentrate on a particular set of students and not another set that according to the person very adequately covered by other schemes of the government.

Apart from being appalled, I was singularly amazed at how deep prejudices run in a person that while fulfilling ones social responsibilities one is yet conscious of the fact as to who the final beneficiary is. Herein comes the crux of my present submission, please contribute and help deserving students because you want to help them and not because it is in vogue or because of personal preferences and prejudices. Let us not fall to the trap of putting identification marks on students other than their merit and acumen. I have turned a believer that AKSH and such like efforts can go a long way in rooting out extraneous factors from the noble cause of education.

The cause of educating the future generation is indeed a pious one. This must not be polluted by personal likes and dislikes and must be a practical and without prejudice or passion for a particular set of students. Education has been likened to the spread of light by many wise men – this light does not choose and reach a selected few but bathes everyone without discrimination on basis of caste / creed / color / religion / community (and god-knows-what else).

I have but one thing to share with my fellow travelers on this path ...

We pray to God of wealth and success to remove darkness from our life by way of enlightening the knowledge

Hum toh nikley they akele log judtey gaye aur kafila ban gaya ; So friends lets carry on with this beautiful journey.