Credit : Nakul Arora (a piece of his experiences during his volunteer service in utrakhand....)
I recently volunteered for the relief work for Goonj in Uttrakhand flood relief. For distribution of food items, i went to Kalsi block, near Vikasnagar where Amla, a tributary of Yamuna had changed its course and thus, cut through two villages. It had totally reduced to rubble 18 houses. I reached the village Inderpuri at around 4 pm with a truck-load of material that Goonj had sent to be distributed with the help of a local organization.
The villagers all gathered and sat around our truck while a local person started calling out their names one by one for them to come up. Some villagers didn't even have gunny-bags(boris) to take the rations in and thus, were taking them up in their clothers(Sarees, t-shirts, chunis). I, being from a middle class urban family had never seen people line up and wait like this for food to be distributed. However, the part that shook me the most came when it suddenly started raining heavily. We had to stop the distribution to prevent the dry rations from going waste.
We requested the villagers to seek shelter from the rain and that we would start once again as soon as the rain stops. However, to my complete horror, most of them just refused to leave. They kept standing there through the heavy rain just out of the fear that we might suddenly decide to leave. It was around 8 in the night and to see villagers standing there waiting for rations in rain and pitch dark shook all my beliefs about poverty and life.
For the first time, i saw what hunger can do to a person and how little a significance big words of intellectuals have for a person who's family is hungry.
I am yet to fully understand and imbibe the true impact of the experience upon myself but, i will surely remain grounded for the remainder of my life.
(just writing big words of intellectuals while in comfort zone ...sometime may be in virtual mental stress(love,loveless stories and why me question ) ...it is not enough...there way more thing in this world then a aura we created....come out from virtual world of words and open your eyes in order to see.... most of the time we just write big words ...just short term emotion write few words and forget ...because we didn't actually the victim or we are not actually the part of situation....Sometime we have to act rather then just writing and feeling that aha i have done my duties .... it is not just about this natural calamity thing....its about our day today life be it dirty politics or eve teasing or any other problem ...be a responsible person ....do not just write big intellectual words ... we should ACT too..)
