Save our world

Celebrating the spirit of the 79th Independence Day on the 15th August ,  Republic Channel was telecasting the achievements of ordinary people like you me by presenting their contribution and interviews throughout the day. I myself had several engagements on that day, including elaborate Independence Day celebrations in our society and could, therefore, only catch up the aforesaid telecast in bits and pieces.

There’s this person in Delhi who’s teaching a group of underprivileged children from the nearby slums under the protection of a flyover. He has been doing so for past several years. Once the students coached by him reach a certain level of literacy, he takes them to the nearby government schools that admit these children to an appropriate level, depending on their proficiency. He has not taken a single rupee in donation and his feat became famous when PM Modi mentioned him in one of the editions of his “ Mann ki Baat”.

A sarpanch from Rajasthan, upon sad demise of his young daughter, took to planting Kadam trees in his village and neighbourhood. He also made it a mission to plant 111 trees for each girl child born in the village. The result is that the water table that had dipped to thousands of feet in the area has now come right upto the surface and the proportion of girls to boys has improved by 52% in the last few years that the mission started. The sarpanch has become an icon in the area, inspiring several other such stories and for this remarkable contribution of his, he has been honoured with Padmashree award.

A young boy from the local poor family in a village in Assam, started planting bamboo trees after his village faced repeated devastation following the floods and landslides. And over the last 4 decades, his bamboo plantations have become a forest spread over 1300 hectares, attracting birds and beasts and protecting the local village from nature’s curse. He has also been a Padma recipient.

I am sure when these people started their respective mission, the last thing on their mind would have been personal glory or recognition in the form of a Padma award. It was just the selfless spirit to protect humanity, nature, girl child, environment etc and their humble beginnings resulted in such impactful outcomes !

Instead of spending unending hours on social media, posting interesting ( sometimes not so) posts and reels, awaiting reaction to these, reacting to others’ posts and joining conversations (sometimes very acerbic),  I am making sincere effort to regulate my engagement time on social media and looking for something where I can voluntarily offer my services. It may never reach the levels of above mentioned angels, but at least some effort can be made in this direction . I welcome inputs/suggestions from my connections.