It was a windy October afternoon.
The sun was right overhead and the sky was clear. I set off for a site visit
for the “FARMFRESH” project. The target audience for this project is a group of
marginalised migrants from poverty ridden eastern Uttar Pradesh. These people,
in search of food and shelter have settled on rented lands from big Landlords
in the basin of river Sutlej in Punjab. But their condition still remains the
same. Now they have some land and job (farming) to do but this has never been
sufficient to give them a better living condition.
On the way to the site visit, I
kept thinking about how we, the team Enactus, can make a significant change and
bring smiles to the faces of these people. Exploring these thoughts I finally
reached this community. They don’t have proper houses, not even mud houses.
They live in huts. When I reached there, I saw the entire family; ranging from
the oldest in the house to the youngest offspring, from the male to the women;
working in the field. I was surprised to see this unity, or in other words the
essence of staying together with your loved ones, the feeling of being in
concert.
Next thing which perplexed me was
the way we were greeted. These people cook their food on “Chullahs” with the
help of dunk cakes or wood. And as this involves lot of effort, they prefer to
cook food only twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. But seeing us
two young girls ran back from the field and set on fire the “chullahs” right in
the afternoon (leaving all their important works) in order to prepare tea for
us. This big heartedness surprised me. It took me several days to digest this
that this family did this for my team, whom they barely knew. For the first
time I saw the famous words of Hindu mythology “Our guest are like God” being
followed with pure heart. They
didn’t have the resources to greet us but still they had the heart and the feeling,
and made best use of what they had.
The above two things mentioned
are not big issues but in today’s industrialized and fast pacing world, these
things are surely missing from many of our lives. The small but essential
faculties are very essential to make one good human being and for well being of
society and nation. Thus whenever we realize this, we should include in our own
constitution of life. I felt it and have incorporated in mine and hope that all
the readers will do in there’s.
- Manjeet Yadav (Secretary of Finance)
