The hopes that are not so high

The hopes that are not so high

Yesterday, I went out to celebrate the cheat day, as my ingrown fatty liver issues have led me to improve my lifestyle, specifically my eating habits, where I sit, write, and used to eat all the greasy food that was available in my whole town. I don’t know, maybe I was trying to fill in some void of being left alone. Haah! However, there are much bigger problems in this world, and when I compare mine to others, mine looks negligible. But that doesn’t mean that I am denying the existence of the troubles and the struggles my life holds. It’s just I can’t have keen eyes for myself and am totally blind to others. On the back side of my home. There are a few slums I always fancied watching from my terrace. It started in my preteens, and is still carrying on; watching poverty-stricken life always gave me the benefit of the doubt and existential calamity for some reason I am not aware of yet. There were times when I would glance and observe their lifestyle — until one of these extremely indefatigable people would look up in my direction and might wonder what that creepy woman was gazing at. In my defence, I was just trying to process how difficult it would be for them to deal with such extreme weather, like rainy days or hail, especially with that thrashed shed usually made of bamboo, mud, or straw.

These days, Delhi and the areas surrounding it are showing more hailstorms than ever.

Most of us, especially those who are from tropical and semi-tropical regions, enjoyed those blissful rains, taking away all our stagnant mental pains, and how we resonated our conundrums and agitations with those harsh hailstorms. I did that too, I still do. But the front facet of my house and the back facet of my house are gravely contradictory to each other. One is this egalitarian society with greedy, envious, lethargic, aggressive, pride- oriented, lustful, I guess I have to say, beautiful people. And one is this, ending and beginning at the same time, where people watched by this universe, the rains caused water-logging, where mosquitoes took their pride in increasing their colonies, these people slept under open skies with those mosquito nets hanging on the top of their heads, saving them from what? I guess mosquitoes. Well, I slept like that as I thought the idea of sleeping with no ceiling on my head would be one of the wholesome experiences. So, I slept on my terrace safe and sound with my family to experience that serene beauty of the sky, and beyond the shadow of doubt, it was a wholesome experience for me when I was a child. But now I wonder if I did that for some wholesome experience, and they did it merely out of a need. To which I am pretty thankful for my father, who chose to donate whatever he could every month in those poverty-stricken areas where I tag along, too. And my mother, what can I say about her? She’d spend every single penny she had of my father on the people who were in need, as she feels in abundance. Evidently, I inherited this unusual trait from my mother.

I can still recall that heartfelt memory when I distributed these scrumptious samosas for the first time to the people who lived not in my egalitarian society but on the grounds with those tin or bamboo roofs. The happiness on their faces was unimaginable. I felt that urge to cry at that time, and I held those tears back in my eyes after seeing that tiny shimmer of hope in their eyes.

Well, you don’t have to walk on the terrace, back and forth, and make yourself more existential than you already are. Non-profit organisations like Unessa Foundation are doing a lot, they just need your help to help the ones in need.

Now, visit their website to know more about their mission to help the underserved communities across India:

https://unessafoundation.org