Charity begins in the heart

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 27 July 2012

Back in India, it is common practice to ‘(p)reserve’ leftover food from the previous days for the house help or the roaming alms taker.

In many orthodox families, these leftovers are assigned a special place, at bottom most tray in the refrigerator and sometimes out in the open, for, their consumption or even sharing of space with the day’s fresh cooking is taboo, and is vehemently opposed by the elders of the family. However, with the passage of time and widening of views, the religious aspect has bowed out and now this theory and practice of handing out leftovers and old, used out things to the ‘poor and needy’ has acquired a whole new aspect.

Once, a woman relative who had pushed food from the previous week into the innards of her refrigerator and gone on a trip handed it out to her maid servant when she chanced upon it a week after she returned home. With a look of glowing satisfaction over her charitable ways, she exclaimed, “What a blessing that we have someone to give these leftovers to! Else the whole thing would have gone waste. It is one good meal for these poor things and I am glad I am feeding them. It is still not rancid, you see.”

I blinked hard. Did she mean to sound pleased to have not wasted the food, or vain over her largesse, or was she merely shaking off a secret guilt of dumping something that was inedible for her family, but could mean a feast for the poor woman’s children?

“I am not sure if they should be having it. If it is not good enough for you or me, it isn’t good enough for them either.” I must have sounded oddly ecclesiastical and moralistic, but I spoke my mind.

“Oh, they are used to it. A little here or there doesn’t matter to them. They will add some spice, boil it and refresh it. It is better than throwing it in the bin. It is filling some empty stomachs, after all.” I gulped emptily, as she spoke those words of vindication.

Come to think of it, haven’t we all been agents of pseudo philanthropy at some time or the other? Remember how when we were asked to cough up relief material for the flood, tsunami, earth quake or famine affected people around the globe, we stuffed bags after bags of overused, frayed clothes that we had no place to keep in our house? How many times have we been guilty of finding relief appeals a means to get rid of the rubbish choking our closets, sometimes disposing even inner wear and towels! I have witnessed volunteers at pains to sift through mounds of refuse, separating the truly usable from the trash. Does it take too much of good sense to know that it is to real, living people like you and me, people at a disadvantage in a world of imbalances for no fault of theirs that we are passing this junk to in the name of charity?

For once, in this season of giving, let us get reasonable for the sake of our own conscience. Let us give only if we really have the heart to help and not to clear clutters or gain an ego high. What is old and decrepit to us is so to those whom we give. What is unpalatable or worse for wear to us is so to them too. Depositing bags full of unusable refuse makes a mockery of the fine virtue of charity. Let’s not wait for the use by date to pass. Let’s feed when the food is still fresh, clothe when the cotton is still crisp; let’s count those to whom we give as human beings made of the same elements and sensibilities as we are.

Wishing you pest of luck

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 19 July 2012

 

It is the season of pests. The weather in town is getting cozier for the creepy crowd to swarm into our homes, no matter how well swept, mopped and disinfected. The sightings of three bed bugs and some other romping creatures in our house last month openly challenged the hygiene quotient of my immaculate home and freaked me out of my wits. Of all the intruders, the most wicked is the bed bug - the nocturnal vampire that sets shop and proliferates as if there were no tomorrows.

I clearly remember the night it first registered its presence home. An itch on my elbow, followed by another. As the island grew on my arm I knew there was something on the prowl in the bed. I looked in the dark at the snoring bulk next to me, unsure if I must stir him out of sleep.

Something just bit me, I said shaking him.

Nothing bit me. You must be imagining, he mumbled when I tried again.

Imagining? You don’t imagine such things. Look here, I said, stroking the island on my arm.

He pulled the blanket and turned to the other side.

Frustrated with my attempts to wake him up, I turned the lights on. The sudden glare forced him to sit up and squint at me, irritation galore.

Get up. I want to check the bed, I said urgently.

I pulled the pillows and blankets out, flapped them hard, peered into the bed and then saw the frolicking, little pest against the pristine fabric.

There! Get him, I screamed.  By now wide awake, hubby boy swooped down on the devil and crushed it, leaving a brilliant red spot on the sheet.

That’s my blood, I squealed with horror as if I had just survived an attempt on my life.

Least amused by my theatrics, hubby boy slumped and picked up his sleep and snoring from where he had left off.

Turn the lights off when you are done, he droned.

I failed to fathom why in the world the bug had picked on me while the guy next to me slept like a baby, oblivious to the presence of the terror elements in our midst. Wallowing in the self pity of being a soft target, I lay awake, shuddering at the slightest tingle against my skin. A strand of hair, the fold of the sheet, the air from the AC, everything made my skin creep. Fear, when given some leeway, doesn’t just mar your sleep; it wrecks your sanity and causes brain damage.

Get the pest control guys immediately, I said the next morning. I‘m sure there are more guys holed up in there and we must flush them out ASAP, I said with the gravitas of a homeland security chief. And so, the commandoes arrived, armed to the hilt, to evict the evil creatures.

Our home is now sanitized. But the scourge and its lieutenants will creep back, I am sure, once the vigil slackens and the effect of the operation wears off.  It is impossible to wipe out evil completely, but that can’t push me into a state of perpetual fear, can it? You can’t stop taking the public transport or going to restaurants and hotels or giving clothes to the laundry for the fear of bed bugs. Just as you can’t stop eating out because of a recent report of food poisoning, or stop leaving your home because some house in the neighbourhood was broken into, or stop flying because you read about underwear bombs, or simply stop living because the new world is fraught with danger. Life has to go on, picking its way through the warren of apparent risks, genuine threats and perceived fears. Some precaution and prayer can help bolster our confidence. The rest is destiny, for, if anything can go wrong, it probably will.

Gifts from the Gulf

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 2 July 2012

I REMEMBER a time, several years ago, when I used to look forward to the visits of a maternal uncle and a family friend from the Gulf.

The two men would come once in two years with goodies — colour pens, perfumes, dresses in garish colours and wild patterns and once even a chain with a locket watch. The distinct foreign scent that wafted out of the packet took my breath away as I gratefully accepted whatever came with it, doing nothing to hide my toothy glee, although mom and dad protested to the gifting that by then had become a happy routine.

My sister and I wore the pleated skirts and twirled like ballerinas, sprayed the scent all over us, slung the mini purse from abroad on the shoulder, peppered our speech with accent and acted like foreign madams. Those were days when gifting wasn’t mere posturing or formality; it was a gesture that was imbued with a sanctity largely missing today. Much as it was a ritual to carry presents when one visited relations and friends on a vacation home, there was a genuine sentiment of joy in both giving and receiving, no matter how big or small the present was. Even scented erasers and 3D rulers were prized possessions to flaunt in school.

Cut to the new age. Consider taking paint boxes and Chinese toys to the young ones and be prepared to be damned and shamed. And, why not? The things you take home, those little things that once made your day, are now on display at the nearest variety store back home, thanks to China. “Oh, we have this in the store here. Cheap things. I had hoped you would get me an I-pod Touch,” the little fellow mumbles. And then as if to belittle you, he lists the things his maternal uncle from the US had brought in the previous year. His slightly older sister then dumps the dress you thought was ‘oh, so pretty and princess like’ and didn’t even buy at a sale by saying, “I don’t wear these sort of clothes. Moreover, it is not my size. I don’t want it!”

Chocolates, the less said the better. “You either get us Ferrero Rocher and Lindt or nothing,” the boy quips. Older lads prefer laptops and smart phones, young girls are confused about their choices, their parents cast aside (albeit discreetly) smaller stuff along with the love you tucked inside and there are those who remark, “We get better dry fruits here these days, although expensive.”

Very well. Get them if you like, you want to say, but you don’t. You want to say that things are pricey there too and buying expensive presents isn’t even a remote proposition to you, but you don’t, because you can’t talk about dearth, deficit and downturn to folks who now watch cricket on LEDs, drive SUVs and whose children wear uber cool clothes and accessories. To a majority back home, a guy in the Gulf is always in plenty, enjoying manna from heaven, no matter which way the world goes. They won’t believe that you haven’t got a bonus or a raise in three years, that your tax free income doesn’t pack in as much as it used to, that you live in the perpetual fear of the pink slip and that life abroad is no more what is used to be.

It is not about presents anymore, it is about meeting their expectations. It is not about the sentiment that you pack in, but the worth of what is inside. It is not about what you think they might like, but their newfangled preferences. We are fully conscious of it, yet as creatures of habit and slaves to a tradition, we scramble from store to store, looking for bargains and means to fill our vacation bags, eager to please but never quite measuring up, time after time