The Necessity of Giving

Last week I finally sent it off.

A room full of stuff, finally sorted & packed .

Clothes. Tee shirts- from fancy labels such as #aero, #abercombie & fitch #american eagle , #benetton etc etc. Jeans from similar, dresses, frocks, salwar suits.

Bedsheets, footwear, utensils, schoolbags, kids trinkets, colour pencils.

Three lovely cartons of books. Wonderful comics, colouring books and , Young literature.

And a big bag full of masks, face shields & sanitizer.

I spent my last weekend sorting & packing it all up. And since i had no intention of sharing it on social media I didn’t take any photos. No #twitter #facebook #instagram posts flaunting a bit of virtue.

All this bounty started because my daughter sorted out her cupboard- and took out an impressive pile of clothes. With the disclaimer- ‘Mom , i am not going to wear these anymore! Don’t say this cost so much, or this is brand new or we got that from XYZ foreign place! Just let it be’

I didn’t have much choice but to accept gracefully. ( she assures me it wasn’t a graceful capitulation) All the while muttering to myself, on precisely those points. We never got so many clothes or any ‘labels’ while growing up ! Etc etc.

That got me thinking. Consequently, i posted , more than once , on my Govt Colony watsapp group. Basically launched a #CollectionDrive.

Happy to report a tremendous response from my neighbourhood. Hence the room full of stuff.

No I didn’t do anything great. And that’s not the point of this post. So many of us are doing so much, such incredible , dedicated & difficult service- in official & non official capacities. For months now. And to each -my salute & respect each day.

Back to Delhi-001 – many of my neighbours, led by the women (obviously) , sent over baskets & bag loads of stuff. It was a gladdening discovery of my own immediate community, formal & distant till now.

We all gave stuff we had & no longer had use for. So in effect , our giving was a favour we did ourselves. Can we all do just that much? And its very sobering to realise how much we indulge ourselves and our kids, simply because buying’ – offline or online is the easiest way of self love or family love. We are most of us, ‘swimming in a sea of material excess,’ as i like to call it. And i know it well , having been a faithful practitioner for years myself. So clearly not claiming any moral high ground here.

But from that what i can say is -Even if you are happy to buy, with money you have earned. Just. Stop hoarding and hanging on to things you don’t actually use but continue to feel the need to own or possess.

Let it go. Look afresh at mundane things in our home with the perspective of how much or how little we use/need them, and how much they might mean elsewhere? No don’t give your junk. Give what is still valuable & useful.

It was a beautiful Saturday. I was happy to send everything to the Uday foundation. https://www.udayfoundation.org/ There are numerous worthy NGO’s that one can send clothes etc to. Please google or do a little research for your city.

So in these arduous #Covid times, take a moment. Sort out your home.. and in the process – your head. Give a little. And better, involve your family, your community, your neighbourhood. Take the initiative- ask people to donate.

Its not a favour to anyone. Only to ourselves. Giving is an imperative for our own soul, our well being and our mental health. An act of self interest. That can help us balance lives based on last century principles of acquisition. A world where we defined our success by the goods & services we could purchase. Or command. And so we filled our & our kids lives with Things. All proud statements of #Arrival.

But now we are older. And perhaps wiser. We can recall wistfully, our parents- their simplicity and their less materially indulgent upbringing.

We now know so much. We know all of what can be bought or not, all of what is expendable & what is eternal. So much that cannot be encapsulated in words or cliches.

Yet, the limitations of things have meaning only to those who have access to them. They (or anything for thst matter ) have disproportionate value in denial or scarcity. This i know unequivocally from my field stints in the ias. Therefore, more important that, each act of giving , howsoever small, might have collateral benefits to society & nation with a huge multipier effect. Imagine a child’s grin multiplied a million times!

Recalling a quote that has rescued me many times from the depths of selfish gloom-

‘For it is in giving that we receive.’ ~ St Francis of Assisi