Think Before You Act

There’s much to be said about a head of state visiting a first-world country in the headlines of every newspaper/television channel.  However, pretty much nothing remains said about the millions left in the country for whom basic amenities are still such a rarity that they couldn’t care less if a leading software company has decided to provide laptops for youth in their village.  Chances are they’d rather sell these laptops for a month’s worth of rations or to pay off outstanding debts instead.

Here’s the thing – while it’s easy to promote your social cause by talking about the numerous computers you are providing a certain village, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that village actually needed consistent electricity to use those computers in the first place. 

Figuring out what you want to donate is easy enough, but finding the people who actually need it takes a little more.  Organizing a ‘run for life’ walkathon sounds fantastic – but really whose life?  Considering the numerous hungry mouths to feed or three patients sharing one bed at the ‘isolation ward’ in the General Hospital – does this walkathon mean much if the city’s finest are walking for a call to cull stray dogs? Think before you walk.

Much like the idea of donating a huge meal to the old-age home around the corner - might sound perfect in theory, but take a moment longer to think more along the lines of whether these old-age home residents could actually handle such heavy food.  Chances are most residents barely have dental work left to manage chewing heavy meals, let alone a digestive system that could take in such rich food – consider what their caretakers would have to deal with because of a sudden change in their diet.  Donating money towards weekly rations, providing monetary funds for a week’s/month’s worth of supplies of medication or even basic items for personal hygiene probably works out the same as that one meal you want to give.  Working out which makes more sense is not rocket science here.

While it certainly takes a kind of genius to get into one of India’s premier technology institutes, it doesn’t take one to figure out how much the country still needs in terms of infrastructure and basic amenities.  It doesn’t take much to estimate the number of children going to sleep hungry, the number of villages where there are no jobs to provide income from or the families who own not even a pair of shoes.

This is what we hope The Ashoka Tree makes you do - Think.