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i had two posts that i had originally contributed on another blog..i am forwarding these on my personal blog to save the bandwidth of the blog that had graciously hosted them for past few months...these niceties are rare and i am grateful to the owner/moderator.

so the following being re-blogged here without moderator's consent

siddharta
Posted on www.pakpositive.com/specials by Deevaan on 11 January 2005

these days every street corner in karachi has 4 or 5 year old kids standing on the corner begging for food or money...breaks my heart every time i see them barefoot begging in this unkind weather....

i guess that the recent onslaught is due to eid being round the corner...you want to look the other way but as a parent it is hard to say no to their innocent faces......i remember that about 10 years ago i was a designated driver and after dinner, i was to give a ride home to one of my father's oldest friends....oldest not only from baba's association with the gentleman but this guy was quite old (priase the lord he is alive and kicking at a ripe old age of 92)

...in any case...i was at my best behavior and as i waited at the traffic light to turn right towards jinnah hospital where the old man lived....there was a lady with a baby begging at this light and she did her khuda kay vastay routine...i may not have looked at her at all or may have shoo-ed her away...so the old man goes...."my son, a very long time...

there was this prince who saw suffering all around him when he stepped out of his palatial environs for the very first time and he feels deep remorse upon being told that most people in the kingdom had little to eat and no roof over their head...he is disconsolate and broken hearted...so much so that he decides to turn his back on the life of luxury...he bids farewell to his family and heads to the jungle and spends rest of his life making routine the suffering that everyone in the kingdom experienced every day .... this was prince sidhharta and once he reached enlightenment it inspired a whole movement that is now a religion"...

it must have been close to midnight and there was not a soul in sight...and i wondered what made the gentleman think on the lines where as i was oblivious of the lady asking me for money how many of us even give it a second thought that the person asking for help may not have had enough to eat...every day i keep saying to myself...not to judge them because often we do..some of them maybe con-artists but what about the baby in the lap...one can leave ambivalence about religion on one side and try to make a little change in their lives even for a day by paying for a single meal...

becoming sidhharta is a hard act to follow but little gestures can surely make a difference....