I stopped and stared in shock. Those around me also stared, but they were not looking at what I saw, they were looking at me. “What’s wrong?” asked a friend.
“How could this happen here?” I asked.
We were in Manhattan, the financial capital of the US. It was near midnight and we were returning from the theatre after watching a Broadway show along with the rich and famous. As we walked outside I’d seen the man. He’d wrapped himself with cardboard boxes and was trying to keep warm, sleeping on the windowsill of a closed store. New York gets chilly in the night and he had used those boxes to keep the cold away.
“But you have lots of poor in India,” said somebody in the group, not happy with the way I was looking at the poor man.
“We are a poor country!” I said.
Yes, it’s not unusual to see dozens, sometimes hundreds of people sleeping on the pavements in India. They have nowhere else to lay their heads. In Mumbai, every square inch of space comes at a premium and finally it’s the pavements that make their beds for them.
But in New York!
Even as I touch New York, I am going to move away from there. My reason for writing this piece is not to criticize the American, but to look at that same callous part of the affluent American we all have in us.
A few years ago, in a housing society in the financial capital of our country a chairman passed a resolution that every member pays fifty rupees a month that would be used as a fund to educate the children of the support staff; the ones who swept the colony, the watchmen, those who pumped the water, etc. The next day, many rich members who had not attended the meeting walked over to the chairman’s house and protested, “How could you do this? You think we have nothing else to do with our money, but support the poor?”
Just fifty rupees!
It’s not far you have to look to find the poor. There are many cardboard boxes around us with people trying to stay alive with what little they have, while riches surround them.
Step across, take their shivering hands in yours and give them hope. Lift them up, educate their children, maybe, buy them a fan for the summer heat, ask them what they need and lift them out of the box into a warm world you create for them..!
—————–
Would love to hear from you in the COMMENTS section below…and IF YOU WANT TO RECEIVE BOB’S BANTER EVERYDAY, PLEASE SEND YOUR NAME AND WHATSAPP PHONE NO TO [email protected]
————————————————–
ENROLL…
…Get trained by the very person whose article you just read! Don’t wait! Send a thumbs up for details to 9892572883 and let Robert Clements train you in his easy and comfortable way Let the power of WORDS spoken and written effectively and forcefully, change your life! Join the Writer’s and Speaker’s Course, August Batch TODAY! Send a thumbsup to 9892572883 now!
Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and writes a daily column, which has graced the pages of over 60 newspapers and magazines, from a daily column in the Khaleej Times, Dubai, the Morning Star, London, and in nearly every state in India, from The Statesman in Kolkata, to the Kashmir Times in Kashmir to the Trinity Mirror in Chennai.
It is not easy to lift the poor out from the cardboard box even if there are thousands of people burning their money on any useless thing!
Don’t understand what you mean. Send me a message on [email protected] and I’ll help show you ways we can start lifting them out of their boxes doctor!
We need not look beyond our doorstep to help. We can always start by being generous with the maid and catering to her family. This alone would go a long way in helping the less fortunate .
I am sure many are already doing this.
Box life is prevalent through out the globe. Nothing to be shocked about Bob. Just the degree varies and you can mitigate that by seeking Jesus face and he will help you live and think out of the box. Seek Him and all things will be added unto you.
My mom,a housewife, was loved by maids because she was so generous. She and her sister taught poor children of the illiterate neighbours, fed the family and even in a home for the aged retired teachers have taught poor children, paid the fees of the caretaker’s children.My sister too paid her driver’s children’s fees.
God in His infinite wisdom created the world providing sufficient resources for everyone and made us custodians of His wonderful creation. However, caretakers soon began to consider themselves owners and need turned to greed leading to severe disparity in the distribution of resources and creating categories of rich and poor. If we come to our senses and remember our role of being mere custodians and display compassion and generosity, the chasm between the rich and the poor will soon cease to exist.