A Narrow Escape

Hello to my readers after a long long time. I have stayed away from my blog, not because there was nothing to write about, but because I wanted to stay away and not put my two cents into the storms that have been blowing away in our land. This is a period of lull, and perhaps I m inspired again. just for clarification, I did write a blog once last month but somehow it disappeared and I don't feel like writing about the issue for now. Today I want to write about whats on my mind today.

A journalist asked me, why have you started this charity and social work. The question didn't surprise me as I have heard lots of such quizzes since Panaah became a reality in December. Why somebody would want to do something good that won't benefit him or her but will benefit others. Of course there are people who would do things for many other reasons, but as i didn't answer him then, let me tell everybody now. It is because I always wanted to work to help others. I was persuaded to join civil service by my late father, and I ended up excelling in it, but my motivation to join service was that I would be able to do good things and use my power to help people. I did, lots of them, but in this model one is only able to do what is approved, and ordered, and room to do what is right is limited at best. One feels like a cog in the wheel, as somebody once put it. So I made this structure to help others directly. And I feel great about it. Just today I picked up two 7 year old orphans from a Main Market GUlberg Lahore footpath and now Panaah has adopted them. They will go to school, while their single homeless father will gather paper to sell from trashcans, instead of doing this work with him. They will also get clothes and food from us. Atlanta now they have a chance. Life is all about second chances. Happy to be a conduit for somebody. One thing i would like all of us to remember, is that it is not difficult to find people who need our help. Just open your hearts eye and you will see them all around you. These two boys i saw sleeping next to an ATM I went to. One had a bandage on his head which caught my attention and I looked for their father and found their story. He fell down on the pavement and injured his head while following his father around. His head had just a muslin bandage around it,from which his congealed blood could be seen. When I saw him, I felt how it would be if it had been my son alone with his father, nobody to take care of him, if I had just left him and not stuck around after our divorce. It was so awful to think of, it is so awful to contemplate. Atleast in my personal life i have chased away these demons, my family is well settled and happy again, even if not one, my children have learnt to be happy with their parents separately. But the hideous feeling never left me, and I try to help as many children as i can, so that they don't have to suffer in a way that I can and any parent can contemplate. It is really only for my own happiness that I do it. I don't care what anybody thinks , to each their own thoughts, we judge others by our own ideas about what we might have done n why, and the baser the person, the baser the expectations of others. So cynics are really not my concern. Such changes in life come from a loss, and mine did from a loss I narrowly escaped. The way I see my work, is just me stretching out a hand to others to make the same escape. Nothing fills my heart with more happiness.