My Exploritales: The Joy of Giving

Treks are a way of being one with nature,exploring nature and letting your spirits roam free away from the day to day drudgeries of life.During Diwali I thought of joining a novel initiative by treks and Trails India group where they decided to travel to five villages in the interiors of Maharashtra and distribute clothes,food and other necessities.Never the one to have shirked from an opportunity to do something good I registered myself for it.
We travelled to Kumshet by bus and had to carry our own food.This was not a trek but a distribution drive for the villagers.The travel expenses were to be shared by all the participants.Many of the participants of this initiative had already bought lots of stuff to give away like blankets,sarees,clothes,Steel dinner sets,school stationery and Diwali faraal.I had given about two large bags of clothes but unlike some others I had not made any cash donations.So we reached the first village and gathered the crowd at the local school.men ,women and children were really excited to see us all.We had a small tempo following us which carried al the distribution goods.Once there,we did a bit of sorting and arranged the things to be distributed.It was a bit chaotic at times as everyone of the villagers tried to get the maximum from u while we tried to see that each family got their share..We got a person from the family to call out the names of the families and we distributed the goods in turns.It was really satisfying to see the happiness and excitement in the villagers to see their Diwali gifts.They collected them carefully and carried them home.The kids especially were very happy to get the kiddie clothes,story books,school stationery and toys.The wide,toothless smiles on their faces said it all.
We continued the same for three more nearby villages and got the same response from villagers.They were happy to get the things but it was noticed that there was some disappointment too.By the time we reached the third village we had run out of the steel dinner sets so we did not give them away and a couple of villagers asked us why did not give them those.At the last village we were out of sarees so the women folk showed their displeasure at not getting sarees.They lamented that the churidaar sets we were distributing were of no use for them as all they wore was sarees.News really travelled fast in the villages!Before we reached,the villagers got an idea of what the earlier villagers got so they made comparisons.Anyway,we did learn a lot from this drive.It was important to see that we got the things that they really needed.There was no way we could please everyone but it was important to keep trying to do the best for them in every little way we could.The leaders of this initiative made a note of all the factors and decided to have another similar drive in a few months time.After the distribution we had our lunch and made our way back to Mumbai.
For me it was a new experience as barring being with CRY(Child Relief and You) for a few years where I taught underprivileged kids and took adult education classes for women during weekends,I had not done anything like this.It was satisfying.before the actual distribution when the leaders were distributing the stuff,I had a talk with a few children there and found out about their school.They had an elementary school nearby which taught upto STD 5 but later on they had to travel a few kilometres to go for higher classes.They found that very inconvenient.The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan ,an initiative of the Maharashtra government had reached the interior villages and the students got mid-day meals,school books and bags from the school.Almost all the adults toiled in the fields and sadly I did not see anyone,adult or child,even a little on the fatter side.They all looked lean and under-nourished .They wore simple clothes and their houses were simplistic with only the basic necessities.I saw that most of the adults had really bad oral health and I learnt that most of them used tobacco in some form or the other.The kids were low in confidence and very hesitant initially but later on I called all of them in the school area and taught them action songs in Marathi.they were really thrilled to learn the new songs and happily repeated my lines and actions.They also said the numbers 1 to 100 in Marathi for all of us.They were happy to pose for my group friends as they clicked away.It had indeed been an eventful day.It was not an easy task to manage the villagers as we distributed stuff.The excitement was palpable and uncontrollable at times yet we managed.I was happy to be a part of this initiative and make this Diwali special for the villagers and for myself.Came back with happy memories and decided to do something like this very soon again.Hopefully,when others hear of my experiences they too will join a similar initiative and bring smiles on the face of the under-privileged in any way they can.For me it is just the beginning to many more similar initiatives.
Try it,it really works.Make someone happy and see how much happier you feel.