TIME TO CHANGE

There is a deadly disease which is threatening our country. A vicious virus slowly eating us from inside. Corruption. No one is immune from its far reaching rabid hands. Few are ignorant while many don’t even know that they are the hapless victims of this monster. There are countless instances where the hard earned lifelong savings of poor and illiterates are swallowed by the merciless blood suckers at each and every step. The sad part is that the victims because of lack of basic education are so naïve that they don’t realize that they are being cheated.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Be the change you want to see in the world”. One example of that is Nagarajiah. In my village, Anagadanahalli on the outskirts of Bangalore there was an old illiterate man, who not knowing any better had signed the deed for his land to a landlord thinking that it was a written request by the villagers to the government for water supply. He lost his ancestral property and his only source of livelihood. His very young son, Nagarajiah had to struggle at each and every step of his thorn riddled childhood. The teacher of the village, seeing the plight of the boy took care of his education. The boy grew up and left the village. He worked all night and got himself to law school and became a lawyer. He went back to the village and won his land back after toiling for years. He then took up farming. He also created awareness among other farmers, helped and counseled them in their myriad problems by educating them. He became an inspiration not only to me but to the entire village. If we could help the many illiterates, young or old, in making them understand their own fundamental rights they could at the very least safe guard their own property. I have started to educate the people from my village. To quote Mother Teresa, “Though I can’t change the entire world at least I can be the stone which when thrown forms ripples”. Hope that we all can get inspired by many such motivational leaders and spare some time in creating awareness and do our bit in ridding our country of this virus.

This is my entry for Stayfree Time to change contest on Indiblogger - http://facebook.com/sftimetochange