Challenges Of Poor And Our Responsibility

Sometime back ago I was having breakfast in a cafeteria. While eating, I could see a man seemingly from a very low socioeconomic background accompanied by his wife and two children – both merely seeming under 10 years of age. The man made his wife and two children sit on chairs around a table – as usually available in cafes or cafeterias. The man bought a bottle of juice hardly of around 30 rupees and went to sit on a chair along with his three family members. On completing one ounce of juice, one member of the family was passing the bottle to another member for their ounce and so on till the juice in the bottle would finish. The two little children were helplessly with innocent eyes looking on the people who were passing by with their friends and family – some carrying delicious food , some with high quality snacks, chocolates, ice creams and other food stuffs , costing to lucrative amounts on average.
On seeing this heart – melting scene, I could remember the first ‘aaya mubarka’ from Holy Quran – IQRA ( meaning ‘read’). IQRA does not only mean to read books, gain/acquire knowledge besides it means to analyse and read scenes like this in our society. You have to read them, approach to them and offer a voice to their voiceless signs of helplessness. If our children deserve a chocolate of 100 rupees, won’t these voiceless children deserve a chocolate of just 10 rupees? Many of you would be witnessing such scenes in your day to day life but have you ever read them ? Dear friends we are blessed by Almighty Lord with bountiful of blessings and surely it is our responsibility to take care of the poorer sections in our society. We have to become the voice of voiceless. Let us make a commitment together to offer them the foods they want whenever we witness such scenes in our society.
(The author a Medical Practitioner at SMVD Narayana Super Specialty Hospital, Jammu is also a motivational speaker, activist,columnist and a top educator awardee. Views are his own)
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