In a world torn apart by strife, violence and war, where the young are raising serious concerns about their future, where the education systems are inadequate or ill-equipped to meet emerging challenges and where cold-blooded, relentless genocide is taking place in one part of the world, one is desperate to tell a positive story.
To read such a story I turned to The Better India magazine… the ‘media for good news and positive stories.’ Its latest cover story and accompanying picture brought an instant smile as it shows women seated before an array of handbags, baskets and other household items made from what appears to be cane or straw. But the text says that 150 Andhra women from Krishna district are “turning a harmful water weed (hyacinth) into handbags, home décor and income.” Kalpana, a local artisan, is deftly converting this harmful and troublesome weed, that rapidly spreads and chokes waterways, and is removed and thrown away, into baskets, lampshades and more. It fetches her a substantial daily income of ₹500–700. The rest of the story explains how this weed was converted into an income-generating activity for women… something that fits right into a Rotary focus area.
Actually one doesn’t even need to look so far for positive stories. Our inboxes at Rotary News, and the subsequent articles in your magazine, also relate so many positive stories of hope and optimism generated by Rotarians across the world, and particularly in India, through their community welfare projects. Take the case of the Rotary Club of Bombay Bay View, featured in this issue (Page 42), where the club members are celebrating their silver jubilee by doing 25 iconic projects. The ones that particularly gladden the heart relate to the welfare of our soldiers posted in the challenging terrain of Kashmir. The members have provided solar lighting in dark areas near the LoC, put up an exclusive gym for them, and have won the hearts of 1,200 jawans by giving them rakhis, thus wrapping them in a bond of affection and caring. As one of the members put it: “This was to assure them that they are not alone; 1,200 women are thinking of them, and saluting them for protecting the nation.”
Takes me back to that morning 30 years back in the Indian Express where I was then the Chief of News Bureau, and had a touring British couple walking in to tell “a positive story”. They said in their country and ours, they found the newspapers full of negative stories, and had come to relate a story of how an Indian Airlines pilot, Captain Shamsher Singh, had skilfully landed an aircraft on a single engine on the challenging runway at Port Blair. The man could tell because he himself was a pilot; “most of the passengers won’t know how quickly and brilliantly their captain had acted to prevent a crash when one engine failed, and had saved their lives. But I could make out and later confirmed it in a chat with the Captain,” he said.
I wrote that story, and had a grateful Captain Singh calling to thank me, and that association turned into a long and valuable friendship, till he sadly passed on last year.
Yes, candles do help to dispel the darkness… till more darkness is created by the evil forces around us. But with Diwali just around the corner, let’s keep lighting those little diyas of hope…
Happy Diwali!
Rasheeda Bhagat