Monday, February 15, 2010

Hope for the Dreamers

It takes a village to change one's life. Well, tonight I saw  a village full of people who can change lives. The location was Esquire Grill, Sacramento and the mission was to raise money for a school in Pabna, Bangladesh. If someone mistakes the gathering as one of those from Sunset boulevard then hardly anyone can blame him. The contrast between the wealth of this crowd and the unimaginable poverty of the people, this party had thrown for, was so big that no one can imagine any connection between these two. Even the cumulative wealth of this hundred some people can easily shy the budget of the whole country that claims Pabna.

Four of us were invited by the host of the event and the president of the organization ,who is a student of my roommate, learning Bengali . It takes quite a luck to be an eye witness of the jaw dropping effort, people were making in this distant land, for the handful of poor school kids none of whom have ever met this crowd nor has any possibility of meeting them in near future.We were awfully surprised and overwhelmed by the effort, our host was taking to make us comfortable there. Even though its open bar had the finest collection of wines I couldn't reach the bartender for the second times; partly because I wanted to absorb the enthusiasm of this crowd in sane mind but mostly because of the guilty feeling of not contributing even a single penny to the cause.

So here is the host of tonight, Chrysa, some twenty years old college girl,  in her dazzling salwar thanking all the guests for their presence.  She has a slender face and a body with pleasing features of womanhood. Her defined collarbone was evident even in the faint light of the restaurant. In the opening speech she was sharing her passion about the kids from the school they are working on. Enthusiasm was shooting through her pores. She was acknowledging that  it was her father's  wealth that gave her the confidence to invest herself in such an extraordinary mission. But we all knew that, what it takes to withdraw oneself like  her from the  indulgence of American life and changing lives in a land where none of her friends could imagine themselves in their early twenties. In a distant, standing with the dinner plate, I was feeling poor and even poorer in heart.

One can be very certain that half of these people are  more concerned about their tax savings due to the charity that they made and most of them even unaware of the tiny existence of that small village called Pabna in Bangladesh; But at the end of the day nothing matters as long as these hundred people can change the future of those school kids; as long as they can give them the dreams and hopes they deserve.

Chrysa told us that tomorrow she is taking a flight to Bangladesh to meet the school kids. None of us from tonight's crowd will be there. But I can easily imagine the faces of those kids when they will see Chrysa; I'm sure their faces  will  enlighten with hope; their faces will be far shiner than the faces of tonight's crowd.


3 comments:

  1. your style is good..it reflects your passionate thoughts, but it would have been a better read if you put some humor into your writings.

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  2. thanks for the feedback guys...I'll try...:)

    ReplyDelete