So much has happened since my last post. These days the posts are becoming more and more irregular and I have absolutely no excuse for it. A lot of things have happened in the mean time. First of all I finally graduated. Went for my congregation to Hong Kong. Congregation was on the 8th. Was great to see a lot of my old friends. God knows when I will get to see them again. MBA was probably the last chance for me to make friends like these. As we grow older it becomes harder and harder to make really good close friends. We tend to be with our old friends and enjoy the comfort of familiarity. And also when do we really get to interact with new people at close quarters after our days in school? At work, but there the need to maintain a professional appearance does not allow us to develop close personal relationship with most people.
Some of the closest friends in recent times have been thanks to my MBA course in Hong Kong. The reason why I had such a great time during my MBA was thanks to them. The sushi dinners, the midnight snacks of curry fish balls, the debate on world issues, relationships etc, over cups of tea at 2 am, the dancing and partying at Lan Kwai Fong, the Chinese dinners and dim sums, etc. There have been so many days when these guys have helped me through (not to mention the case studies, exam prep, assignments en all). This time when I went with my parents I had the pleasure of giving them a taste of the places (especially the food) that I have liked in Hong Kong. It was such a joy to be able to share some of my experiences with them. And the best part was to see them enjoying it as much as I did.
All the warm after glow of that trip was well and truly wiped off this weekend when the Hurricane Sidor lashed through the country. While all I had to suffer was 36 hours of no electricity, many of my countrymen were not that lucky. As the stories of devastation and despair now starts to trickle in, it is heart wrenching to open the newspaper these days. Can't help but wonder why the people who already have so little or nothing have to be the one to lose the most, to lose everything. What kind of justice is this of nature? How much more can my country digest? Just after two rounds of flood when the farmers losing harvest again and again had just planted the paddy to feed his family, the storm in a matter of hours wiped away the last hope he may have of feeding his family for the next few months. And what about those families where the only earning member is now lost to the storm? Their cries of despair, of hunger, of desolation, it has to echo in our hearts, in my heart, in my peers' hearts. And the cries must translate into concrete action. For too long even I have thought that what can one person do. But I guess one person can make a difference to at least one other person's life. If there are a few thousand of us focusing on each person, that is a few thousand people's lives we can change, few thousand people hunger we can feed, few thousand people's houses we can build.
I intend to do something to make at least one person's life better. I hope someone else decides to do the same. It is so easy to sit in my swanky office talk big things, and plan big plans. But at the end of the day, the person who is now crying after losing everything, if fate had dealt the cards to me, that person could very well have been me. With privilege comes responsibility. I hope I can at least rise up to mine.
Lets hope there are happy occasions in each of our lives all the time when we can be surrounded by our loved ones, with the food we love, and we can all say lets Enjoy!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment