A Cultural Difference ?

After watching Dishanirdesh that was aired on July 12, 2012 episode; it got me thinking really hard. That particular episode covered the life and work of Dil Shova Shrestha. She sure has a lot to share from her personal side and and lot to give including her life for the others who need her help. A Complete devotion of her life to those who need her help more than she needs them in her life.

She herself does not come from very well-to-do-family family back ground to give all what she has. Instead it's not enough to give all what she has to meet all the daily cost, that is needed to run her charity work. She has sheltered 85 people in her own home and then provides all the other needs in their life as much as she could. Forty estranged old ladies mostly she picked them up from the street or some police felt sorry after seeing them on the street left them at her ‘Aama Ghar’, and forty five conflict affected children from Karnali Zone.

To my knowledge till date, I do not know; I mean read or heard of a rich person devoting his/her life to a cause which is as big as what Dil Shova Shrestha is doing. They just give money to help. But they do not give life for such a big cause like that, unless and until they themselves have gone through, the tragic phase as Dil Shova Shrestha had been through.

Leave all this aside this is not what I saw when I watched this show. From my angle, I see there was lots of tear and lack of money and besides all that she is running her good deed without expecting anything from anyone. She takes it happily when somebody gives it to her. It could be a person or a  government. She however do not believe or practice in going out and asking [raising ] money for what she is doing.

As a child, who grew up in Bal Mandir, it was very uneasy kind of feelings for me to watch her teary story. No, not when she was sharing about her personal tragedy but specially when she had to cry fearing that her house that shelters 85 people might go under hammer. A friend of her put that house as a collateral saying only for couple of months but its her house that has to go under hammer. Every time she sees the notice on daily it hurt her so much the tear flows freely from her eyes. About a year ago Finance Minister, Bharat M. Adhikari allotted to give her two million [ 20 lac ] but it was the Samaj Kalyan Mantralaya, who scraped it to one million [10 lac ] only saying they have to distribute it to others also. That amount was given to her so that her house won't be on this list of auction list of bank. Remember, she never used that money for her own use or for her charity work. That scrap mentality of Samaj Kalyan Mantralaya is made me only think. Who others ? are there any other who is doing this kind of worship all on her own ? Which other person shelters that huge number of dependant ? I doubt it and I truly doubt the intention of the scrapping the budget that was allotted to her good work. But again there is whole other side of the story also.

Life in fact, was indeed quite easy as a child in Bal Mandir for anyone like me who was growing up there. Never seen money, but never needed any; as it was not up to us to worry about anything we needed in our daily life. Of course, there were things, we did not get when we wanted all the time when we needed. And the ugly part of all that came with a line, “you have to be in your parents house to get what you want.” Although, today when I am all grown up, know that it is not true; at least not all the time. Having patents is not the end solution of world’s problem end of solution to one's problem, as it was made believe to all of us when I was a child.

When I say life indeed was a lot better, when I was growing up as a child. May be I was a child and it was the golden age of life. But, I remember when I was growing up in Bal Mandir hardship of money was not our issue or problem, lack of money was not our headache too. We had shelter on our head, cloth on our body in fact plenty of food on our plates. On top of that we used to go to school do all other kind of after school programs also and that too just at our doorstep.

The difference between her work and my childhood had own huge similarity and at the same time huge cultural difference. Bal Mandir was ran by Royals but funded by westerns countries to keep going on. They say Bal Mandir is a very rich orphanage. There was a whole bunch of staff to take care of us and a whole management team to plan it to keep going. Still there was whole different group of people who were working harder to get the fund in european or western countries. But mainly it's from UK. Royals of UK had joined hands with our Royals and they were the ones who used to do the fundraising there. There used to be plenty of donation not just in terms of money but clothes and foods in abundance from not only that country but from many other countries too. I really don’t know for what reason but there were Americans who stood tall in givings and used to send food to us. That nutritious food division is also a division of Bal Mandir, I guess that loads of food came not only for Bal Mandir it was for nationwide distribution not only too children home but for schools also I mean Government ran poor schools in remote part of the country.

The fund and donations just poured in not for a year, for many more years to come so that they can shelter about 200 children in Bal Mandir, and there were many more small branches of Bal Mandir around the nation, because there was never a money problem, when Royals were still the one who were running it.

The donation was so abundant that children in the Bal Mandir alwasys doubted that the NCO’s staff or managers stole from those donation. But interestingly there were still plenty left for us to eat or wear.

As a child, I had not seen tear on anybody’s eye due to financial problem; but may be for that very reason they were very harsh or rough with us; but that again its just only maybe.

Dil Shova runs her good work, which is almost like a worship if giving is a form of worship. Solely on her own or the donation given purely by Nepali people even if its the government at times. As she shares it with Bijay Kumar on his TV show, “when they see me on program they flock in to my door then they slowly forget soon, I wonder why ?” "Some people ask me are government or any NGO giving you money or helping you in any form ?" that question makes her wonder why they ask me that kind of question, I am doing my work without expecting anything from anyone."

And this is where it made me wonder, is this just a cultural difference or believe ? that there was no tears in my childhood who raised us and Dil Shova has so many tears to share despite her strong believe in God, and He meeting all her needs. I do not remember eating black tea without sugar. In fact I do not knew people do eat tea without sugar also. There were plenty of good food which poured in as donation and in fact, NCO’s staff did stole it; purely it was just too good stuff for us to eat and finish.

If not all but good sum of the percentage of the money and majority of the donations [goods and stuff] came from western countries can run bigger children home. At the same time half the size only 85 person purely on Nepali fund. There is so much lack of fund. She is eating rice without lentil and black tea without sugar tells a whole story about how sever the lack of fund is there. She wishes nobody dies at her home because one death [that cost only 5000-6000] per death means a whole month of unbalance in finance, because those death directly affects the basic food in Ama Home.  

This is the hard truth of cultural difference in eastern and western believe of giving. Just then I would like to mention this line which I copied from 'Daring to leave on the Edge'. This is why christian in Asia and Africa and Latin America need to be taught to give to missions and to the poor and needy in other countries. Unless we teach developing nations the power of giving, the poor will be kept poor.

The line above really hammers the believe, we can give if only we have to give. Give even if you yourself are at the receiving end is the core idea of power of giving, which I learned after reading this book by Loren Cunningham.