At the onset let me clarify that I am all for those NGO who do credible work, and I know there are many out there. But then these sincere NGO seems to have attracted lot of attraction and now we are seeing a whole NGO industry out there wanting to grab its piece of share. Recently one NGO (probably GreenPeace) came to our office (obviously they wanted our money). I could see that the representatives they had were probably college or school students who were in need of some quick bucks. Unfortunately one of school going kind guy stopped me and tried to explain me what does NGO does. I could see how improper his prep talk was as he hardly had any facts right. Then he proudly said "Sir we did not allowed French ship Clemenaceau to reach India as it had high level of some toxic substance". I said "well it was not "some" but asbestos, Moreover the ship journey got derailed due to Egypt's intervention and not India's". Then I asked him "did you ever talked to the poor laborers at Alang(Gujrat) who were actually going to dismantle the ship and earn their bread. He candidly said "No sir we didn't". Well I was not shocked as I know the people who are really going to be affected are hardly taken into consideration when the more enlightened breed of NGOs talk in their favour in New Delhi while staying in Five Star hotels. Then I drew a parallel of it with my own life. Few days back I was trying to get a cycle rickshaw to reach my home. Then I saw few rickshaws standing near by. I chose the one which had the oldest driver. While on the rickshaw I said I would have never sat on this rickshaw few days back (before this GreenPeace incident had taken place), but now after this GreenPeace incident I will surely sit here. I must say I did not used to sit on rickshaws having old drivers respecting their age and health. Then I said to myself "hang on, what are you doing? aren't you doing the same thing which the GreenPeace guys did. You yourself decided what is good for the old rickshaw guy and never bothered to consider that he is plying rickshaw to earn money and to get two meals for his family. In my misplaced beinignity I was depriving him and his family that bread. In a way my ridiculous social empathy was actually a curse on these people. Then on I decided that people who want to earn money with all the legal means by their side needs to be supported, and I threw my preposterous social inclinations in a cold basket.
