Dr. Meeta Rathod Vansadia
Ph.D. in Library & Information Science
Email – meetarathod@gmail.com
“Spread Happiness – It is Contagious”
2nd January, 2019
One of the fond memories of my childhood in Bombay (now Mumbai), is the sweet and refreshing smell of Parle Glucose biscuits, emerging from the Parle factory, situated at about 10 minutes walking distance from my house. The fragrance is still alive in my mind. As a child, those were the wonderful moments, to visit the factory outlet store of Parle Products, which was placed at the front gate of the factory, along with parents to purchase the fresh Parle products. With growing age the taste diverted from glucose biscuits to other cream and crunchy biscuits and cookies and glucose biscuits disappeared in deep down lane memories of life.
After several years, Parle G again popped up in the life, during the visit of Saputara in monsoon season. Here, came across these beautiful and innocent kids of Dang districts, while passing through the lanes of Dang forest.
Since few years it has become our practice to visit “Saputara” during monsoon. In fact, it is the only beautiful hill station in South Gujarat. During monsoon, the beauty of nature reaches at its peak due to the heavy rain in the region.
One does come across several waterfalls, check dams, lakes during the journey of in and around saputara, in the forests of Dang districts. Once while passing through this, we noticed these were playing and bathing in river. We spent some time with them. In their language they narrated their stories and the games and expressed the feelings of fun. It was an amazing experience to see the kids enjoying in the natural environment, which is completely invisible in the urban kids. These playful activities not only help them in the growth of their physical strength but I suppose the sensitivity towards the environment, nature, trees, river is possible only through this type of direct involvement with the nature.
As we didn’t have anything to offer them like chocolates etc with us, to distribute to the kids, we tried to locate some stores. We found very small hut type store nearby. The only hygienic food I could gather were, Parle G biscuits. We purchased all the packets available with the store keeper and distributed it to these kids. The joy on their face is unmemorable.
While moving ahead we came across a school. The school timings were over. The kids were about to leave. Here, again we spent some quality time with them. We narrated some stories to them. They sang the prayers in complete harmony in the same “sur”. It was an amazing listening to these kids.
“The quality time spent with these lovely kids in the beautiful nature of Dang forest”
While moving ahead, came across another school, another bumch of students. The kids were running outside with their lunch plates, as they were receiving mid day meal from their school. Here again indulged with them, spoke to them. They were so happy to mingle with us and were speaking over each other in their sweet and innocent language. Very disciplinarily and enthusiastically got clicked pics with me. Here, again distributed Parle G biscuits, as we didn’t had any other option. But interestingly, they were very happy to receive this; I felt Parle G biscuits were like a big treat for them, which had been lost from my list, since long.
“The best part of this picture is the focussed eyes of every kid, perfectly on the lens of camera”
These are some four years old pictures. Next year onwards, we used to take story books, stationary materials, note books, water bottles etc and would distribute it among the kids. This is not any philanthropic activity on a big scale. In fact it is a very small attempt we are making for ourselves. And the only reason for sharing this is that it is quite essential to understand the fact that, what we are spreading in our surrounding is very important. If we can ever spread happiness in other’s life, the experience speaks that, in return we will definitely receive added amount of joy and happiness from them.
Somebody has very rightly said that in the journey of our life,
“What we give comes back to us”
