Well…. This post has nothing do with the “"Joy of Giving Week” or about Jamshedpur JoyFest:JGW directly…
...just some personal ruminations about “giving”….
Yes, I did get involved with the JGW two years back, when it started. It seemed like a good idea
– a “good virus” as I call it – which needs to be spread far and wide… and made "fashionable"/ the “in-thing”…
(and I was/am lucky to be at a place where the ‘soil’ helps. It naturally supports and facilitates such chicken-brained initiatives… (XLRI, like many other management schools, attracts best of the brains – but it also attracts, and creates, best of the hearts and conscience too… as does this city of Jampot :)
But anyways…. Coming to the personal story…
When I was growing up in 60s-70s, giving was not about “giving” – it was just what one would do naturally as being a part of an interdependent community…. As I understood it then, it/life/”giving” was more about sharing/contributing to a social system (community, family, friendship) to which one belonged and had stakes in… and so support it, and make it richer and make it grow…
I mean, in simple living terms, it meant that you helped people in whichever way you can, in your own simple way… it was not an agenda to solve the myriad problems of the society… it was just a way to live your life like a decent human being – help/give/share… support people who were not fortunate enough to be born with the "unearned privileges" like many of us...
That was the logic of the commons
… but then “Logic of the Markets” came and demolished/usurped the “commons”… the public space…
And, so to me, personally, (since I live/work in a society where the “Logic of the" (soul/conscience-less… if may add) "Economic Markets” rules), when the idea of JGW came, it made immense sense - it was an opportunity to recoup my life beyond me/I/mine – to some extent… perhaps..
... and to recreate a world in which I grew...
