My “VOICE” My “RIGHT”

I was in my school days. My school, M.K.C. High School, is a district government high school and is well renowned in Odisha for its quality education system. School timetable was having a weekly “WORK” period for every batch at that time. The purpose of the “WORK” period was to teach the students “the responsibility of a citizen” and at the same time to keep the school premises clean.

On that day, teacher announced about the school cleaning competition in the WORK period. The job was to clean the school play ground. He told us, the student who would clean the part of the ground assigned to him/her in the neatest way would be awarded with a Milkybar. A Milkybar in those days was kind of a dream 😮 . Well, for your information I don’t have a photo of cleaning the school ground of that time, as camera clicked photo was also a dream and mobile clicked photo was a dream inside an imagination 🙄 during my school days. So I included a present day photo of similar activity conducted in Kendriya Vidyalaya Khaliar Mandi (H.P.) to get the same feeling.

We all started the ground cleaning job with the excitation of getting the Milkybar. We arranged our brooms to sweep and bags to carry the garbage. Teacher vanished away for the whole period. I did not notice anyone but keep on cleaning the part of the ground assigned to me. That Milkybar is mine, no one else can take that. I kept on sweating but did not allow myself to stop, as such that particular Milkybar was only for me. Teacher came back after the period and stopped all of us. I looked around the ground and realized, not only I but my friends also kept on thinking about the Milkybar for the whole period. Teacher told, you all have done a great job, but only one would get the bar. He asked us, you tell “who actually deserves this chocolate bar“. I could not tell anything (in short I could not market myself 😉 ). One of my friend explained how he cleaned the ground and how he is most deserving for the award. My teacher patted his back and awarded the Milkybar to him. Though we all were gifted with Swad Candy except the winner with the Milkybar, I broke down with sorrow  as I could not be the winner.

On that day when I came back home with drenched eyes and explained everything to my mom, she asked me why did not you tell anything when your teacher asked to explain. She made me understand in a very simple way.

When you were a kid I was feeding you milk when you were crying. It means even a child has to raise its voice to get the milk.

She told me, if you want anything to achieve then work hard but if you want to get your right which you deserve then you have to raise your voice.

It was a small experience in my childhood which left me with a great learning. Today when I go out of my home, everywhere I find some odds keep happening and we never raise our voice and ignore them by saying “Chalta hai“. You go to any government office, your file will not move until you start filling the pocket starting from the peon; you go to any store, he will return you a toffee instead of 1 rupee change; you drive on any road, you will find a bike moving in wrong direction; and you walk on any street, you will find an adult throwing a packet of garbage on the roadside without having any hesitation. If we want change then we have to raise the voice of change.

Here I would like to link one of my previous post How much 1 paisa matters !! which I have written some months back with a similar genre.

I would love to extract and mention here one paragraph from the article “How much 1 paisa matters“:

“The question arises here why don’t we raise our voice while something goes wrong. Why we keep quite and accept every thing as granted. Why we console ourselves in many situations by saying “eisa hi hota hai”. Why a store keeper promised me something and how could he ignore it in a very casual way. It’s not the matter of getting the laptop in one or two days late. Its the matter of attitude and mentality of ignorance. Its the matter of sick mentality of a large percentage of the population of the country which dragged the face of the nation to a much lower position in the world than the place where we actually deserve to be. Its not the matter of 1 rupee or 1 paisa. Its the matter of valuing anything. Its the matter of responsibility to carry the great culture of the nation and represent it in the world mirror.”

This post is a contribution towards #AbMontuBolega campaign initiated by Strepsils. The campaign is supported by Indiblogger, an Indian blogging community. The campaign encourages everyone to raise the voice for change. That’s why Montu says “Bin bole ab nehin chalega, Strepsils ke saath ab Montu bolega“. Visit the #AbMontuBolega campaign and speak up what change you want for a better India. You can follow the campaign in @facebook and @twitter.