Ahmed Javed stirs souls with his quotes. A sentence of his is worth a tome (book).

His
application of language, and piercing understanding of the universal human ethics, makes him
the capturer of minds. He is like those classical masters who teach how to catch men. His
warmhearted demeanor, his mellifluous lilt, and the gravitas of his expression are devastating.
Here is how he explains a great person:
Great is one in whose presence you don't feel small.
Bada who hain jis ki moujoodgi main apnai choptai honai ka ehsas nahi hota
At another place he talks about a generous person, probably in the context of Nizamud Din
Auliya and Amir Khusroo.
Generous is one who while giving doesn't make you feel as receiving.
Sakhi woh hai Jo daita hai to laina ka ehsas nahin hota
A person like him, and thoughts like these, are mercilessly chased away when our newspapers
are flooded with banner ads, press releases, imposed and implored news coverage all
displaying the acts of charity and welfare done by Persons, Parties, Centers, and Trusts. For us as
people, it is more ruinous than the calamitous flood that swept away our shelters and belongings.
It destroys our worth as people. It is an evidence of septic hearts and dimmed minds.
It is not a dig at any particular organization, or any person. It's a lament over an affliction that is
chronic and preponderant. Yes, some poster sized advertisements, are more disturbing. Please
stop telling us that you have mounted a favour on God Almighty by giving some thousand rupees
to a flood-victim, picturing the act to fatten your profile! You don't help him; realize that you
victimise him. It only indicates the depth of ugly. Nauseating.
It is not didactic. There can't be anything more despicable than putting oneself on a pedestal, and
pontificate. If it is anything, it is to express the discomfort that such acts of petty publicity cause.
I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve.
One could laugh it away, considering it as an amusement of sorts. But what fills you with
indignation is an ethical context to it. That context is indulgently carried in the text of the
publicity prose. You invoke God, Prophet, and Scripture and in the process the whole ethical
imperative of this Tradition is lost. Are you unmindful of this; hope it is not a blatant exploitation
of the ethical tradition. Time to take a peep into one's heart.
Hope, heart is in the right place. But the chagrin still persists. Does it serve any purpose! One can
publicize the whole thing, underpinned by a belief that it is a step towards transparency, and also
opens up a possibility of people volunteering more services for such organisations. Apparently,
and may be in the beginning, it does the same. But no longer people take it that way. It hardly
impresses. It turns you away, on the contrary. And the storm of praise that it brings in its wake, if
it still does, is mostly fake, if not entirely.
On the reverse side, it raises question. For an act of charity worth an amount, is it justified to
spend another amount on its publicity? And then you have no right to disrespect a person by
flashing pictures of the haggard faces receiving cheques from the cheerful givers. How do you
answer these questions. May be you rubbish it all with a spectacular display of nonchalance:
poor guys, they don't know what it takes to run an organisation; stupid! Why then they don't
come forward and participate. May be true, but does that answer the question. I, as a target of

this publicity campaign, am clear that it diminishes the persons involved in my estimation. I
might turn my gaze away from this painful sight; wasting away of good people in our society.
But for how long! These, we would consider as the graceful examples to emulate. Now seeing
them morph into examples of disgrace, I find myself in a state of shock. Charity, rather than
serving an end, has turned into an end itself. I wish I am inadequately informed, and fallacious
in my understanding. I wish these acts of charity are not smeared. I wish I am wrong!
In this moment of extreme grief, when flood has broken our back, hope could flourish only if our
minds open up. It is a challenge of reviving a flattened economy. Opening up these theaters of
charity are self deceiving. It will turn people who receive into obnoxious sloths, and those who
give, into superciliously virtuous. It will finally feed into the larger scheme of our tormentor.
After all if you bring a person from hundred kilometers to receive a petty amount, why wouldn't
he travel a less distance in the hope of getting a job, or a small contract in a government
department, or just some cash benefit, from a more powerful politician, and a more powerful
'charity' machinery. If we don't rebuild our economy, we are only manufacturing 'voters' for the
parties we know, by such acts of charity. We are preparing a feast for the beasts.