Bihar Flood Relief

There is a state by the name Bihar in India which is very famous (infamous) for various reasons all over the world, but I have a personal liking for this place for various reasons. There is a river by name Kosi which passes through it and every year floods are experienced in neighboring areas but this year Kosi has spread itself into lots of areas of Bihar, resulting in a national disaster. Almost 30 lakh people have no home, people are not getting much to eat as well, whole situation is in a jeopardy but our politicians are busy in finding out whose responsibiliy is to take care of people who have been left stranded without food and shelter. But there are some selfless people and organizations who have come forward to help provide relief there.

Art of Living as ever is already active in the flood hit areas and volunteers are helping there day in and day out. So this week we started a drive in bangalore to collect some material (clothes, ready to eat stuff, medicine, plastic sheets etc) to be sent across to Bihar and it was an overwhelming experience.
Tuesday night we decided to go to an apartment complex and ask people for RM(relief material), the enthusiasm was palpable, we were just running and knocking doors, waking people up (some people sleep early :-) ). When people opened their doors, first facial expression was "who the hell is disturbing at this time" and when we told about the drive, they were also happily driven into it, we asked them to drop the material in one of our teacher's spare flat and believe it or not, within 3-4 hours in the morning that flat was jampacked with material. Who told human values have dissolved into oblivion, we just need to remove some dirt from the top and you will get ever shining human values.
Wednesday our friends in IndiraNagar caught hold of a truck and started to collect the RM in the nearbay areas, I joined them at Koramangala and then we collected some more RM and went to deposit the RM at Ashram. When we reached there, not many people were there, so we alongwith some Ashramites decided to sort the RM properly so that we could send it to Bihar as soon as possible, meanwhile some devotee came with another truck load of RM which he collected from his apartment and then it was decided that we will use the same truck to take the packed RM to Railway Station, my friend went with that truck.

After sometime we loaded another truck and I boarded the same for Rly Stn. One more friend started from Banashankari in another truck at the same time. We reached the parcel office and even though it was past 8:00pm (Parcel office closes at that time), the railway authorities helped us in all possible manner. So now at this time we did not had enough people to unload the 3 trucks, but where there is a will there is way and from no where some people came and helped us in that situation. So after a super day, we went back physically tired but mentally in a blissful state. Next morning again came to the parcel office, helped in loading the RM into the train and then bid adieu to the train and left for office.