Be Charitable to Yourself

There is a noble human sentiment of generosity, compassion and social concern that the new economic culture, prevailing in our country has begun to encourage. The present appeal precisely is to encourage the present generation of senior citizens to cultivate and act accordingly, so that the succeeding generations of senior citizens would follow.

This is about what we, loosely, call charity. Without going into an analysis of our past history, we can, very briefly state that centuries of dire poverty and permanent mental insecurity of the material fate of the children and grand children to come, people got accustomed to accumulate wealth blindly without any thought of its purpose or its enjoyment. Their not spending money created poverty in the society. No doubt, some charitable actions are undertaken for religious purposes.

Now, charity has a new connotation. You, a common man, have succeeded in life, after a struggle of 35 or 40 years, during which period you might have acted often fairly, but  some times, even unjustly towards others, mostly, in economic and social  matters. Now, while looking back, you feel a sense of gratitude to all the institutions, like schools, colleges, universities, research laboratories, hospitals, libraries, cultural centres, play grounds, clubs and associations, transport systems, hostels and many government and private establishments, which have supplied medicines, vaccination or scholarships or awards or certificates to you. To some, you might be more grateful than to others. That social capital has made it possible for you to become what you are, today – a satisfied achiever. When you are retiring, it is, as though, you are a gladiator, successfully coming out of colossium of merciless struggle.  It is time for you to be sportive and give due credit, even to those, who fought valiantly against you. You can afford to give back a part of excess property lying with you and share it with the society which functions like a bank. Remember those people, days and institutions that have given you wonderful opportunities and happy moments when you were a student or in early stages of your career, when you eagerly availed of all such facilities.

Considering all this, you can, generously, give away, half or, at least, one fourth of your self-acquired property back to the society. More over, as a senior citizen, one becomes, once more, dependent upon so many people and social institutions for care and company, besides the family members. Further, your children are not really counting upon your wealth for their survival and prosperity. And for their children, i.e. your grand children, what you would leave would not have as much value as you would attach to it. You know that unlike you, the younger generations are having their family medical insurance, pensions, reverse mortgage and other social security measures that would never fail them. All these reasons should prompt you to donate while you are alive so that you can enjoy the pleasure of sharing. If not, you can do it by Will to be executed after you in favour of any association or institution whose activities you appreciate. The rest will, certainly, go to your family members who, any way, would take it for granted.  You will not be alone; more and more ‘successful’ and ‘satisfied’ people are donating, retired or not.

                                                Dr. Rao V.B.J. Chelikani

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