It rolleth and gathers….

It began with  eight little assorted  bottles of baby shampoo, baby lotion, baby powder left over  from various gift packs sitting in the cupboard.

My brainwave was  to donate them to the new mothers in the Govt. maternity hospital.

This hospital ( donated by a philanthrophic family of Ooty) is notorious for being understaffed and  doctors never stay for long.  Only people who have no other recourse go there for their deliveries.  So I guess estimated  10-15 moms in the wards.

My sister said, ‘you go personally and give it to them; otherwise it may not reach them’.

I was reluctant to go handing around one little bottle each, so I thought I would  add some fruit.

Darshini said ‘ no, not fruit, give them a plastic box or tray to keep things’. Sumathi said, ‘no not fruit, give them something healthy like Horlicks’.

A rough check yday revealed a head count of  55! While I was doing other things, Sait Hospital had got spruced up and is now efficient and  booming.

The idea of giving away stuff wouldn’t go away; so I did go shopping for small packets of Horlicks and Johnson’s Baby soap. How did these MNC’s sneak into our subconsciousness aeons ago? Luckily India is the land of small sized packs . And plastic boxes.

But unlike the rest of India, Ooty is not the place for plastic bags. No one would sell me any in the market. And there wasn’t enough time to get  cloth bags organised. Paper would probably tear with all the handling it would go through.  I managed to find some plastic bags from my T-shirt printing business many many years ago. Uncluttering the house helps to know at least what is around!

But today, the numbers have reached almost 70. I’m a kind of witness to India’s trajectorial population growth.

So this seems a nice way to celebrate Advaith’s first birthday. I can set off the expense against the money we would have spent  toys and clothes for him if he were here.

Giving makes more  of an impact on the giver. But we all like to receive things for free and hopefully it makes some depressed young mom happy. So a couple of friends and I went around this evening distributing packets to moms obviously too much in pain to try and talk.

The discharge rate from the hospital also seems to be high. I came back with a dozen soaps, boxes and so on…

There must be  a moral somewhere…but do me a favor and don’t spell it out. Somehow, I don’t really want to look at it in the eye.