Right to Warmth! Right to Life!

July 25, 2011

Dear brothers and sisters,

It is a long time since I wrote to you. I hope that all of you are well and having internal peace. Our work here in Siliguri, North Bengal of feeding the hungry people has completed one year. We went to many villages, slums and small hamlets in and around Siliguri and fed the people Five Star Khichree. You can now find the recipe for that on our website. We tried twice to pay other people to help with the cooking, but it just didn’t work. They just didn’t understand that it had to be the best khichree, the most delicious khichree in the world. They just didn’t understand that while cooking they had to pour two tons of love into the pot and stir that in with all the other ingredients, so that the love would also be there to offer to the hungry. So again, my son and I are cooking the food by ourselves, on the floor of our kitchen, on two tiny stoves in two very large pots and taking the pots out three times weekly and finding the hungry to feed.

In May we went to a place called Ganganagar, near the Mahananda River. We came to the end of the road in front of the river and then showed some men our pots of rice and asked, “Kohon garib lok?” Where are the poor people? The men looked at each other and then said, “You feed our children!” So we stayed right there and the men called the people out from their little bamboo huts and we fed all of them – except for one. During the feeding, one woman was standing a little behind the others and she kept smiling at me beautifully and doing namaskar. I would fill some more sal leaves and give them, but then again make eye contact with this lady and again she would do namaskar and just keep smiling. Finally after about ten-fifteen minutes the food was finished. Everyone left except that one woman. Then she said to our rickshaw driver, “Everyone received food except for me.” I felt just terrible. What to do? I told her, “Kul Iyeh”, meaning “We will come back tomorrow, okay? But still I felt very bad, also because I knew we would not be back the next day. There are so many places to go to and only three times a week we go out. After two weeks we returned to Ganganagar and drove deep inside on the footpath. The children saw us and the people began coming. Again it became a thick crowd of children, women and men around the rickshaw, all with hands stretched out waiting for the sal leaf full of rice to be put in those hands. Lo, I saw once again the lovely woman who did not get food the last time. This time, like the others, she also pressed forward physically and stretched out her hands to receive the sal leaf of rice. Last time she didn’t do this, and for that reason I thought that she was not interested to have food. But this time she did like the others. But you know, it looked so unnatural for her to stretch out her arms and wait for the food in that manner. I piled a sal leaf sooooo high with khichree and put it in her hands. She smiled sweetly and then left. But, I was disturbed, because it was clearly so unnatural for her to stretch out her hands to receive food. Though extremely poor and in her mid fifties, she was a very dignified, noble woman. It was as if by doing this she lost her dignity. Can you understand? Then I kept thinking, nobody should have to eat like this or receive food like this. All should be invited to sit nicely at tables or even on the floor as is customary in India. But – there are so many hungry! And right now we have no building and no tables and chairs for these dear people who are so very poor through no fault of their own!

Last winter it often happened that when we delivered the khichree, a few women would come forward and say, “Give us blankets. We need blankets.” But we had no blankets. We had only our khichree. A good warm woolen blanket costs Rs. 500 at the local market. Remembering these appeals and with the approach of winter coming, I was feeling recently, the level of our service must go higher. Serving khichree to 2000 people monthly is not enough. I decided to select just ten communities, the poorest villages of all we visited over the past year, and give each person in the village a warm blanket. On our website the slogan of Hearts Healing Hunger is “Right to food, Right to life!” Now we will add another slogan under a new section called Blankets for All. It will be called “Right to warmth! Right to life!” What do you think, brothers and sisters? The funds required for this project are far more than for feeding khichree to 2000 per month. To provide one blanket each to 500 persons in just one village will be Rs. 250,000 or 2.5 lakh, which comes to US $6,250. I have never raised such an amount before. But, we have to try, isn’t it? We want to distribute five thousand blankets to the hungry, cold persons in and around Siliguri during December and January. Can you help me? Please you think to help me now. Please put me in touch with others who can help. Providing five thousand blankets to the people here may seem like a small thing. But it is one step forward on the road to their longer survival.

The final goal, brothers and sisters, is for these sweet suffering souls to build with us a new world where economic suffering is a relic in the history museum, where instead we form cooperative commonwealths in each and every village, where everyone owns the coop, where everyone has a vote, has a voice, where money is decentralized all over the world. No more economic centralization! We want economic decentralization! So let us talk to the presently poor about the solution called cooperative commonwealths. Then let us work our hearts out to manifest this dream. We will call it the Dream of the 21st Century. Please, you all come here to Siliguri and help me to manifest this dream. Help me to rekindle the jeweled lamp, the unparalleled magnificence and beauty that is North Bengal.

Love,
Garda Ghista
Hearts Healing Hunger
Siliguri, North Bengal
Email: gardaghista@gmail.com
Mobile: 98510 90212
Skype: garda.ghista

If outside India, you can send donations by check made out to ‘Hearts Healing Hunger’ to:
Max Kantar
PO Box 1002-C
Big Rapids, MI 49307

Alternately, you can send from inside or outside India by direct bank transfer to:
Account Name: Hearts Healing Hunger
Account Number: 910010027551810
Axis Bank
Swift Code: AXIS INB035 (for donations from outside India)
Siliguri, West Bengal
India

Please Come and See Their Faces

Dear brothers and sisters,

Once again, many days, weeks and even months have passed. Still we are feeding the hungry people here in Siliguri, North Bengal. Today we went to the old Siliguri Train Station. So many shops full of lovely sarees, so many vegetables for sale everywhere, spread out on the ground by the road – and then suddenly grinding poverty. There are scores of extremely poor people living just next to the station, just behind the bazaar.

We parked the rickshaw, and a few children came immediately saying “Khichree! Khichree!” It is because we have gone there before and they know us. We go without any signs, without any identification, we go only with our khichree – rice, beans and vegetables. We opened the first pot and began piling rice on one sal leaf after the other and putting the leaves into outstretched hands. After five minutes the bodies of children were pressing tightly against me as they came right inside the rickshaw, and ten sal leaves were thrust in my face, then metal bowls were also coming in front of me. So many people to feed. So many outstretched hands. Many old people came. Some were desperate to have the rice. I wondered how many times the old people go without food so that the young children can have. The old women and even old men came and quietly insisted to be given food, despite that scores of children were also clamoring for food. Always I gave the old people first. Please come and see their faces, brothers and sisters. Their tired, sweet, hungry faces.

Please you just come and see this work. You come along and help to feed these people, brothers and sisters. It can change your life. It can give you great happiness and peace inside. You will not have to search any longer to find mental peace. It will be found in the faces of the people you feed. It will be found in the sweet voices of the children clamoring “aunty aunty, give me food!” and then being able to fill up the sal leaf with tasty rice and vegetables and giving to them. What else do we need to do in our life besides this?

We need more funds, brothers and sisters. There are too many hungry people here in North Bengal. We are feeding only a handful – only two thousand per month. It is a drop in the ocean. The original dream remains to feed one thousand hungry people every single day. Please help me to materialize this dream.

We can protest so many injustices in the world, in our respective countries. We can fight the economic exploitation everywhere in as many ways as we can – by raising the consciousness of the masses. But finally, we have to feed the people. We want every human being to live and to become strong physically and mentally so that collectively we can build a new world together where exploitation of any kind will not dare to raise its head, where if a single person is hungry people will run to feed him. This is the new kind of morality we want to spread, brothers and sisters. It will be a great fight to establish this far higher standard of morality in the society. Please you join me in this fight, this struggle to end the economic exploitation of the masses. And above all, join me in feeding the hungry here in Siliguri, North Bengal.

Love,

Garda Ghista

Hearts Healing Hunger

www.heartshealinghunger.org

Siliguri, North Bengal

Garda’s Blog

You can send funds via Paypal through the Donate button on the HHH site. Or you can send by Western Union to Firdaus Ghista, Siliguri, West Bengal. You can send by direct bank transfer with details on the website. Or you can send a check made out to Hearts Healing Hunger, c/o Max Kantar, P.O. BOX 1002-C, Big Rapids, Michigan 49307, USA.

Be Inspired Out of Your Minds!

Written Feb 5, 2011 at the peak of the Egyptian revolution

For God's sake, brothers and sisters, watch this video and be inspired out of your minds! And after watching Asma, click on “The Most Amazing Video on the Internet” and be even more inspired!

http://www.countercurrents.org/mahfouz040211.htm

And please understand, to support the revolutions conducted by the masses, by suffering humanity, is to follow Dharma. To support governments oppressing those masses, oppressing the suffering humanity, is Adharma. If we support the Adivasis, the suffering millions of impoverished villagers, the 200,000 suicided farmers, all the starving farmers of india, the one million Indians who die of starvation every year, we are supporting Dharma. If we believe the lies of the media that brainwash the middle class into believing that those impoverished villagers are "Naxalites" or "Maoists" or "terrorists" or "enemies of the state" and guilty of "sedition" - we have failed in our duty to suffering humanity. Just see who is poor, just see who is hungry, see who is suffering, and support those people alone. Never support the middle class and never support the rich. It is Adharmic to do so. It is a crime to support oppressors anywhere. And those who remain silent, those who do not care, those who are busy being "happy" and having a good time, they are also participants in oppression.

It is also a crime to believe the lies of the media everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of precious, beautiful Americans are losing their jobs, their homes, their way to survive, their way to eat, and it is a crime, a huge crime, and it's time now for all suffering Americans to start a revolution in America and end all this insane suffering wrought by just a small handful of the wealthiest men in the world. We have to stop this man-made suffering, we have to take back our country, take back our lives, take back the wealth that rightfully belongs to the suffering, struggling people and not to a handful of greedy men. We need to follow in the footsteps of our dearest Egyptian brothers and sisters, please. We need to start revolutions everywhere so that we can start distributing food to all the hungry and end hunger forever on this earth. And after that we will create jobs for everyone who wants one. It starts with revolution, brothers and sisters. We can't wait for evolution. There is too much suffering now. As our Egyptian brothers are saying, there is no turning back now. For us also, for the starving in india, for the freezing and homeless human beings in America, there is no turning back now. We need to move forward and usher a world revolution to end all revolutions, to end all economic exploitation, to end all suppression, oppression and repression of sweet, tender humanity.

Just see, the government is armed with tanks, tear gas and AK-47s and suffering humanity is armed only with stones. But suffering humanity is winning! By the grace of the Almighty they are winning! Here are the real men and women of the world, the embodiment of courage. They are ready to die now for freedom, dignity and nobility. Now is the time for SENTIENT RAGE. SENTIENT RAGE does not mean we sit on the sofa and watch a pile of mind-numbing trash on television. SENTIENT RAGE means we shed boundless tears of joy in solidarity with our brothers and sisters of Egypt, and due to our universal minds we long to join them to be a part of the most glorious revolution in 200 years! This is a revolution for freedom, real freedom, and for dignity. It is to re-establish the unbounded nobility of human beings everywhere, to re-establish our humanity because governments everywhere destroy our humanity, our kindness and our love by their endless brutality, oppression, suppression and repression. They keep us wallowing in poverty, never knowing where money will come from for survival. This is not the way to live, brothers and sisters. No one should be compelled to live like this. We need to start RESISTANCE everywhere and bring down all malevolent governments that are corrupt beyond endurance. We need to do exactly what our beloved brothers and sisters of Egypt are doing, so that finally exploitation ends and we have the glorious opportunity to build a new world on the ashes, the brutality, the tortures, the renditions of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings whose name is SUFFERING HUMANITY.

Did you see the man in the wheelchair, brothers and sisters? Everyone is there in Tahrir Square, even the crippled and disabled. Every Egyptian wants freedom. It is unstoppable now. We need to all of us pray from the core of our hearts that this glorious revolution spreads right around the world and brings an end to all empires, because empires by their very nature are brutal beyond belief. We need to pray from the core of our hearts that this revolution starts a world revolution that brings an end to all tortures, all renditions (what is more evil than renditions!) I am appealing to you all, I am begging you all, please start revolutions wherever you live. There is no other way to end the suffering of millions of precious, tender, beautiful human beings. We have to stop the suffering, brothers and sisters. Put it on your blogs, put it on Twitter, use the Internet like you never did before, to start revolutions in every country of the world! Tell your immoral governments that you also have had enough, because the time has come to live a glorious life, a divine life. When suffering ends, we can live out the true goal of our lives, which is to fall deeply in love with the Supreme, so that like Sufis everywhere, like the great Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Lalan we can dance in ecstasy and reach unparalleled states of bliss through meditation on the Supreme. But we cannot do this until we wage the revolution to end all human suffering, brothers and sisters. Help me, help all of us, to free the oppressed, exploited, starving humanity from their suffering. There is no other path to take now. There is no turning back. Please, we need to seize this moment of history.

_____________________

Garda Ghista is author of The Gujarat Genocide: A Case Study in Fundamentalist Cleansing, Wife Abuse: Breaking it Down and Breaking Out, and Srii Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar: Beacon of Hope For Suffering Humanity. She is also President of World Prout Assembly and more recently of Hearts Healing Hunger, whose sole aim is to feed the hungry everywhere. If you can help her in this work, please contact her at gardaghista@gmail.com.