A Raksasa is a demon. A very cruel person is also referred to as a Raksasa. Little did I know that a Raksasa is also a person who accumulates wealth but gives away little. Brahma Raksasa is one that accumulates knowledge but who does not share it with anyone. I read this new meaning of Raksasa in a book related to Yoga.
I also read a short story related to this concept of Raksasa in a book titled “How I taught my grandmother to read and other stories” by Sudha Murthy. She is the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation, social worker and a writer. I enjoyed reading this book. It had a few short stories from Sudha Murthy’s life and one such story is about Charity and Giving. Here’s a snippet from this story.
A few years back, I was invited to a reputed company in Bangalore to deliver a lecture on Corporate Social Responsibility. Giving a speech is easy. But I was not sure how many people in the audience would really understand the speech and change themselves.
After my talk was over, I met many young girls and boys. It was an affluent company and the employees were bright, well-off, well-dressed and well travelled. They were all very emotional after the lecture and wanted to help out the victims of earthquake in Gujarat. They said they will send the donation materials to me, so I could co-ordinate this effort.
Within a week, my office was flooded with hundreds of bags. I was proud that my lecture had proven so effective. With the help of my assistants, I opened the bags. What we saw left us amazed and shocked. The bags were brimming over with all kinds of junk! Piles of high heeled slippers (some of them without the pair), torn undergarments, unwashed shirts, transparent cheap saris, toys which had neither shape nor colour, unusable bedsheets, broken cassettes were soon piled in front of us like a mountain. There were only a few good shirts, saris and usable materials.
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