Wish that my presence could at least help one soul around.

There are not many a times when I am moved by somebody's personal issue or trouble. It takes a while for things to gain my attention and empathy.

One such thing happened today.

There is a very hard working guy in my office. He serves tea, coffee etc. He takes care of everybody's needs. He knows timely requirement of each and every employee and there has never been a case when he had to be reminded about the same.

Yesterday I heard him talking to someone in office that he has not been able to withdraw his provident fund money. He sounded troubled and so I asked him about the same.

He said that he wants to withdraw his provident fund (pf) money. There is a madam in his previous office, with whom he coordinates and she had sent his completed pf form to pf office. It was submitted about three months ago. The application was rejected and no reason was given. He then again requested that lady in his previous office for another pf form. He went to the pf office with that completed form and requested the officials to help him. He said there were many people there to withdraw their pf. The pf officials asked for bribe to do his work. On an amount of approx 90k they were asking for about 5k. Apart from all the other reasons of not paying the bribe, the poor guy does not earn this much so he could not even imagine of paying the same. Again his form got stuck and there has been no progress. It has been one month  now. 

The pf office is far away and is only open on weekdays, when he is also working. I asked him that he should get another complete fresh form from his previous office and submit it again. If we get a fresh, double checked application submitted, we will then work towards making sure that it gets accepted.

By then I had decided that I will get his work done.

He said that if he calls, that lady tells him not to disturb her and is not ready to listen. He was concerned that even if he has the form, as he is working on weekdays he will not be able to go to the pf office which is far off & would take a lot of time. Who will take care of his errands here? I have never seen such dedication towards work and responsibility in-spite of the fact that the amount involved is huge and he really needs it. He needs the pf to get it deposited in a fixed deposit so that he gets higher interest rate on it. His daughter is growing up and he wants to make sure that he has enough money to marry her off properly. 

It took me a while to convince him that if he has a new form we will make sure to get it cleared. He can travel on a weekday to a nearer pf office and can get some hours off work and  can resubmit the form.

This is just one problem in one such poor & unfortunate person's life. I can't even imagine how many such ridiculous problems must be there in so many people's life. One got noticed but what about the others? To whom shall the poor and lesser educated complain to? These government problems are with everyone in a corrupted country like India. But people with somewhat more money get their work done by paying bribes and makes it even harder for these issues to be fixed permanently. It seems to be a vicious circle. He is poor and never had such privileges that we had in terms of education, food etc. Thus he has a lower education and exposure to opportunities. He again ends up on a lower income scale, and his generation ahead again faces such issues. These issues become even gigantic in our country given the population, corruption and weaker jurisdiction. The social responsibilities like marrying a daughter which requires a lot of money in our Indian society further complexes these financial problems.

I could just assure him that I will help him and will get this fixed. But what about other more permanent, awkward and ridiculous never ending issues.

Where shall we start resolving them and who shall we start with?