“Sowing
Hope”
By Joseph
Curiale
On March
2nd
of this year, I saw something
very disturbing on CNN… I learned that thousands of
farmers in South India have committed suicide because of 7
years of drought, and because of the mounting debt incurred
when trying to keep their families alive in such a
desperate situation. Their being forced to switch to
genetically modified seeds and expensive pesticides made
things much worse. Actually, more than 150,000 farmers have
died countrywide as a result, and the number is increasing
daily. As saddened as I was by it though, it would have
ended there for me if it weren’t for one brave and
remarkable woman who was interviewed by CNN International
correspondent, Satinder Bindra. Her name is Anjamma, and
her husband committed suicide, leaving her and her son
alone, very vulnerable, and with a mountain of debt and no
way to repay it. Anjamma, like almost all of the widows,
was being harassed by the moneylenders, some of whom charge
up to 450% interest (annually) and often demand partial
repayment by raping the widows… An Indian film
director had told me of one village where the moneylender
would rape the women right in front of their husbands,
further pushing them to suicide…
The CNN report said
that Anjamma owed a debt of more than $1,000… She
asked, “How can I repay the debt when I don’t
even have enough money to buy rice to feed my son?”
She only earns 50 cents a day rolling tobacco from morning
till night, 7 days a week…Though she was filled with
grief and despair, what struck me most was her dignity in
such a hopeless situation… I remembered the tears in
her eyes… At that moment, a voice, which seemed to
come from the back of my head, said with crystal clarity,
“Pay her debt.” Though I was literally alone, I
said, “Huh???” The voice once again said,
“Pay her debt” and I said, “OK”
though I didn’t have the money… At that moment
I thought of the scriptural admonition to help widows and
orphans, so, despite my own struggles, I made the
commitment to pay Anjamma’s debt.
One of the many valuable things I learned from Deepak
Chopra is to trust our gut because it has not evolved to
the point of having self-doubt. I knew this to be true and
so the next morning I contacted Satinder Bindra, who then
put me in contact with the Member of Parliament in
Nizamabad who is a champion for this cause, and made
arrangements to pay Anjamma’s debt personally.
Knowing of the terrible corruption in India though, I
wanted to pay the moneylender with my own hands and was
surprisingly encouraged to do just that. So, I committed
without having the money, but I kept remembering a Bible
scripture that says, “Put God’s things first
and everything else will be given to you…” My
life is a “Field of Dreams,” so I kept
thinking, “Build it and they will come…”
and it keeps proving to be true both in my work as a
composer and author, and in this mission to help the
helpless… Since I had just written a book “The
Spirit of Creativity,” which contains a chapter
devoted to following one’s intuition, I knew I had to
walk my talk… Not surprisingly, a few days later I
got a royalty check of $1,600 from a music-related source
that I was completely unaware of. I knew instantly that I
had just received the money to pay Anjamma’s debt and
have a bit left over for expenses…
A few days later I woke up hearing that familiar voice
again, asking “Why are you doing this alone? Ask you
friends for help.” So I sent around 200 emails,
explaining the story to friends, and was completely
thrilled when I started getting emails back saying,
“I’ll give $100…I’ll give $200,
$300, $500!!! In a little more than a month I raised around
$9,000! So I strapped that money to my waist and headed for
India with total faith.
When I stood before
Anjamma, in the exact spot I had seen her on CNN a few
weeks earlier, in what even the Indians call the backwaters
of India, I knew I was experiencing a miracle… My
biggest challenge at that moment was not to completely
break down crying… Anjamma looked so traumatized and
when I asked a doctor who accompanied me,
“”Why?,” she said Anjamma hadn’t
eaten in three days, and on top of that, she had only
learned about an hour before my arrival, that someone from
America was coming to pay her debt and free her. When I
paid her debt she touched both the doctor’s feet and
mine and broke down in tears…but once again, with
such dignity…
I was able to also pay
the debts of four other widows and give hope to 30 others,
giving each of them $110, which would hold them over for 5
or 6 months. I asked them not to give up hope, that I would
try to raise more money to get them out of debt. Everyone
lets them down, but I knew I had to keep my word. I came
back to LA and in 8 weeks raised $16,000 and freed seven
more widows and set up trusts for them, worth $2,200 each,
that will take care of them every month for five years just
on the interest alone, at the end of which period they
still have the principal.
As a result, the
transformation in them is miraculous… From lifeless
to smiling, full of life, and full of hope…
I’m so dedicated to helping them that I have
suspended my own work, set up a Foundation, and have been
literally working 16 hours a day for more than six months,
in trying to raise the money to help them.
I was able to raise
$12,000 for the third, and most recent trip, setting up
trusts for five more widows and helping quite a few others
to hang on until I can raise the money necessary to help
them in a larger way… The fundraising for this trip
was certainly helped by a beautiful half-hour Special
Report that was done by New Delhi Television called,
“Sowing Hope.”
Without
sensationalizing or falling short of the truth, this report
really captured the spirit of this endeavor to help the
helpless… I’m exceptionally grateful to
Devinder Sharma, a senior journalist, social
activist, and one of the biggest champions in bringing
the farmer suicide tragedy to the attention of the
world. He is the foremost authority on this tragic issue
and continues to be a great source of information in
guiding me through the many obstacles and pitfalls that
seem to exist at seemingly every turn.
The trip was a great
success and provided me with the foundation and
infrastructure of kind-hearted and knowledgeable people,
(many from Asha Hyderabad and Chennai) to step the aid up to a
new level. Now, with the help of Asha,
The Center for Sustainable
Agriculture,
The Prasad Eye Hospital, and experts in the field of
micro-financing, I hope to help transform
Anjamma’s village into a self-sustaining model of
education, vocation, health, clean water, and organic
farming, thereby reducing the high cost of pesticides
both economically and to the health of the farm
families. In addition, health, dental, and eye care
camps are being planned, as I get ready to embark on the
fourth trip in late November. It is then my hope to
implement this model in the areas of need throughout
India. With the continued support of the media,
like-hearted individuals, and a growing family of
contributors in The US, India, Japan, Singapore, Europe,
and elsewhere, I feel very hopeful that this goal and
more will be accomplished.
When people often ask
me, “Why India?” I tell them that I did not
choose India, India chose me. When others ask, “What
are you doing to help here (USA)?” I reply with the
truth: “There” is here and “Here”
is there. We live on the same planet. My compassion and
love for others does not terminate at arbitrarily drawn
lines called “borders.” That is a persistent
illusion…
Love knows no borders,
nor race, nor religion. A lot of people are helping here in
the United States but comparatively few are helping in
India. And, many of the farmers are driven to suicide
because of American free trade policies abroad as well as
the meddling of huge multi-national corporations like Dow
and Monsanto. So what’s happening here is having a
grave affect on more than 700 million Indian farmers.
I’m also asked, “What about the Big
Picture?” Although I now have the help and support of
Asha and other foundations and individuals both in America
and India, in addressing the “Big Picture”
issues, such as education and vocational opportunities, I
personally continue following Mother Theresa’s
philosophy that “If you can't feed a hundred people,
then feed just one.”
There is much to be done and I’m very grateful for
the help and companionship of a select group of Asha
volunteers from Hyderabad, Chennai, and the US. Asha is
helping me to take this journey of the heart to a higher
level of aid and relief that will enable us to implement
the “big picture” solutions that will help the
survivors to reach the goal of self-reliance.
NDTV correspondent, Uma Sudhir, closed the Special Report
with these profound and poetic words:
"Little drops make an ocean... Little ripples make a
wave... For most of us, life begins and ends and revolves
around what happens to us. A few are able to look beyond
the whirlpool of their life to think, feel, and proactively
convert thought into action."
I hope you will find it
in your hearts to look beyond the borders of your own life,
to reach out and help the widows and children of the farm
tragedy in India, through the power of your love and
generosity, to transform their lives from suicide to
self-reliance.
Click here to see a video interview with
more information.
The Joseph Curiale Foundation
www.savinglivesindia.org
