Groove Slam work it back
'Bhalo Bashar raki, bhalobhashar rakhi' is a tune I'll never forget. I would never have forgotten the song either if it wasn't it bangla. I remember Usha Uthup singing the english portion though 'I never want to have to see you suffer in any way. Here's a symbol to protect you, keep you safe every day' in the tune of some christmas carol. I can't forget it because for an entire day, it blared in my ears while I went around collecting money to build a neuro-science institute.Ok, Here is what it was all about. An NGO has taken it upon themselves to raise funds for an upcoming neuroscience institute which would offer the latest technology at a really low price for people who can't generally a. afford the high cost of treatment for their neurological diseases and b. had to travel to other cities/countries for treatment. So what they were offering sounded good to me. International treatment at an affordable rate right here in Kolkata.
The good samaritan that I am, I signed up for a day of helping out this NGO. How do they they expect to raise the money for the hospital? Selling 'Bhalobhashar rakhi' or 'Thread of love' to give to your loved ones for a princely sum of 100 Rupees. I thought it was ridiculous. Even more ridiculous was the amount that they needed to raise which was a whopping 15 crores,
So my friend and I bravely went to Mani Square to do this deed. We thought there would be like, at least 10 people doing this, but surprise no.2 was that we were the only two campers there.
We were bored, We had strings to con people with so we did what two idiots would do on a sunday afternoon, we went out and started doing our trick to get them to buy the 'thread of love'.
We had a few funny moments.
1. Ad Approaches a man, give him the low-down in 15 minutes about what we're doing, what the money was for, how it would benefit people etc etc. The whole sha-bang. This man looks blankly at him, puts his hands around his shoulders, says 'no problem' and walks off. like, y'know, it's good you're doing this but, you know, like fuck off or something. haha.
2. Ad starts on the opening speech, man interrupts and says 'I'm sorry but I have to run.', Ad, already a bit annoyed at the number of people who has evaded the opener says, 'go run' the man walks a bit, looks back, sees us looking at him, does a bit of a on-spot jogging thing and then starts walking away. wtf?!
3. Me making a sale to a guy and girl.
me : .............. and you should buy it for your girlfriend here.
man : she's my sister!
me:oh ok, then you should buy it for your sister. don't you love your sister (yada yada)
girl : Don't we look like brothers and sisters?
me : no, you look a lot better than him, to me
girl : dekho, for that you shouldn't buy it!
me : What?! You should make him buy 2 now, I was being so nice to you!
... They bought one :)
There were a few disappointments. Like how this muslim mother started teasing her 5 year old that this was the way he begs her for money. I got rather mortified at that. And how this bengali man totally wasted like half an hour asking inane questions and not buying anything at the end.
And ofcourse, there was this cute girl called vandana mehta who's number i sneakily took down on my phone but haven't yet gotten the courage to call. Any of you know her? :P
I raised 2600 bucks that day. My friend raised 1700. Just on threads. I never went back after that day. I think I was supposed to get 300 bucks for it but I never went back to get it.
posted by Sphinx @ 6:10 PM
Comments: 5
