i am not claiming to be a philanthopist as i consider myself to be a simple ,most ordinary fellow incapable of carrying a weighty adjective like 'philanthopist'.Rather i must say that i love mankind for its immense diversity and myriad magnitude.Atleast I want to help as many of my unfortunate or less fortunate brethren to come forward so that they also can be an integral part of the process called development.Between the desire and the reality falls the shadow as I found nobody in need of that kind of help.What they want is nothing higher than state sponsored alms,doles and gratuitous relief.What I want to render is to make them aware of their rights as well as duties and responsibilities.They just want their share of rights as they dont care of the duty and responsibility.They try to blame us for their poverty by uttering the cliched phrases like 'we are poor','you people cant live like this','cant you dig the earth yourself?'I dont mind but my heart aches as I listen to these pinching words.I am a lower level bureaucrat so I dont have much power to change the fate of these less privileged people of my unfortunate country.I have to work in the network of an approved system based on hierarchy;still something can be done for these poverty-striken strata of our society --this feelings haunts me too often.The much-hyped human development programmes have not yielded desired result particularly in rural India.This fact,embarressing as it may be,has its proof in the meagre earning capacity of most of the villagers.They are natural prey to the whims of nature like draught,flood,earthquake etc.In spite of the several attempts by the Government they fall prey to the relentless and heartless moneylenders.Most of the times they choose the wrong one to be their spokesperson.As the result of this they are bound to live a life devoid of simple day-today necessities,deprived of basic humane needs of food clothe and shelter.The worst thing is that they can be easily used by the political leaders to fulfil their own lust for power.What is most pathetic is their faith and dependence on the political leaders.They are sceptical of the bureaucracy but their hope and faith on their leaders last for long.Then I try to console my disillusined heart-'you are not their leader,let the leaders do their duty,let not interfere in their own life where you are just an outsider and you will stay here for 2 or 3 years.They have to live here and rely on their leaders and they have to live in the hopeless hope that one day everything will change.'So my disillusionment finds solace in the simple truth that if they can wait so long,why cant I.In this system of democracy a political leader can easily be acclaimed as a philanthropist but we,always remain the tightlipped hard-hearted snobs called the vainglorious bureaucrats.