Quitting

Some one was saying : please save our andhra people also. it was a friend who saw my post regarding the new paradigm needed for Telangana. Really, who am I to save anyone? For some reason, everyone thinks it is the job of activists, while they can sit pretty in the comfort zone of their home, watching TV and all the tamasha that it churns out and just utter a deep sigh at the way things are going. Tut! tut! And then some comments - perhaps some juicy gaalis...hmm! Job done! And last week another friend from an NGO called me for a meeting regarding Polavaram. I told him I can't come as I was busy on my farm. He said, "God, ever since you started agriculture, you have become totally unavailable". I wanted to say, "Well no one pays me a fat salary (or any salary for that matter), at the end of the month, therefore, I have to work on the land, to make my living". In fact, they get their fat pay checks to work on people's issues, not like us, activists, who have to get small donations to run the expenses within that money and then pay for your own travel etc, and still do a full time gratuit job. I wanted to step down as convener in the past 2 years, people didn't allow it to happen. Frankly, if this was a plum post in a govt. department, every one would have fought tooth and nail to get the job. However, since this is a thankless job, no one wants to come up to take on the responsibility. And when someone says, they want to quit, everyone oohs and aahs and says, Oh no! but you mustn't. Because you are so good at it. Of course, its not as if I didn't like being an activist. I liked it very much and perhaps I shall always be an activist at some level. But I feel its time to call it a day. And be with my bees and birds and have some peace in life!