Jain Center Los Angeles CA 2008 09 Pratishta Souvenior

Author(s): Jain Center So CA Los Angeles
Publisher: USA Jain Center Southern California

Page 161

Samir Khandhar
My Tsunami Experience
The Jain virtues of non-violence, compassion, charity and service were instilled in my life by my parents and family, and nurtured during my 25 years at the Jain Center of Southern California and my 20 years of attending Jain Center Youth Committee classes, camps and cultural programs.
After the tsunami devastated the coastlines from Indonesia to India on December 26, 2004, my heart cried and I wanted to help in any way possible. The Internet and service-oriented friends' network provided information about the areas where help was specifically needed. I took time off from work and went to Madras, which had been hit hard by the tsunami. Many governmental and non-governmental international relief agencies were already at work. Several Jain organizations-Tapovan, for example-provided excellent sources of manpower, money and materials.
I joined a volunteer group which traveled to coastal villages that were in bad shape. Small, light-weight and readymade shelters and shades were installed; food, clothes and money were appropriately distributed to the needy. It was a heartwrenching experience to see parents who had lost children, children who had lost parents, and the homeless and poor masses without the basic necessities of life. JAINA and many other Jain groups did very good work. I experienced the real-life meaning of compassion as preached by Lord Mahavir and taught in my Pathshala classes. At the end of my trip, I was moved to donate a much-needed computer system to the relief organization.
This experience made me think that, even without natural (tsunami, flood, fire, earthquake and cyclone) or man-made (rioting and political disturbances) disasters, there are many, many poor people in need of food and basic necessities. I began to donate regularly to causes in India, the United States and other places, and visit India frequently for pilgrimage, charity and to absorb the religious-social-cultural sanskars in my life. While a student at UCLA, I helped to initiate a national fraternity, Beta Chi Theta, to promote comradeship, goodwill and scholarship.
None of this would have been possible without my family's Jain way of life, my parents' sanskars, and our connection with the Jain Center and JCYC. With humbleness, I acknowledge my indebtedness to it all in making me a better person.
Samir Khandhar is a Pathshala alumnus who is now a management consultant in the Los Angeles area.
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