Public Service

“I wish I could do more with the life god has given me. But since there’s only so much I can do in one life, I wish to do as much as I can to better other people’s lives so that they see value in helping others and thereby do more with their own life.” This is what Shri Ghewar Chand Kanunga believes is the meaning of life. He firmly believes we are given the gift of life in order to better lives. Perhaps this is what makes him one of the most selfless and admired people in Jodhpur. His list of good deeds is too long and varied to enumerate in loving detail here. Plus, this is not something Shri Ghewar Chand Kanunga would stand for. Chronicling the good he has done for others is not something Shri Ghewar Chand Kanunga believes in encouraging one bit. He intensely dislikes talking about how he has helped others. But the fact that virtually everyone who knows him or off him admires him is proof enough of the fact that he has touched tens and thousands of lives in so many praiseworthy and profound ways. From promoting education to saving cattle to saving families and lives that depend on cattle to generating employment for anyone who came to him to deeply and sincerely supporting the differently-abled to leading extensive drought relief in Rajasthan for years to educating women to stand on their own feet and feel emancipated to carrying out small small acts of kindness daily to always lending a helping hand to anyone who turned to Shri Ghewar Chand Kanunga for assistance, Shri Ghewar Chand Kanunga’s record of doing good is consistent, long, continuing, and stellar.

In fact, his definition of public service is very revealing – in his view, put simply, public service is the purpose of life and the process of bettering lives. Even more instructive and inspiring are the reasons Shri Ghewar Chand Kanunga is drawn to helping people. In his experience, the way to find happiness is to help others find happiness. He says people spend all their life running helter-skelter looking for happiness without realising that the path to true happiness is found by sincerely trying to help others smile. The fact that that this is a lesson so simple is what makes it so hard to discover and decipher. Educating someone can make you happy. Helping someone can make you happy. Making someone else smile can make you happy. Building something that makes others happy can make you happy. The key to your own happiness lies in making others happy is the one simple mantra of public service Shri Ghewar Chand Kanunga would like more people in this world to internalise. This is the true meaning of social reform in Shri Ghewar Chand Kanunga’s eyes and this is the one lesson India needs to learn is the path India needs to take in his opinion.