Gurdaspur Diary: ‘The man who moves a mountain starts by carrying away small stones’
Overcoming the all-consuming power of addiction is no easy task. You will often awake to days filled with temptation and struggle. And some days, you might lack the motivation to continue to fight. This is precisely what police officers tell addicts who are being put on the road to recovery. The Gurdaspur police have launched a novel initiative. This entails identifying young addicts and taking them to one of the five rehabilitation centers of this city. The anti-drug enforcement officers often catch young men whose pockets are filled with heroin. Instead of clamping the dreaded NDPS section on them, they are taken for treatment to these rehab centers. Residents, particularly parents of kids whose pockets are dirty with dope, have applauded this gesture. The Red Cross De-addiction centre on the Gurdaspur-Babbelai road is full of such patients. Patients is indeed a respectable name given to youngsters who are undergoing treatment. Romesh Mahajan, Project Director, says every morning the cops bring addicts to the center following which it has been stretched to its limits. “The most satisfying feeling is when I see a young man leaving my centre after being fully cured. I often tell youngsters that it does not matter how slowly you go, provided you do not stop. Recovery is all about falling seven times and standing up eight,” he says. Rakesh Kaushal, DIG (Border) under whose supervision this drive has commenced, is taking an avid interest in seeing people getting back to the track of their lives. The motto is: If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime, provided you try. The story of King Bruce and the spider is recounted by drug counselors wherein the spider falls several times before he finally manages to spin a web. And finally the tormented souls are also told yet another thing—-The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
Sandhu, the Good Samaritan, wants MP Randhawa to intervene
There are some people whose love for their city, for the area in which they live in, is unmatched. One such Good Samaritan is Jagjot Singh Sandhu, a resident of Batala. He is doing something or the other in his endeavour to turn Batala into a better place to live in. Recently he handed over a memorandum to new Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa asking him to spend a part of his MPLAD funds on developing historical sites line Gurdwara Kandh sahib and Mandir Mata Kali Dwara. He wants the roads leading to these places garbage-free, drug-free and pollution free. He also wants a fly-over to be constructed near the Gurdaspur-Batala by-pass on the National Highway (NH) which will make sure the accident rate comes down significantly. At present, the project to remove the high-tension wires near the by-pass has become the proverbial bone of contention between the state electricity entity-PSPCL- and the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). Both these government departments refuse to blink following which the project to do away with the high-tension wires has stalled. Sandhu says he has a lot many things to do for his city. He often quotes poet Robert Frost’s lines from his famous poem ‘Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening’: /”The woods are lovely dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep./”
