On poverty

As written on 24th June 2009

This one is specially for the general mass of Mumbai. People who have seen only a pseudo face of poverty. In Mumbai, we see beggars all around. We donate them and most of the time we do not do so. Some of us know about the organized setup that exists, using them. Those who know about this ignore them because they know that our money's benefit would be reaped by somebody else. But poverty is also a reality in India.

There exists poverty where people suffer from hunger and helplessness. Anyone who has moved out of Mumbai and specially to small towns and villages must have seen such poverty. Poor small kids, never knowing what exists beyond slogging from dawn to dusk only to earn few rupees. I remember a scene from the bollywood movie "Swades" which almost everytime fills my eyes with tears. A scene where a small kid runs towards the train after seeing it from a distance with a kettle of water and a bucket of mud-cups to sell water. He literally begs to passengers to buy one cup of water. The price he quotes is 25 paisa. You know what is 25 paisa? It is 1/4th of a rupee and approx. 1/200th of a dollar. He sells 1 cup of water for 1/200th of a dollar. And for this he goes to maximum possible number of passengers carrying a weight close to half of his body weight. And he does so for the entire day.

What he is living is a childhood. Best time of one's life? His example is still better than many others who live a worse life. And this is a reality in India. Real poverty. In Mumbai, we do not see the extent to which poverty can push a kid, a family to live in helplessness. But India's small towns and villages are full of such examples. Sometimes i feel that we do not fathom how bad the face of poverty can be and we leave it there.

If we don't see anything doesn't mean it does not exist.