Poverty

The poverty in India warrants at least two blog postings. I know y'all have probably had enough, but lets give it another go, just to make sure it is really sinking in. What I am seeing changes everyday - poor people look different in every environment. One thing remains the same - all of them look so tired, and so old. The poverty here is the workers in the wheat fields who live in huts made out of their crop (read: grass houses); it is the ancient porters at the tiny village train station who rely 100% on tourists to visit the national park close by; the families in Delhi who have their entire lives and possessions on one street corner, open to every ill and harm, begging for money at the windows of cars stopped at their intersection; the kids from the slums who know their innocent look is a heart breaker for the foreigners they beg from; the hard working taxi driver who spends all his money to send his children to private schools because the government schools aren’t worth the bricks they’re built with; the countless little boys and girls who know one English word, “Hayo” (hello) and say it over and over and over again, hoping to get the white man’s attention.

On and on it goes. Relentlessly, it never stops. I have written about and loved so many parts of India, but the faces of the poor, who stare holes into me as I walk by, are hard to escape. I really want to just walk into the slums with my camera and snap away for hours. I suppose I could do just that, but to be honest, I am afraid. I am afraid of that look they give me, afraid that they think I am rich because I am white and they should be too. I am afraid to see the beds of garbage they sleep on, the black oily water they drink and the animal excrement they sit in. I am afraid they will think I have money for all of them and will be disappointed when I give them nothing. Most of all I am afraid to see pregnant women in these conditions. There are so many of them and how they can bear a child in the dirty and crowded slums is beyond me.

The students at Vidya Vanam look so different – they have seen the Light, even if only glimpses of it, and it shows in their smiles and their eyes. At least they have the knowledge that another world exists. The children on the streets of Delhi and in the villages where a school is merely a building with a sign – they know no other world, no way out. They are bound to a life where freedom and progress do not exist and the possibility for change is slim. They know that money will help them get through a few days, so they beg and survive, beg and survive. Who told me when I was a kid that food, water, shelter and clothing are the basic essentials? They are the essentials for a survival on the edge, but that is not enough. If garbage scraps, drain water, blue tarps and dirty cloth is all you need to survive, then all of the Far East is in great shape. The basic four necessities need to be expanded and extended – fresh food, clean water, safe housing, real clothes, education, a job, a doctor (with an actual degree). Even that is not enough – dignity, freedom, progress, goals, change – all these things give people something to live for, something to give to their children.

In Delhi this week I spotted pairs of children, usually boy and girl, filthy and obviously from the slums. They would be holding hands, helping each other cross the street, sharing scraps to eat, knocking on car windows in the hopes of a quick handout. Likely all they own are the clothes on their back and their parents have either abandoned, lost or sold them. They move around Delhi, sleeping wherever they end up. Their survival skills are excellent and that is all that keeps them alive. They have nothing else, and they have only each other to live for.

The only certainty I can find in these sights is that I know something has to change. The population growth in India and the East, and massive downturn in the world means that this problem will only get worse. It may sound as if I am trying to blow up an ideological bubble to float home in. That is partly true – idealistic thinking may be the only possible starting place in this poverty mess – realistic thinking and planning would and has fallen flat on its face attempting to solve poverty in India and the world. But Yunnus did it in Bangladesh, from the perspective of an ideologue and a realist, and he made sweeping changes for the poor there. India needs massive, massive, massive amounts of money and effort to undertake the problems of the poor and the slums here. Until then, so much of our world’s population live in conditions not fit for any human being. And they are not going anywhere.