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A Tale of Two Indias Sunanda Vashisht Sunanda was born in the beautiful valley of Kashmir, India when Kashmir was known for its unparalleled natural beauty and not as a cauldron of fear and terror. She did most of her schooling in Delhi and dabbled with several professions before moving to U.S last year. She is currently pursuing higher studies here. she likes to introduce herself as an explorer because she wants to spend all her time in this world exploring unknown. Writing for her is a cathartic experience. She can't remember when she began writing first but she does know that writing has always helped her to be at peace with herself and with the world around her.

Scene 1: A woman completely defeated by abject poverty and helplessness sells one of her children for Rs. 20 so that she can feed her other children.

Scene 2: Mercedes Benz introduces S-class Mercedes worth 60 Lakhs and says that there is a huge market for Luxury cars.

The only thing common between these two incidents is that both these happen in one country called India. One of the worst problems that our country faces today is the unequal distribution of wealth. To put it in simple terms, the rich are getting even more richer and the poor are getting poorer to the point of complete decimation.

Before I say anything more, I must confess that I am no economist nor do I understand the complex economic issues that our Oxford and Cambridge educated economists keep discussing over and over again in the their air-conditioned homes, offices, television studios and glossy magazines. I do not understand the increase or decrease in per capita income nor does the increase or decrease in inflation rate mean much to me. All I know is that I am a sensitive citizen of my country and when I walk on the roads of Delhi the unabashed display of wealth and extreme poverty stare at me at the same time. And this unfortunately is true for every city in India.

India lives in several centuries at the same time. I remember about five years ago I went to Mussorie for a vacation with few of my friends. We lived in the poshest part of the town, which was very glossy and made very pretty to attract the tourists. There were beautiful hotels, which provided an excellent view of the Doon valley, and the restaurants, which served the choicest food. We thought we had arrived in Heaven. There was too much happiness around and we got lost in that make-believe.

< -- Photograph courtsey Janmeja Johl

One day however, we decided to go for a long walk and we reached the interior of Mussorie where the natives or local people lived. These people were as much distanced from the other glossy Mussorie as much as we were, living in Delhi. There were no beautiful homes here. We just saw the tiny huts where ten or more people lived or tried to live in two rooms or less. Their clothes were torn. They worked hard to make the both ends meet. They had nothing to do with the beauty or splendor of Mussorie. They were too busy figuring out where the next meal would come from. Such contrast shocked my friends and me. A friend of mine had a camera and she decided to shoot some faces. As she was clicking some pictures, a kid who must have been about eight or nine came to me and asked me what she was doing. I said she was clicking his picture. He then asked me 'Is that a TV she has in her hand' I was taken aback. Had this boy never seen a TV or heard about a camera. I asked him and his other friends if any one of them had seen a TV and they all replied in negative. I couldn't have been more shocked. We are talking about IT revolution and all other revolutions in a country where nine year olds have never seen a Television set nor have they heard of a camera. Which India are we talking about? India that lives in palatial houses and moves in luxury cars or India that lives in temporary huts and knows nothing about the advances of science.

We clearly have two India's here and both are completely separate and distant from each other. The so-called privileged class is too busy getting rich to know that there is other class that exists simultaneously with them and for whom the world is getting worse every day. What bothers me is that we have completely forgotten these vast majorities of people. They don't exist on TV nor do they have a place in our tabloids that have since replaced the erstwhile newspapers. Hence it becomes very easy to forget their existence because they don't fit in our world. All of us including me who talk about India emerging as the next super power with glowing pride very easily forget that stray nuclear tests or some individual success stories of few people abroad do not make our country super power. We see the hotels getting posher in metros, technology parks replacing good old parks where children used to play, cars getting bigger and sleeker and we get completely lost in the glitter. We do not see the poor packed in every hole of the city so helpless that they have even lost the ability to make themselves felt or heard. We, the so-called privileged class do not know or care what is happening. We are too busy having a good time watching 'Kaun Banega Crorepati' where a crore is up for grabs every alternate day. It seems to me that a lot of us are in a state of constant slumber where images are fed to us and we believe that those images are worth living for. Extreme Commercialization in our country has really desensitized us. It is so easy to think that 'This is not happening to me so why should I bother'. Not realizing that no success is complete unless every strata of the society succeeds together. We are all living in a constant state of slumber. It will require a rude jolt to wake us up from this sleep and once we 'see' things it will then be very difficult to 'unsee' them.

I do not know what this rude jolt will be. I do not how long this will carry on before it turns a full circle. I do not know when the Extreme Greed will get satiated or will it ever get satiated. I am not anti-rich nor am I against people who like to live a good life. My tirade is against people who trample on others to reach to their bit of the sky. My fight is against people for whom making tons of money is the only goal. They are not bothered whom they are decimating in the process. Mahatma Gandhi, who we have very conveniently forgotten today, said that 'Rich should act as custodians of wealth' meaning that those of us who are privileged to have more than what we need should do our bit for the society instead of worrying how to make our third and fourth million.

I know that realistically it is not possible for all of us to have equal amount of money. That of course is a very utopian state, which will never exist. But we definitely can work towards making opportunities of improving our lives available to everybody. I don't know how the highly educated economic planners are planning to tackle the situation, nor do I know how the people in seats of power wish to solve this huge problem. I do know that if all of us wake up to this disturbing and shameful reality now maybe we can make a difference before it gets too late.

I would like to end this with a very inspiring quote from one of the great thinkers of our times, Swami Vivekananda
'Arise, Awake and stop not till the goal is achieved'

Until we connect again....

Credits: Photograph, outdoor kitchen, courtsey Janmeja Johl.

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