Monday, Nov 29, 1999
 Encounter With Poverty
- Sandhya Acharya Sandhya, 21, lives in Thane, a suburb of Mumbai. She works with Siemens at Worli, which happens to be a long way from her home. The grind of a 6 hours daily commute to and from work do not deter her from finding time to pursue her other interests - reading, writing and music. She has studied German and is quite conversant with the language. She explains her view of life with - "My friends call me Dream Girl, not because I look like one (As you can see I am hardly a looker), but because I dream a lot. I believe that dreams sustain your today and build your tomorrow." As is evident, besides being talented Sandhya is also modest! |
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Everyday as we so unconsciously do our routine jobs- walk to office, pickup children, do our shopping, watch the movies we encounter poverty. We look at it, but don't see it. Accustomed to its existence we accept it as an integral part of our immediate surrounding. Perhaps we have numbed our minds and trained our thoughts to ignore those parts of our lives that we find undesirable. The question is how long will we be able to do that.
The woman sat there in the street. I saw her everyday as I passed by. You wouldn't give her a second glance. It is not an uncommon sight to see such people scattered like carrion over the place. I didn't like to look at her. She filled me with a sense of disgust, of pity. The very sight of her engulfed me in a tormenting gamut of emotions from which I could not tear. Her face was etched with tiredness. Her gaunt features stood out from her sallow face. She had a rag of cloth wrapped around her- it hardly covered her, but the sight was more wretched than provoking. Cruel was fate and strange it was. My mind filled with the thought that this shadow called life could well have been me. I felt terror. She clutched a child to her bosom. Nothing more than a piece of cloth cradled the child. The child wailed and flayed its arms around. The woman hardly took notice. The child's face was unclean and soiled. Its cries stung my ears.
The cries of a child's hunger and desperation evoked pity in me. The woman's hair were disheveled- an entangled mass. Her eyes were sore as they stared out of her sockets listlessly. Her nails were corroded and skin pale. The place was dirty and reeked foul. I felt disgust. What did she do to fend for herself and the child? Did she sell her self-respect every moment as she begged at every passerby or did she sell her honour, her body for the mouths she had to feed? What honour am I talking about? A desperate person pays no heed to conscience. I felt fear as I thought about what her aspirations could be? Did she hope for a better future for the child? Did she wait for tomorrow any differently from today? Did she steal glances at the lines on her hand to guess what fate had ordained for her? Did she dare to dream? I felt distress. The sight haunted me and filled me with uneasiness. I wondered about right and wrong, about fate and time. I wondered about God and humanity. I wondered about faith and hope. I wondered about the misery of poverty, of desperation, of crime, of the future. I felt helpless.
I walked away as I did everyday. I had a home to go to, my haven. More than that I had love, affection, devotion. I could dare to dream for a better tomorrow. I could hope. I could live. I felt shame. Poverty is not about percentages or milestones for the 21st century. It is about people. It is about misery, about sufferings, about the lack of justice. It is about desperation, the breeding ground for crime, the helplessness of mankind. It is about the loss of goals, the death of dreams and meaningless existence. It is about the curse of living a today without a tomorrow.
Till we Connect again next week...
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