Hard Stuff

There seems to be a general attitude of complacency towards poverty here and it’s been hard to swallow. I understand that, as an outsider, specifically as an American outsider, I really have no place to barge in and point fingers and pass judgment. But it’s been bothering so I’ve been trying to understand how Vrinda, a highly educated person, can tell me not to worry about the children begging, that they really have plenty of money, to dismiss them with a wave of her hand and a “Nahi nahi, jao.” She must have the capacity to understand that these are children, just as powerless and dependent as any other child. And so most of their money is probably going to a street maffia that demand a cut of their daily profit, or parents who keep their kids from attending school because they can bring home more rupees in a day than their father makes in a week. She must understand how it works. Right? For a while I tried to excuse reactions like Vrinda’s, until one day I saw a dirty little boy, no older than two, squatting and defecating by the side of a busy road, face caked with dirt and tears, mouth open in an O of complete and utter anguish. Another one of those “brutal and terrible” things that take place in this “space for the unpredictable.” So what do you do? Do you pick him up and hold him and comfort him? And after that, then what? Go home and write about it on my blog? Why don’t the police directing traffic do something? But obviously, no one did anything, including me. We’re all implicated. All our hands are dirty.

There’s this urban legend here, that it seems like everyone has heard, about how 8,000 rupees were found under a beggar’s mattress once she had died. So yes, for some it becomes a way of life, a habit. But, besides the obvious salacious factor, it seems like the reason this story is so widely-circulated is that it eases the conscious, without having to face the enormously complex task of fixing the system. And hey, I can relate to that. It isn’t much worse than the biscuits I buy to distribute while I’m out. Because what miniscule impact will that cookie have? But it will certainly make me feel better.