I take the time now to discuss an issue of gravity and significance that I know will not be well-received by some of my readership: the issue of poverty in India. I feel obligated to discuss it as it is such a large part of the way many people, mainly Westerners, see and think about India. This description comes solely from my perspective – a view that has greatly changed since I have been in India (as you will see by reading to the end), despite the fact that it does not reflect the sentiments of most Indians. So please, dear reader, be aware of this and respect my opinion.
First of all, the Indian perception of poverty in their country differs wildly from the Western perception. Indians often do not like to think about or discuss the matter, though when they do, they describe it in a way that makes it seem less shocking and widespread than it really is, saying that India is not the only country where poverty assumes the form it does. Indian cinema, Bollywood, is a good example of this: When the films are shot in India, there is never an inclusion of the destitution that does actually exist. Strangely enough, the majority of films that show India for what it is are made by foreign producers. A film such as Slumdog Millionaire (an extremely popular film in the West) is, if I may make a generalization, despised by Indians for its extensive footage of the slums in Mumbai. They say that it depicts India in a bad light, and that it gives people the wrong impression. I can agree with that, but I still accept the truth that films like Slumdog were shot in places that are very much real, whereas many Bollywood films are the product of studios and careful editing.
In Varanasi, where things are coming around much more slowly than they are where I live in the state of Gujarat, the number of beggars was unbelievable. How strange and contradictory it was to find such macabre scenes of human life at the heart of the holiest city in India. Walking to the Dashashwamedh Ghat, there were spots where the edge of the street was lined with cripples, lepers, and other elderly persons, each cupping their hands to the passerby’s. Whenever and wherever we get out of the car, we were be surrounded by a group of older women and children, many of whom were carrying babies, asking for money or food. They would follow behind us, pleading, but in such a way that one can become, dare I say, frightened and irritated rather than remorseful at their presence. At times, I fear that I have developed a heart of stone by the way I tell them to leave me alone, a reaction that scares me beyond imagination. Only those who have lived in India can know how it comes to be.
The most important thing to understand in this case is that India is, as always, just different. अलग ही है, it’s just different. While saying that fails to offer an answer, it should at least let one know that whatever culturally-induced perceptions we have, simply do not succeed when we attempt an explanation of something foreign to us. The homeless of India are so different than the homeless of the US, therefore interacting the same way in both places is impossible. Here, when I am approached by someone asking for money, I tell them “Maaf kijiye”, forgive me. Deaf to my words, they continue staring into my eyes, but they don’t appear to see me, or anything at all, for that matter. Their faces are expressionless, their eyes lifeless. How can anyone be alive if their eyes – which need no language to speak on their own, and are said to be the windows to the soul – do not reflect life? How can it possibly be?
Naturally, this happens far more often to foreigners than it does to Indians, reminding me that being white-skinned is as advantageous in some places as it is disadvantageous in others.
If I haven’t forgotten too much of my native culture, I believe that giving to someone on the street in New York is something many people regularly do, while I have almost stopped giving to beggars in India altogether. On the one hand, it is out of fear that I will attract unwanted attention, and on the other, I wonder whether the money I give will end up helping he or she that asks for it, or if it will perpetuate someone’s impetus to beg rather than seek to work and earn money. Then I wonder if it would be better just to give sweets to the children that beg, but I am disgusted by how condescending the gesture is from my side. And what good is the use of ignoring something that is so obviously real? How dare I tell a child of no more than six years that I have nothing to give to them?
It is, undoubtedly, sobering to think of the plight of these people. What with the way the nation fails to raise them up and out of their situation, it is obvious that they will not see a change in fortune. For people like them, the harijans and dalits (untouchables), there is zero mobility, no light at the end of the tunnel. Coming from a caste where one’s shadow was believed to defile a Brahmin (upper caste) if they should touch, it is easy to see why this is so. Everyone is just living the way they always have.
As you can see, this is a subject of much internal struggle for me. At the end of the day, the lesson to be learned from these experiences is one that applies to ourselves and what we view as necessary and unnecessary. Some time ago, I had asked a good friend of mine, an American Hare Krishna monk, what he thought of the poverty in India. Having lived here since 1974, I was expecting to hear something I had not yet thought of, which is exactly what I got. He replied saying that we view these people using material wealth as an index of happiness. They may struggle to find food, and possess only the clothes on their back, but who is to say that they should be unhappy for lack of nice clothes, cars, electronics, and upscale homes, the like of which we derive happiness (and sadness) from? If this is so, as I think it is, then it would be wrong to see untouchables’ conditions as unfortunate; it would be wrong to say that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The reason why many Westerners tend to think otherwise is because they cannot fathom a life without material. For them, there is no such thing.
We are all living, surviving as best we can in this world, so there can be no difference between one person and another. Knowledge of history, languages, dining and culture mean absolutely nothing if you see it from ‘the big picture’. They are all just distractions from the truth that life, be it of a king or a slave, draws to an end. Now the only question remains, what on Earth ought we to do in the meantime?
For India- with Love and Squalor 
uma menon
/ July 19, 2013🙂