One of the the things that struck me first about India (after I stopped fearing for my life with the chaotic driving and got over the stench that permeates Delhi) was the poverty.
Living in D.C., I consider myself pretty used to seeing poor people on the streets. I pass a string of homeless people each day on my walk from the Metro to work. I like to imagine I have a delicate balance of acknowledging people so as to not ignore them on the streets but passing by without feeling bad about not offering them money. (My often entirely accurate response is usually that I have no cash with me.)
However, the level of poverty in Delhi is entirely different. Based on discussions with my friend Adam (the one who lives in Delhi) and my own observations, it's clear that many of the poor in Delhi won't get a next meal if they don't succeed in getting a few rupees for the day. There aren't food kitchens on every corner or tons of government programs to help with the necessities. (I'm not saying that homeless people in America have it easy, but there are definitely more options available overall.)
I often saw families crouched along the side of the road amid the piles of trash. I saw children picking through trash piles to find recyclables and anything that could be of use. I saw multiple beggars with deformities, missing limbs, etc. I saw one man on the side of the road with crutches and actual gaps in his legs where you could see down to the bone. (I'm not a doctor of any sort, but perhaps he had some sort of flesh-eating disease for lack of a better guess.) I had a frail-looking mother carrying a small child stand by our rickshaw at a stoplight and beg for rupees for the duration of the light. (This was one of the rare times of day or locations at which drivers actually paid attention to the lights and stopped.)
On our train rides, we passed many shanty towns where a row of tents formed homes and children wandered in trash along the tracks. We passed fields where a tiny 4-foot-by-4-foot straw shack in a field was likely a seasonal home for a worker.
Was I completely heartless the whole time? No. I gave some chips I had recently purchased to a beggar girl on the streets one afternoon. I gave a few rupees to an old woman. I ended up purchasing an entire box of ghee for a boy in Pushkar who said it would help feed his family. (At almost 300 rupees, that was more than pocket change by Indian standards. It was the price of about two full meals. This boy had been kind to me a couple days before and given me directions. When I saw him again, he asked for some roti to bring home to his family. Then he led me to a market stall and requested that I buy a box of ghee so they could make roti for a week. It might have been a scam, but at least he had been helpful to me in the first place.)
But, even as I felt guilty at not giving more (when $2 US can purchase an entire meal, it seems a bit cruel not to just give that much to every beggar. Obviously, I can afford it in the sense of not going broke), it was obvious I couldn't give money to everyone. There are just so many people in India and many that live in poverty.
It definitely opened my eyes to different levels of poverty.
1 comment:
It's hard to see poverty to that extent and not be able to do something. Glad you were able to help in small way.
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