I want to always remember the day of January 29th 2011. In India it is easy to get inured at the plight of the poor. It is simple to look away and not care. My mother showed me otherwise. She has shown compassion on two different occasions. One more dramatic and many years ago which I'll write about later. This one is a more simple, a more humble incident. An old man was collecting a mound of dirt near our house. He'd take the dirt in a plastic bag and then walk quickly to throw it away at a corner a 100 yards away. He was a frail man barely able to lift the bag of dirt. It was freezing cold at 6:30 AM in the morning. He was wearing a thin kurta pajama, has no shoes on. He clearly was of poor mental health. My mother when she saw him, gave him an old pair of shoes and then ran in to fetch a sweater. She asked me to go out to give it to him. I had just woken up, I sleepily waved her off. She went out and gave the sweater to the guy. He continued his dirt collection after wearing the sweater. My mother's action aroused deep feeling in me as it was easy to ignore this man. The poor, the downtrodden. I wouldn't have given him a moment's notice thinking there's too much in India to fix.
Why do I keep mentioning the whole of India? There's a backstory. I have just returned from the US after living there for 5 years. I am starting my own business. To be an entrepreneur. And I just realized my own stupidity. That every day I go to work to move the needle just an inch and I am happy if it budges an inch.
There's change needed for the country to be a better place, for the city, for the neighborhood to be a better place. I'll have to focus on moving this needle just an inch too.I also had a fleeting desire to photograph the man with my shiny iPhone. I did not. I realized the irony of the situation. I don't want the world to see the poverty porn either. No writing a quippy twitter post for the entertainment of random folks. The man went away after a while. Ideally I should have tried to figure out how he survives, lives etc. But I didn't. I'll remember that too. I didn't try to do anything.
Why do I keep mentioning the whole of India? There's a backstory. I have just returned from the US after living there for 5 years. I am starting my own business. To be an entrepreneur. And I just realized my own stupidity. That every day I go to work to move the needle just an inch and I am happy if it budges an inch.
There's change needed for the country to be a better place, for the city, for the neighborhood to be a better place. I'll have to focus on moving this needle just an inch too.I also had a fleeting desire to photograph the man with my shiny iPhone. I did not. I realized the irony of the situation. I don't want the world to see the poverty porn either. No writing a quippy twitter post for the entertainment of random folks. The man went away after a while. Ideally I should have tried to figure out how he survives, lives etc. But I didn't. I'll remember that too. I didn't try to do anything.