The blog will be on a short break now; I will be travelling to the beaches of Kerala and Goa to spend the christmas days there and get a first touch on southern India, a very different cultural realm within the subcontinent.
Meanwhile, my readers, you can twist to some old school Bollywood tunes. Here's a cult classic from the horror-thriller movie Gumnaam from 1965. The song "Jaan Pechehaan Ho" ("We should get to know each other") was composed and performed by the grand old man of Bollywood music, Mohammed Rafi. Now shake what Brahma gave ya!
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
On a Cold Winter Night in Delhi
From November onwards, the temperatures in the city started to plummet rapidly. While I still a while ago had lamented the endless pouring sweat and the inescapability of the heat, soon enough I woke up realizing that my toes that had stuck outside the duvet during the night had gone almost numb and the windows had gathered a light crust of frost on them. The bone chilling breezes from the Himalayas had swept the remnants of the monsoon heat turning Delhi into a cold, dry pit of dust.
The change in climate had also become visible in the people in the streets. Walking to the campus these days, one can see the rickshaw-wallahs huddled together blowing to their hands, wrapped in blankets or whatever pieces of cloth they had managed to find, bare frozen toes in their sandals. Beggars equally have turned into small heaps of clothes and blankets with a hand sticking out. Seeing how hard the temperature drop seemed to hit these people, it made me think how the inclement weather generally treats the people on the fringes of the society. It seemed that for those without a roof on top of their heads, an already unfriendly city had turned downright hostile.
According to different estimates, Delhi has some 100,000-150,000 people with no access to shelter, water and sanitation. For these people, winter is a time of merciless survival; during the winter months, approximately 10 homeless people die per night due to lack of shelter, warm clothes or blankets. Having realized that to many of these people with little or no income at all, winter brings unreasonable daily choices between staying warm or buying food. Some companies in Delhi had started to hire blankets to homeless with a price of 10 rupees per night, but to many this leads to a choice between a meal or a blanket per day.
Therefore me and my friends Vicki and Lynsey decided to try to help at least a fraction of these people by eliminating this daily Sophie's choice of getting nutrition over staying warm by throwing a fundraiser to buy blankets. A quick Facebook fundraiser proved to be surprisingly efficient and with the help of our friends worldwide, we managed to gather enough money for 300 blankets. On short notice this was a good enough achievement from three people and their friends.
We donated the funds to PMI (Passion Movement International), an NGO based in North Delhi running different health and education projects in the slums of Delhi. They organize annually a "blanket run" where they distribute blankets to homeless winter to survive the chilling nights, so we decided to sponsor them with our donation as well as help them physically distribute the blankets.
On one Sunday then, when the blanket run was to take place, we gathered in the NGO headquarters for briefing. It had turned out that the ngo in question happened to be run by mostly American Evangelical Christians, which had made me somewhat worried, but I did not let it bother too much as it seemed that the actual work of the NGO did not include prozelytizing. Otherwise we would have taken our business elsewhere. I was also somewhat reserved due to some of the employees' "we're more like a big family" approach, but tried to ignore it and focus on getting the actual task done.
After a reluctant communal prayer, that some of the employees of the NGO insisted on having before hitting the streets, we got into three cars with our 300 blankets and drove into the cold night of Delhi. Many of the homeless in Delhi sleep on sidewalks and strips of concrete dividing highways, so finding them was relatively easy. At first we did not seem to find too many people in need of blankets and some of the few that we met in this stage even refused and insisted that they didn't need them. However, as we approached the Delhi Stock Market area, the extent of the problem became abundantly clear to us. Starting from the stock market main building, blocks after blocks of rows of men, women and children lay huddled in the pavements; shivering bony bodies curled up against each other, wrapped in anything from strips of bed linen to plastic bags to nothing at all. The irony of the situation would have been hilarious, if it wouldn't have been so tragic. Hordes of the poorest people in the country inhabit the area surrounding the building where most of India's financial capital flows and grows.
As we were giving out the blankets, some of the NGO people started taking photographs of each other giving the blankets to the poor, for PR purposes they explained. Utterly disgusted by this demeaning of a person's plight to get a novelty memento, me, Vicki and Lynsey got into a slight confrontation with some of the employees, but as it seemed that these people saw nothing wrong with what they were doing, we found it useless to try to talk sense to them and instead focus on the actual task at hand.
Many accepted the blankets with outstreched hands, but for some it seemed to be more important to take care of their own first. An old man was offered a blanket, he refused and instead told us to come behind the corner, because there we would find people that really needed them. Sure enough, we were met with young mothers and small children sleeping with little to nothing to keep them warm - block after block.
Needless to say, our distribution was not an attempt to solve a problem, rather to gain first hand insight in the extent of the problem, and try to save a few lives in the process. I hadn't done any charity work before this but after realizing that a blanket can save a person's life and how little effort it took to gather already a notable sum of money that would buy hundreds of blankets, I felled compelled to do so. Giving blankets to these people doesn't save them from their predicament, but it did at least provide a temporary relief. It also taught us a very palpable lesson in economic inequality.
Unlike many metropolises in Western countries, Delhi makes its well-to-do residents deal with the marginalized ones on a daily basis. You may be a pinstriped businessman tucked safely inside your Honda City or a successful young IT-professional clutching your new Macbook with all the titivating gadgets, but you will still have to trudge on through hosts of beggars and homeless people sleeping on the street even in fairly central commercial areas. Despite its blatant visibility, the plight of the poor seems to be effectively neglected and ignored by the wealthier echelons of the Indian society.
Since India's economic liberalization from the early 90's onwards, the collective mindset seems to have developed into a sort of frenzied accumulation of wealth by any means necessary. The same social and economic inequality that prevailed in a centrally planned economy before the ascension of Manmohan Singh to the prime minister's seat still exists in the new, frenetically capitalist, India as well, where all pursue but very few gain the wealth they aspire to. Cities like Delhi have become the hubs of this new prosperity, which has resulted in mass migrations of people from rural areas to the cities in search of employment. Many of these people, often uneducated and illiterate, end up living on the streets. There are many stories how these people ended up where they are, but a lot fewer on how they got out of there.
Although economic liberalization has in theory democratized the opportunity for economic advancement by making the possibility to be a self made man available to all, the reality is that most of the homeless are stuck in a rut of hand-to-mouth existence that is virtually impossible to get out of. Meanwhile, those that have already made it, are busy maintaining their acquired lifestyles. An article by Rana Dasgupta in Granta magazine quotes Tarun Tejpal, a prominent Delhi-figure, award winning author and editor of the anti-establishment Tehelka magazine. His description of the current mindset running the economy paints a bleak picture of a dog-eat-dog society:
The change in climate had also become visible in the people in the streets. Walking to the campus these days, one can see the rickshaw-wallahs huddled together blowing to their hands, wrapped in blankets or whatever pieces of cloth they had managed to find, bare frozen toes in their sandals. Beggars equally have turned into small heaps of clothes and blankets with a hand sticking out. Seeing how hard the temperature drop seemed to hit these people, it made me think how the inclement weather generally treats the people on the fringes of the society. It seemed that for those without a roof on top of their heads, an already unfriendly city had turned downright hostile.
According to different estimates, Delhi has some 100,000-150,000 people with no access to shelter, water and sanitation. For these people, winter is a time of merciless survival; during the winter months, approximately 10 homeless people die per night due to lack of shelter, warm clothes or blankets. Having realized that to many of these people with little or no income at all, winter brings unreasonable daily choices between staying warm or buying food. Some companies in Delhi had started to hire blankets to homeless with a price of 10 rupees per night, but to many this leads to a choice between a meal or a blanket per day.
Therefore me and my friends Vicki and Lynsey decided to try to help at least a fraction of these people by eliminating this daily Sophie's choice of getting nutrition over staying warm by throwing a fundraiser to buy blankets. A quick Facebook fundraiser proved to be surprisingly efficient and with the help of our friends worldwide, we managed to gather enough money for 300 blankets. On short notice this was a good enough achievement from three people and their friends.
We donated the funds to PMI (Passion Movement International), an NGO based in North Delhi running different health and education projects in the slums of Delhi. They organize annually a "blanket run" where they distribute blankets to homeless winter to survive the chilling nights, so we decided to sponsor them with our donation as well as help them physically distribute the blankets.
On one Sunday then, when the blanket run was to take place, we gathered in the NGO headquarters for briefing. It had turned out that the ngo in question happened to be run by mostly American Evangelical Christians, which had made me somewhat worried, but I did not let it bother too much as it seemed that the actual work of the NGO did not include prozelytizing. Otherwise we would have taken our business elsewhere. I was also somewhat reserved due to some of the employees' "we're more like a big family" approach, but tried to ignore it and focus on getting the actual task done.
After a reluctant communal prayer, that some of the employees of the NGO insisted on having before hitting the streets, we got into three cars with our 300 blankets and drove into the cold night of Delhi. Many of the homeless in Delhi sleep on sidewalks and strips of concrete dividing highways, so finding them was relatively easy. At first we did not seem to find too many people in need of blankets and some of the few that we met in this stage even refused and insisted that they didn't need them. However, as we approached the Delhi Stock Market area, the extent of the problem became abundantly clear to us. Starting from the stock market main building, blocks after blocks of rows of men, women and children lay huddled in the pavements; shivering bony bodies curled up against each other, wrapped in anything from strips of bed linen to plastic bags to nothing at all. The irony of the situation would have been hilarious, if it wouldn't have been so tragic. Hordes of the poorest people in the country inhabit the area surrounding the building where most of India's financial capital flows and grows.
As we were giving out the blankets, some of the NGO people started taking photographs of each other giving the blankets to the poor, for PR purposes they explained. Utterly disgusted by this demeaning of a person's plight to get a novelty memento, me, Vicki and Lynsey got into a slight confrontation with some of the employees, but as it seemed that these people saw nothing wrong with what they were doing, we found it useless to try to talk sense to them and instead focus on the actual task at hand.
Many accepted the blankets with outstreched hands, but for some it seemed to be more important to take care of their own first. An old man was offered a blanket, he refused and instead told us to come behind the corner, because there we would find people that really needed them. Sure enough, we were met with young mothers and small children sleeping with little to nothing to keep them warm - block after block.
Needless to say, our distribution was not an attempt to solve a problem, rather to gain first hand insight in the extent of the problem, and try to save a few lives in the process. I hadn't done any charity work before this but after realizing that a blanket can save a person's life and how little effort it took to gather already a notable sum of money that would buy hundreds of blankets, I felled compelled to do so. Giving blankets to these people doesn't save them from their predicament, but it did at least provide a temporary relief. It also taught us a very palpable lesson in economic inequality.
Unlike many metropolises in Western countries, Delhi makes its well-to-do residents deal with the marginalized ones on a daily basis. You may be a pinstriped businessman tucked safely inside your Honda City or a successful young IT-professional clutching your new Macbook with all the titivating gadgets, but you will still have to trudge on through hosts of beggars and homeless people sleeping on the street even in fairly central commercial areas. Despite its blatant visibility, the plight of the poor seems to be effectively neglected and ignored by the wealthier echelons of the Indian society.
Since India's economic liberalization from the early 90's onwards, the collective mindset seems to have developed into a sort of frenzied accumulation of wealth by any means necessary. The same social and economic inequality that prevailed in a centrally planned economy before the ascension of Manmohan Singh to the prime minister's seat still exists in the new, frenetically capitalist, India as well, where all pursue but very few gain the wealth they aspire to. Cities like Delhi have become the hubs of this new prosperity, which has resulted in mass migrations of people from rural areas to the cities in search of employment. Many of these people, often uneducated and illiterate, end up living on the streets. There are many stories how these people ended up where they are, but a lot fewer on how they got out of there.
Although economic liberalization has in theory democratized the opportunity for economic advancement by making the possibility to be a self made man available to all, the reality is that most of the homeless are stuck in a rut of hand-to-mouth existence that is virtually impossible to get out of. Meanwhile, those that have already made it, are busy maintaining their acquired lifestyles. An article by Rana Dasgupta in Granta magazine quotes Tarun Tejpal, a prominent Delhi-figure, award winning author and editor of the anti-establishment Tehelka magazine. His description of the current mindset running the economy paints a bleak picture of a dog-eat-dog society:
‘No one cares,’ he says. ‘There are no ideas except the idea of more wealth. The elite don’t read. They know how to work the till, and that’s it. There’s nothing: we are living in the shallowest decade you can imagine. Rural India, that’s 800 million people, has simply fallen out of the master narrative of this country. There should have been an enormous political left in India, but people worship the rich and there’s no criticism of what they do. They face no consequences; they live in an atmosphere of endless possibility.’
‘Do you think anything will come of all this money they’re making?’ I ask. ‘Do you think they’ll try to leave behind a legacy?’
‘They don’t care about their legacy! This is a Hindu society: I’m back for a million more lives – how much fuss am I going to make about this one? Indian businesspeople might run a school or feed a few orphans, but they’re not interested in reform because they are bent on making the system work for them. Hinduism is very pliable. It rationalizes inequality: if that guy is poor it’s because he deserves it from his previous lives, and it’s not for me to sort out his accounts. Hinduism allows these guys to think that what they get is due to them, and they have absolutely no guilt about it.’
Voices of pessimist dissent like these have emerged in the turmoil of India's economic race with China and appeasing politics with the West. While the authorities have been preoccupied in turning Delhi as quickly as possible into a "world class city" with draconian urban planning projects and the government has been busy toting the emergence of India as a rising global economic power to the rest of the world as well as to Indians themselves, parts of reality remain often unspoken. The new India has been favourable to a select few in the urban areas. However, over 70 percent of the population live in rural India, many in deplorable conditions. Many are forced to migrate to cities like Delhi only to become another addition to the army of homeless inhabiting the darker corners of the city. These people have remained an uncomfortable reality that the country needs to explain to the rest of the world and, above all, to itself.
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