A lesson in humility from the poor...

A few days ago, my roommate and I were at a shop next to our hostel to sell old newspapers for recycling, before I left for Bahrain. We were waiting for our papers to be weighed when a boy who I assumed to be about eight, but looked much younger, came and stood alongside us. He was dressed completely in red and was holding in his hands flat, rectangular strips of metal. He asked the shopkeeper if he would buy it from him, but the man replied that there was a shop a little ahead that would buy metal, as he only dealt with paper. I was a little puzzled because there was only a hospital and rehabilitation centre that lay between the paper shop and the hostel and no shops. A little later the boy returned and said he didn't find the shop. The two men told him something which I couldn't understand as it was in rapid Hindi. As we were heading back to the hostel, my friend said, "Wasn't he cute? It's a pity they turned him away." "What did those men tell him in the end?" I asked. "Oh, didn't you notice? They were just driving him away. There are no shops ahead and no metal shops here. Those two were showing him two different directions, to confuse him." I considered for a moment whether to give him the money I had just received from the shopkeeper. However, I changed my mind because that would be teaching him to beg and he was already far ahead, looking for another shop where he would be accepted. The incident brought to mind a line from one of my favourite books Gregory David Roberts' Shantaram: "There is no act of faith more beautiful than the generosity of the very poor." There was something about that boy that kept his picture fresh in my memory. Maybe it was the way he was treated, because if there's one thing that hurts me, it is seeing true sincerity going unreciprocated. There is no heartlessness greater than lying to a little child and giving him false hopes. That eight-year-old may have a family or none. He must have been trying to get money to support them, or just himself. To get his hands on those metal strips, he must have hunted a long time in the garbage dumps. Unlike his contemporaries, he didn't opt for the easier way of doing things, that is begging for money. Instead, he chose the hard way of making a living and was prepared to face rejection. I've just completed my first year in university, away from home. I hope I don't sound superfluous when I say that a greater part of my lesson was learnt on the streets of Mumbai. When German filmmaker Lutz Konermann visited my college to screen his movie Dharavi, Slum for Sale, he wondered why so many of us had never been there and asked a rather pointed question: "So you think you can learn nothing from the poor?" The world has been accused of making much of the poverty here, but unlike other places destitution stares at you in the face and you can't afford to ignore it. In India, Gandhian principles are used as slogans on political platforms, mouthed by rulers on state visits to New Delhi and used as a cloak for hypocrisy in the country. It is however, only among the poor that you see any of that in practice. While Gandhi is more widely known for his non-violence, he was also a firm believer in the dignity of labour. It was his belief that each man should be self-reliant by making his living out of the limited means that he possesses and take pride in that. While it's easier to place blame on the government for not providing jobs, a degree of blame is also on us for not having made the best of what we've been given, which is precisely what that little boy helped reinforce. I don't believe that either poverty or unemployment will be eradicated by 2020, as is India's target, or ever. But a little less apathy and a little more humility will go a long way in making life better for all of us. ¥ Ms Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still live here. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group 'A lesson in humility from the poor...', Gulf Daily News, March 19, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Road to a Hidden World of Misery

It wasn't without reason my dad put an end to my vegetarian drive before I was packed off to university.
Convinced that I would soon become weak-boned and painfully thin, he made me swear that I would eat everything that was set before me without making a fuss.
I have very religiously followed the dictum except when it comes to potatoes (way too much carbohydrates), beef (been off it since the Mad Cow scare) and prawns (yew!).
Breakfast and dinner are served in the hostel, but I have to look for lunch elsewhere.
I had no issues with that in the beginning but soon got tired of the Chinese food in the college canteen and after two disastrous experiences with burgers, I quit having lunch there.
For some reason, I find food in Mumbai unpalatable though millions of people, better connoisseurs of food than I, will tell you otherwise.
My average 'lunch' for two months consisted of tea and toast.
Maybe it's Bollywood with its 'size zero' obsession, or just that commuting in such a vast city takes its toll, but in Mumbai, every other person you'll meet is atrociously skinny.
While the rest of the world fights the battle of the bulge, folks in the Maximum City try to cope with minimum sizes.
I woke up one day to the horrible realisation that I needed a wardrobe revamp because all my clothes were many sizes too big for me.
It was high time I found a good place to have proper lunch, because my parents were convinced I was starving.
While on the hunt for a restaurant that matched my standards of hygiene and lighting, my friend and I decided to go to the Phoenix Mall to pick up some clothes and some decent food.
Figuring out railway lines is difficult and springs surprises for newcomers in the city, as we discovered. Once on the train, I kept a watch for the Hebrew inscriptions in a Jewish cemetery to tell me that we were on the right track.
It never came and as many unfamiliar stations flashed past, I realised with a jolt that we were on the Harbour Line, which I had never taken before.
We got off at a queer little station called Reay Road that I had never heard of. As we stepped out of the station, I had one quick look at the surroundings, before I screamed.
It was a scene right out of Slumdog Millionaire and worse. To our left, we saw tottering piles of garbage that stretched to infinity and to our right unending columns of slums. There seemed to be no buildings and the hutments were right on the roads.
"Let's get out of here, now", I said, dragging my friend away from the road.
We hailed a few taxis but none of them agreed to go to the mall or return to the suburb where I lived. Then it slowly dawned on me that they were refusing because my suburb might actually be very close.
You never see any slums in the main city, they grow neglected in the shadows of skyscrapers.
I discovered later that the station was named after a Lord Reay, sometime Governor of Bombay in British India. The ironwork, made in England and assembled here, has weathered countless monsoons and is a Grade One Heritage site, which I found hard to believe.
The slums house a very large Bangladeshi immigrant community that is subjected to a lot of discrimination. The far right wing party Shiv Sena, which claims Mumbai for Maharashtrians alone, has launched a vicious campaign against them.
There are allegedly 20 million illegal immigrants, a figure denied by Bangladesh. The Indian government, fearing terror infiltration, deports those who lack documentation.
Unfortunately Bengali-speaking Indians and Bangladeshis who have been here long enough to acquire citizenship are also sent packing. They leave behind their wives and children to fend for themselves in the big city.
These stateless people, not wanted by either country, try to make their dreams come true in the shadows of Mumbai. They live in the dark, fearing persecution and raids, hiding their identity and staying away from the mainstream. Nobody known to me has been to Reay Road or heard of it. I wonder at times if it really does exist. It doesn't in the world most of us live in. We could be across the street and yet two worlds apart.

¥ Jennifer is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still live here.

Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group

'Road to a Hidden World of Misery', Gulf Daily News, January 22, 2010, Jennifer Gnana