Today, I reached that moment we've all secretly be waiting for. What my immediate and extended family have been subtly warning me about for years-- the point on your first visit to India as an adult where you can't handle the poverty anymore, and you lose it. But visiting other notoriously impoverished countries has made me realize that it isn't really poverty itself that's hard to bear. It's the seemingly unsurmountable gap between the poor and the rich. Now in my post about table tennis, I referenced my desire to write a post about economic disparity in India. But I didn't think I was going to write it today, in this format, because of this situation.
From what my dad has told me about Malcolm Gladwell's "David and Goliath," Honduras is described as one of the world's poorest, but happiest countries. In essence, much of the population is on the same playing field in terms of wealth, so although people are living in economically difficult conditions, they're less likely to see what they're missing out on in terms of wealth. So people go about their days, appreciating what they have and getting the most out of daily life. They say that grass is greener on the other side, but in my eyes, when you're surrounded by an even field of greenish-brown, it's easier to pick up a ball and start playing soccer with loved ones. So when I traveled to Honduras with Global Medical Brigades to create sustainable change in rural communities, I never reached this breaking point: in spite of their limited resources and physical ailments, the majority of Hondurans I encountered at the clinic seemed genuinely happy to walk for hours in the heat to receive basic healthcare. Even outside clinic in the town we stayed in, the Hondurans I observed were the some of the most tight-knit, happiest collective of people I've ever seen.
By no means am I saying Indians are unhappy or ungrateful-- I'm sure there are many people who fit the bill I described previously. But its just so much harder to see in tourism-based cities in India, where often times, staged discontent from poverty is used as a means to get money out of tourists. And in general the poverty is so very in-your-face, with begging children and adults knocking on the windows of cars selling trinkets or asking for money. I mean there are two-year-olds on the street corners trying to hold their own. And the crazy thing is, all of it makes sense; With more way more people (1+ billion) than you have jobs in India coupled with tourists driving by with pockets full money ($1 in the US = 60 rupees, which is enough to buy you and your family a meal of street food), it only makes sense to ask incessantly for what others have in such abundance.
And of course, the economic disparity between the lower and upper class locals is huge too. Our tour-guide in Jaipur told us that Bombay is home to a 27-story house costing the family 1 billion dollars. After doing a little digging, I found out that Bombay is also home of the largest slum in Asia, apparently.
But of course, the breaking point, which you all have been waiting for. Friends and family predicted this would happen on my first day, after seeing a multitude of children in tattered clothes selling trinkets or begging on the streets. I still remember feeling my mom's eyes burning the back of my head as we passed by our first pleading child in New Delhi. "Don't make eye contact" is what I have been warned countless times "because it's the way". Once you make eye contact, things are different. This sounds terrible, but once you make eye contact, its almost as if you've broken an unspoken contract. So I continued to stare into the distance. I mean, I wasn't allowed to make eye contact with any of the men on the streets out of fear of sexual violence anyway, so with emotions separated, this logically seemed like the next step. Of course I was madly fighting tears the entire time, but I did what I was told and what everyone else in India seemed to be doing in neighboring cars. I made it calmly through New Delhi, Agra and Fatehpur-Sikri before losing my cool in Jaipur.
It didn't happen in the streets, or anywhere near the poor. I lost my cool in an indoor, tourist-type mall with my family. I don't know what you officially call it, but said "mall" was a series of interconnected shops designed so that in order to exit, you first had to pass through all the other shops. This way, you got so lost in a world of material things that you succumb to all sales-pitches and end up buying way more things than you need. After spending two hours passing through/buying things from the jewelry, scarf, clothing and trinket shop, I broke down when we made it to the art section. After spending an exorbitant amount of time and rupees (although the prices were great in US dollars) on nice things that we could live without, I wanted nothing more than to leave. We came in looking for a few well-priced elephants figures and Pashmina scarves to give as gifts for our friends, but instead we bought additional items that we didn't really need.
And as my parents looked at more paintings in spite of my brother and I asking repetitively leave, I found myself pacing back and forth an empty stretch of hallway. I thought back to the money we spent not in terms of American dollars, but in terms of the living wage in India-- in terms of the salary of our wonderful driver Ram, who gave up spending Christmas with his family with one phone call's notice to drive us around India when our train ride fell through. He gets paid a mere 250 rupees per day and 150 rupees per night (less than $7 per day), while a Pashmina scarf of decent quality costs 2,000 rupees. 2, or maybe 3 scarves constitutes what we estimate to be Ram's monthly wage. And for us, that's just a small portion of Christmas shopping.
I fought the tears of frustration, the anger at myself for being so tempted by worldly things, and by society for being so cruelly disparate. Angry at the taboo of buying 200 rupee trinkets from street vendors who need the money for food to feed their families, while buying similar items from more luxurious shops is okay. Angry at how we ignore the hungry children who need a mere 10 rupees each to fill their bellies, but jump at the chance to buy clothes and jewelry and art that we don't even need. And that animals on the same street are better fed than the people. Angry at how members society, myself included, turn a blind eye to the homeless people who pitch makeshift huts against 5-star hotels in India.
I shed a few tears when all the focus was on my parents buying art, but quickly got it together to prevent full on public-meltdown. Instead, I snapped at vendors who tried ruthlessly to get me more items, and refused to look for dresses that I actually did have more of a need for. My brother and I sat in silence, watching the chaos of needless shopping around us, waiting for it to end.
I haven't spoken or eaten all evening, even as we went to visit other historic sites in Jaipur. Not out of anger, but out of shock. For those of you that know me, I am almost never willingly silent in my limited free time, and I have an insatiable appetite unless I'm stressed. But at this moment, I have nothing to say, no desire to eat and only the urge to write-- freeform writing is what helped begin to lift my near catatonic state, although it by no means is gone.
Even though I wish more than anything to leave behind this terrible guilt and frustration, I know documenting it has a greater purpose-- to help motivate myself and others to take a stand against the inequalities of the world and fight for a better tomorrow. I don't know what the immediate solution is to all these injustices, but I know reflecting upon them is a start and compassion is worked into the finish. I don't have the answer yet, but I know we need change. I know every rule I've been taught has good reason, but it doesn't have to be like this. And I hope in spite of its massive length, that this post has inspired you too in some way, no matter how small.
Be well, be happy, and thanks for reading!
