Tag: poverty

Global Common Poverty

I clicked this picture last night under a HDB block in Singapore. Despite governmental intervention on poverty alleviation and several welfare measures,  there are people living out of selling cardboard boxes.  This picture makes us come down from our Ivory towers and get to see the other side where people strive even for basic livelihood.

How blessed we are and how privileged we are ! Do we realise the advantageous positions that we are in ? 

Before we step on the stairs to go to our flats, let us stop for a minute and look at the void. If there are left over materials then the man has not yet come. If the place is empty he has come and cleared our wastes. And our discards get him his kopi and chicken rice.

Before we queue before an iPhone shop a day before a new phone launch, let us remember this image.  Can we not live without that new phone ? Is our obsessive consumerism helping this man in any way ? 

Let us ponder for a moment before we make that wholly un-necessary purchase. And Sg 50 is the time to get into a resolve to help alleviate such anomalies and contribute towards nation building along with the govt.

 

When God didn’t know Bhojpuri

The girl was charming. She was cute as well. Her body was so flexible that she was able to squeeze herself into the bamboo ring all of one feet in diameter. Wheatish in color she didn’t definitely belong to the place, Chennai. She should have come from somewhere in North India, probably Bihar.

I was woken up from my contemplation by a gentle touch. It was her. She was staring at me innocently. Her hair dishevelled, I felt it should have seen oil atleast a month ago. She appeared weak and fragile but her face shone with a radiance that i couldn’t miss.

‘Paisa do bhaiyaa’, she said. ( Give me some money, brother ).

Not realizing her plea, I kept looking at her. She should be all of 5 years hardly two years lesser than my second son is.

‘Paisa do bhaiyaa’, she repeated. Unknown to myself I had placed Rs 5 on her hand. She thanked profusely in probably Bhojpuri- the language spoken in Bihar –  and started talking to the next passenger for alms. I was on a local train from Tambaram Sanatorium to Egmore, from the periphery of Chennai to the heart of the city.

Last I saw her was when she alighted from the compartment along with her mother and another child. From the time she took money from me, she had performed many an acrobatic trick – inserting herself into the one foot diameter ring, allowing her younger sister, all of 3 years old to enter into the ring along with her, performing some somersaults in the moving local train and performing for a Bollywood song. Probably she had alighted from my compartment to enter the next one so as to perform these tricks again.

All the while she was dancing, there was this guy with the lastest Samsung S4 smartphone chatting in facebook with some distant acquaintance of himself while the smartly dressed girl next to him was giving directions to her maid over the cell phone, probably a blackberry, on what to buy from the retail chain and at what price. The guy seated in the front row was continuously executing some trades on his iPad while frantically trying to connect with a couple of brokers on his two cell phones.

The two elderly safari suit clad people were discussing the upcoming elections in to the local railway men’s union. The scholarly looking person behind him was advising somebody on the interplanetary positions and their suitability for filing nomination papers for the local body elections.

Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. There was this person who handed me this piece of paper and told me,” Here comes the savior that can save the world from poverty and violence end exploitation. He has come to the world to relieve you all from the worldly troubles. He is here to give you happiness. So, come into He. Join us this week for the prayer meeting and relieve yourself of the worldly sufferings”.

Image

Just one thought went through my mind. Probably He did not know Bhojpuri to speak to the Bihari girl and reliever her from poverty.

When God didn't know Bhojpuri

The girl was charming. She was cute as well. Her body was so flexible that she was able to squeeze herself into the bamboo ring all of one feet in diameter. Wheatish in color she didn’t definitely belong to the place, Chennai. She should have come from somewhere in North India, probably Bihar.

I was woken up from my contemplation by a gentle touch. It was her. She was staring at me innocently. Her hair dishevelled, I felt it should have seen oil atleast a month ago. She appeared weak and fragile but her face shone with a radiance that i couldn’t miss.

‘Paisa do bhaiyaa’, she said. ( Give me some money, brother ).

Not realizing her plea, I kept looking at her. She should be all of 5 years hardly two years lesser than my second son is.

‘Paisa do bhaiyaa’, she repeated. Unknown to myself I had placed Rs 5 on her hand. She thanked profusely in probably Bhojpuri- the language spoken in Bihar –  and started talking to the next passenger for alms. I was on a local train from Tambaram Sanatorium to Egmore, from the periphery of Chennai to the heart of the city.

Last I saw her was when she alighted from the compartment along with her mother and another child. From the time she took money from me, she had performed many an acrobatic trick – inserting herself into the one foot diameter ring, allowing her younger sister, all of 3 years old to enter into the ring along with her, performing some somersaults in the moving local train and performing for a Bollywood song. Probably she had alighted from my compartment to enter the next one so as to perform these tricks again.

All the while she was dancing, there was this guy with the lastest Samsung S4 smartphone chatting in facebook with some distant acquaintance of himself while the smartly dressed girl next to him was giving directions to her maid over the cell phone, probably a blackberry, on what to buy from the retail chain and at what price. The guy seated in the front row was continuously executing some trades on his iPad while frantically trying to connect with a couple of brokers on his two cell phones.

The two elderly safari suit clad people were discussing the upcoming elections in to the local railway men’s union. The scholarly looking person behind him was advising somebody on the interplanetary positions and their suitability for filing nomination papers for the local body elections.

Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. There was this person who handed me this piece of paper and told me,” Here comes the savior that can save the world from poverty and violence end exploitation. He has come to the world to relieve you all from the worldly troubles. He is here to give you happiness. So, come into He. Join us this week for the prayer meeting and relieve yourself of the worldly sufferings”.

Image

Just one thought went through my mind. Probably He did not know Bhojpuri to speak to the Bihari girl and reliever her from poverty.

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