People Unlike Us

Today, I was reading a collection of essays, 'People unlike us.' It talks about the grim realities of India that we maybe totally unaware of, or cannot relate to. While reading it, I was remembering what I had written about Infy yesterday. The contrast was just too stark!

Here was I, getting quite a handsome pay packet at quite a young age, and cribbing about 'not being so sure' about it, and having 'mixed feelings' about my job.

And there were the people I was reading about- the poor, faceless millions for whom life is nothing but a constant struggle to just exist. Among them were a mother who boiled water in a covered pan, giving false hope to her hungry children that food would be ready soon, while desperately hoping that they would somehow fall asleep. Another essay was about the chamaars in a UP village unable to utter a single voice of dissent when the Jats in their village ordered public execution of two chamaar boys, one for daring to have an affair with a Jat girl, and the other, for being their friend and aide. The chamaars accepted it meekly, like all the cruelty that had come before. They had a simple logic- their hunger. These are the words the author wrote about the helplessness of chamaars:

"He is hungry, and therefore, a willing slave. Deprivation and despair have killed his spirit, if ever he had any. He is meant to have no pride, no self-esteem, no notion of himself as a human being."

There are people living in misery that I find tough even to imagine.

It is a shocking thought, and a humbling one. I almost felt sorry for being so highbrow about the job I ought to be grateful for. There are many who slave for just a few morsels.