Blog Action day - Poverty

Poverty throws up a lot of images of shrunken kids from Ethiopia or Sudan, skeletons with skin, being carried around by their moms, or their slightly less famished elder brothers or sisters. Our own country is not very far off in terms of poverty and the irony is that, though there is visible affluence spreading across towns and cities - there is a section of our society which is just going to miss it.

The other day as I stood in a Road side restaurant having a cup of tea I was pondering over some of the cooks and other workers employed by that joint, sitting nearby. How would they relate to a twitter or a Web2?.Social media,Networking, what does it all come to, for these people who would be making not more than 2000Rs a month. And, statistically they cant be termed poor. 

The real poor are the ones who leave their villages and towns to come in search of jobs & shelter in the larger cities like Bangalore and Chennai.Spending the night on the platform or on the steps of some shuttered shop. The ones begging on the streets. 

Nothing new about that. Poverty exists, has been their all along - like a parallel universe, its there in our conscience, and we are unable to do anything about it, as we have yolked ourselves to our jobs/professions. We have made ourselves secure. And,we dont want to be reminded of this ghastly otherworld which keeps bumping againt us every time we leave our home.

From time to time we appease our conscience by making sundry donations to charitable institutions and trusts who are there to do the dirty work.

Our, conscience clear, we go on to, business as usual, wearing our poverty filters.Just like we have glasses to filter UV radiation - our Brilliant Brain has developed internal poverty filters which allows us to be unaffected by the continuous rays of poverty that emanate from all the roads and streets of cities like Bangalore or Chennai. Somehow, I hope that this small Blogging effort helps me to take some more interest / put some more effort, in actually doing something significant to the life of just one poor person.

Its a Hope.

Chennai Marathon - Student dies

Ironic that an Anna Univ student died finishing the Marathon.You could blame it on the organizers, the student the weather. Apparently this guy - Santosh Kumar was one of the first to finish. Pushed himself too hard. Since he was close to the finishing line he must have not paid heed to chest pain and continued to run. Sad , an athletic fellow having such an excellent constitution, studying in a great University - had to loose his life.