Is this India?

I and my office colleagues had a very nice, fun and food-filled year end party yesterday evening. We spent our time in a bowling alley and a restaurant in the hot, entertainment district of Bangalore - Brigade Road and Church Street. After knowing the money spent for 21 people which was around Rs.13000, I was pondering on a not very uncommon question, "Is this India?". One of my colleague often says, "This (Bangalore) is not India". I just had turned this statement into interrogation. I doubt this can be claimed - "India".

This would not have thought about it, if I had not glanced a few pages of the book "Everybody loves a good draught" by P. Sainath. I wish, we be informed of the facts, even though not analyse. Below are some excerpts from this book,

On Tendu leaf-collectors of Surguja district in MP - "For each gadda (bundle) of fifty leaves, the leaf-collector gets 30 paise. If Puthuli manages a hundred gaddas a day, she will have earned Rs.30. In the early days of the season, she averages between eighty and hundred gaddas daily. Only very rarely can she put together more than a hundred gaddas"

On labourers rather slaves of Bolangir district of orissa and vizianagaramdistrict of AP - "Almost all the laboureres are migrants from the Kalahandi-Nuapada and Bolangir areaas of Orissa. They are trying to escape hunger at home - by slaving at brick kilns in AP. Adolescent labourers stagger out of the pit, carrying around 20 kg of bricks towards the stocking area, passing an old man simply unable to cope with the 45 kg of bricks he is lugging. The bodies of all those working here are caked in a film of brick dust that re-appears within minutes of wiping it off. Many have developed rasping cough, apart from less visible but no less dangerous respiratory problems. Each brick he carries, weighs about two and a half kilos and he carries twenty of them. In the course of the day, he could make forty-five trips between pit and yard - a distance of 25 to 50 metres depending on which end of the stocking area he is headed for. And he'd be lugging along 45 kg on every trip. Each carrier does this with a half-running goose-step of a gait. They maintain this sort of rhythm to avoid dropping the bricks and to be able to do the required number of trips. When the old man with or without the aid of his family members has lifted nearly two tonnes of bricks in this manner, they earn around nine rupees."
(Note: Sentences not in same sequence as they appear in the book)

My pondering last night, involved some basic mathematics. We had spent roughly Rs.600 per person for entertainment and food, though not for hunger. To earn this money the brick kiln labourer quoted above would have to carry 133 tonnes of brick on his shoulder, or to put it the other way, he would have to lug for 65 days to earn this. To earn the same money the leaf-collector would have to collect 2000 gaddas or 100000 leaves, almost breaking her back.

when ever in the past I came across some one (mostly westerners and media) mentioning India as a Third world country, my ego wouldn't have been silent. But with such facts, I think I should rather go by the reality, rather than pride.

'Pondering' is effortless. But 'Only Pondering' is meaningless...

Respect - Ingredient of the Soil

Does this topic make any sense? Obviously not, in the logical mind. Even not for me, until I realised it before a few days.

Major part of my life had been spent around Coimbatore - the ancient Chera kingdom. My birth place and my native place is in the ancient Pandya kingdom. The languages spoken in these two parts of current Tamilnadu are distinctly seperate. This was the only thing I observed all these years and of course having lived so many years I had inherited a large part of Coimbatore language. Though, I had heard from various sources that these sect of people from the ancient Chera kingdom express their respect in their language itself, I had not observed it so keenly as I was a part of the sect before I migrated to various places for my occupation. I had lived in different parts of India. Few worth-mentioning Tamizh speaking parts are Tiruchirappalli, Pudukkottai and Chennai. More to this I had the opportunity to listen to almost all flavours of Tamizh during my under graduation years.

Recently, I visited Coimbatore after a long gap. Due to the feel of various dialects of Tamizh that I have had earlier, I analysed their language to a greater depth, this time. It was so sweet and soothing. These people not only express respect in their language, as I had been told earlier, they also express kindness. I would like to quote one of the incidents that made me say this. I was travelling in the city bus to an unknown location. I was not aware of the exact fare. So, I gave the conductor Rs.10. The actual fare was Rs.6. While giving the ticket, the conductor asked "oru ruva irukaang saami?". Due to my limitation in English, I could not directly translate it. But, apart from the fact that it was full of respect, it was very very kind, which is not a common trait found among the city bus conductors. If a bus conductor could speak so sweet, I could imagine the extent of respect and kindness these people offer to others.

This is apparently not taught in school. It could only be an ingredient of Chera soil, where these people are born and are living. After writing so much about this language, it would not be fair enough to finish the topic without mentioning that, the language is called "Kongu Tamizh" and this soil is called "Kongnadu".