The Bombay Poverty
It’s been 4 days in Bombay. The last time I was here, fortunately I did not have time to look around, explore and grasp the place. This time I have all the time, and whatever I have grasped in the 4 days has been anything but pleasant. And everything was unphony. There was no pretence, no cover up, plain and bare truth.
It was poverty, quite obviously, it was the contrast of lives, for Bombay is home to the most ostentatious rich and well the most visible poor. Suketu Mehta deals with this contrast quite well in his book ‘Maximum City; Bombay Lost and Found’.
Its not that I have been some ignorant citizen, who has turned a blind eye to the realities of an Indian ‘non middle and above class’ life. But the poor and poverty of Bombay is different. Its in your face, its visible even to the most blind, and it cannot be ignored. It’s omnipresent, and it can be felt even where you donot even see a beggar. It is true and it is unphony.
The other parts of India, it seems, are ashamed of the poor, and are tucked away in some part of the town/city, where they are not visible. The poverty in other parts of India is the invisible truth. The most visible truth of Bombay is poverty. Bombay does not hide the poor, I donot know if that is out of choice or the sheer magnitude makes it impossible. Also this is one place where the ‘below poverty line’ method of measuring poverty fails miserably. Even Sen’s ‘capability development’ principle, which I believe to be one of the tools to account for poverty, does not seem to fit in. The Bombay Poverty is indefinable, unaccountable and somewhere, un-alleviatable. It is inherent to Bombay, and I donot think anybody can fathom Bombay without it.
A trip down the suburban roads will familiarize you with it, and then after spending some time walking down the roads, you internalize it. And then it hits you. If you stay long enough, then like any other pain, felt over a long period of time, you become numb to it.
This familiarization happened in the last trip to Bombay six months back, when I saw, two storied slum shacks, not higher than 5 feet from the ground, skirting the road from I don’t know where, till where the town started. I could not take my eyes off it, for I had seen the beggars, I had heard my sweeperess tell me about her miserable life, I am a socially aware being, I read newspapers and know what’s happening in famine and drought infested areas of Orissa etc, but nothing had prepared me to not notice, to the extent of getting entrenched in my mind, the face of the Bombay Poverty.
I walk down the roads of Nariman point, on my way to marine drive everyday for morning walk, and I see people sleeping off the road, the most sound sleep, as if there is nothing wrong with their lives. I agree somewhere they have accepted their circumstances, not out of choice, but the sheer acceptance of this poverty, of this life, is, according to my guesses, extremely peculiar to Bombay.
The sheer number of people living off the road in Bombay, apart, the reason for this peculiarity, according to my observations, is the satisfaction of being a Bombaiyaa.
Nobody wants to leave this city, nobody wants to go back and or look for other avenues. They consider this city to be the be all and end all. If life will provide something to them, it will be here, and so they give up their lives to the destiny and to the mercy of the City. This makes them the hopefuls, and this makes them not hate their poverty, for there is hope and they become the backbone of the city, and this unables the City to hide its poverty, for only in this city, the poverty inflicted are not poor but hopefuls.
Hats off to the city of contradictions. For in Mehta’s book, somebody says nobody dies hungry here. For people tell me this is the safest of the Metropolises in India, and for the time being, I agree (with my fingers crossed). For the Mumbaiyyaa I met on the train said this city is cheaper than the small town of Himachal Pradesh. For even after seeing the face of the city, the slum shacks and the like, there are hordes of trains filled with young men and women coming to this city to get lost in the crowd and be the part of the Bombay Poverty.
I for one, haven’t been able to decide whether I like it or not. There is nothing that attracts me here, for even though my rational mind says, this is the most convenient city, most amenities at stone-throw distance, this is the city best for professional considerations, but my heart says this is the city for hordes, for dreamers, and not for me who does not lives dreams but vision. My vision cannot fathom myself being a part of this hugeness, and the Bombay Poverty scares me. Its hit me bad and I guess if I want make this city my home, I will have to force myself to live here long enough, to become numb to this omnipresent spectacle, as well as the contradictions.
It was poverty, quite obviously, it was the contrast of lives, for Bombay is home to the most ostentatious rich and well the most visible poor. Suketu Mehta deals with this contrast quite well in his book ‘Maximum City; Bombay Lost and Found’.
Its not that I have been some ignorant citizen, who has turned a blind eye to the realities of an Indian ‘non middle and above class’ life. But the poor and poverty of Bombay is different. Its in your face, its visible even to the most blind, and it cannot be ignored. It’s omnipresent, and it can be felt even where you donot even see a beggar. It is true and it is unphony.
The other parts of India, it seems, are ashamed of the poor, and are tucked away in some part of the town/city, where they are not visible. The poverty in other parts of India is the invisible truth. The most visible truth of Bombay is poverty. Bombay does not hide the poor, I donot know if that is out of choice or the sheer magnitude makes it impossible. Also this is one place where the ‘below poverty line’ method of measuring poverty fails miserably. Even Sen’s ‘capability development’ principle, which I believe to be one of the tools to account for poverty, does not seem to fit in. The Bombay Poverty is indefinable, unaccountable and somewhere, un-alleviatable. It is inherent to Bombay, and I donot think anybody can fathom Bombay without it.
A trip down the suburban roads will familiarize you with it, and then after spending some time walking down the roads, you internalize it. And then it hits you. If you stay long enough, then like any other pain, felt over a long period of time, you become numb to it.
This familiarization happened in the last trip to Bombay six months back, when I saw, two storied slum shacks, not higher than 5 feet from the ground, skirting the road from I don’t know where, till where the town started. I could not take my eyes off it, for I had seen the beggars, I had heard my sweeperess tell me about her miserable life, I am a socially aware being, I read newspapers and know what’s happening in famine and drought infested areas of Orissa etc, but nothing had prepared me to not notice, to the extent of getting entrenched in my mind, the face of the Bombay Poverty.
I walk down the roads of Nariman point, on my way to marine drive everyday for morning walk, and I see people sleeping off the road, the most sound sleep, as if there is nothing wrong with their lives. I agree somewhere they have accepted their circumstances, not out of choice, but the sheer acceptance of this poverty, of this life, is, according to my guesses, extremely peculiar to Bombay.
The sheer number of people living off the road in Bombay, apart, the reason for this peculiarity, according to my observations, is the satisfaction of being a Bombaiyaa.
Nobody wants to leave this city, nobody wants to go back and or look for other avenues. They consider this city to be the be all and end all. If life will provide something to them, it will be here, and so they give up their lives to the destiny and to the mercy of the City. This makes them the hopefuls, and this makes them not hate their poverty, for there is hope and they become the backbone of the city, and this unables the City to hide its poverty, for only in this city, the poverty inflicted are not poor but hopefuls.
Hats off to the city of contradictions. For in Mehta’s book, somebody says nobody dies hungry here. For people tell me this is the safest of the Metropolises in India, and for the time being, I agree (with my fingers crossed). For the Mumbaiyyaa I met on the train said this city is cheaper than the small town of Himachal Pradesh. For even after seeing the face of the city, the slum shacks and the like, there are hordes of trains filled with young men and women coming to this city to get lost in the crowd and be the part of the Bombay Poverty.
I for one, haven’t been able to decide whether I like it or not. There is nothing that attracts me here, for even though my rational mind says, this is the most convenient city, most amenities at stone-throw distance, this is the city best for professional considerations, but my heart says this is the city for hordes, for dreamers, and not for me who does not lives dreams but vision. My vision cannot fathom myself being a part of this hugeness, and the Bombay Poverty scares me. Its hit me bad and I guess if I want make this city my home, I will have to force myself to live here long enough, to become numb to this omnipresent spectacle, as well as the contradictions.
(written on 12/05/06)
posted by AlmostTwentySix | 11:41 PM
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