Skip to main content

Smile of the poor

I am always surprised at the gaping imbalance in the world. A scene from a Hindi serial haunted me for many days where the rich, after a party, throw their food onto the streets where many hungry kids stand waiting to gobble it up.
Looking around me, I am drawn into the eyes of the women and children on streets. I start imagining what ordeals they may have undergone till now, in a struggle to live. I wonder where they sleep at nights, worrying if some person molests them and they have no protection. Walking on a road in city after 10.30 pm is terrifying to me, though the area is peaceful. Then how do these beggar women, some in teenage and very beautiful despite their appearance, survive?
A reassuring mail I got just now reads, the difference between the rich and the poor is not that they have food, clothing, shelter or any such. It is just that the rich never smile, while the poor do. I have seen such smiles on the faces of young kids who play on roads dressed in tatters, not caring about the next meal and I have also seen frowns and jealousy on the faces of rich kids who need not care about the next meal.

Comments

  1. ... its the power of Here & Now ... living in the moment apparently has tremendous vitality & energy to conquer anything ...
    ... its accumulation of anything, food, clothing, riches, information & knowledge et al that makes humans live out of the here & now place & time ... one lives mostly on memories of past or fear of future or both ...
    ... frown on the face is just symptom, the disease is much deeper & all-pervasive ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. while, for lack of awareness of the power of living in the moment, the have-nots struggle to accumulate, the haves who've accumulated (wealth/knowledge/mind et al) but become aware of its burden struggle to find ways of getting rid of it just to live in the moment ...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The next step forward

“ What is the feeling when you're driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It's the too huge world vaulting us, and it's goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” -- Jack Kerouac (American Poet and Novelist) From what I have seen and admired in humans, they are eternal optimists. Goodbyes seem to break us, but we straighten up and walk, holding our head high, blinking away our tears. And as regards the specks of people dispersing, when something moves away, something else comes near. Guess that's how laws of nature move. If a time comes when nothing else comes near, it's when we will become really alone; alone to live and love life without any reason, taking the next step forward.

Caterpillar or butterfly?

'Caught in a strange land in a net with other butterflies, I'm a caterpillar yet undecided to remain a caterpillar and perish or turn into a beautiful butterfly and live a life full of joy.' Readers don't laugh. But I came up with this one night recently when I was travelling in a train. I tossed and turned, not being able to sleep, upset over unexplainable things and frustrated over events not in my control. Then it occurred to me that our life and its usefulness depends on our decisions -- whether to remain a crawling caterpillar whose existence otherwise is either ignored by all and sundry or who is cursed for just being there and thrown out with a stick, or to develop wings of life and metamorphose into a beautiful butterfly whom everybody adores for its beauty and colour, for its flitting liveliness, for its service to the flower's pollination... I thought that I should be a butterfly, of service to others, but then again I thought, anyway, who really cares? 

Resilience

You wake up every morning deciding that this day you are going to be happy, care-free and not haunted by memories. It's like being a child. As the day goes by, it seems each and every event, small words or things bring back those memories which you would wish to forget. You just shake it off and move on to the next work at hand. I guess our resilience holds out through everything that seems to be ready to break us. This is the human spirit I have learnt to admire. But when it doesn't?