i can recall this incident when i was goin home, boarding the vadodara express from mumbai central.
at that moment of time, i am sitting in the open area at mumbai central. my train would be arriving @ 11.00. so i still have a good one and half an hour(to be spent @ station) .unfortunately, i am not carrying any book or newspaper with me. so all i do is keep lookin here and there. i see people sleeping on the floor. the large open area in between the surrounding benches at mumbai central. and as i am lookin around a havaldar comes up with a stick and wakes up all those sleeping in that area. all wake up . then i see three tiny tots(must be arnd 2-3) clinging to their mother as the havaldar is about to approach them. and i wonder! wat a force in this world a mother is !! the child knows that its only her who can save her from the havaldar. and surprisingly, the havaldar doesnt go near them. i feel good about it. (atleast he had the heart not to disturb the poor lady and her kids, who i think were waiting for next train, probabaly goin to theri hometown ...just like me ....)and then i start recalling all those incidents where my mother has fought for me or taken my side or just been there for me ......whether i have screwed up my xams or met with an accident. well, she would certainly scold me at the first for being careless(which i am , very much or rather was....have improved in the past 2-3 yrs....guess the responsibility of living alone..but still i am a bit careless) .......and in these thoughts time passes....
and i see a havaldar approaching again. he again wakes up all those who are sleeping in between.
i dont know why my mind wanders about a thought?? what is the thing which can generate employement and gurantee employement , satisfaction and decent living to thousands of indians who spend their nights on railway stations. those small little kids who sit near the ticket window and when you go their to buy a ticket they touch your feet ..call u uncle or sir and ask for money or food. why in such a country where we have multi-billionaires like the ambanis, birlas, mittals and where we talk about tech revolution ...about going on moon...about increasing our defence budget ..where 556 rascals(well, may be we could take off a few of that list) sit in a damn place in delhi ..thousands of miles away ...have no idea about the plight of the poor or the common man ...where false promises sell like hot cakes ....why even after 50 years we dont see a significant change. in percentage we might have reduced those below poverty line..but the number is till very large .....i guess 1/4 th of our population is till below poverty line .....
coming back to my original thoughts, what thing can guarantee employement to millions of our citizens .....well , i dont think that the problem lies in migration to the cities ...its bound to happen ...its happened everywhere ...china,japan, usa ..people have migrated in millions from villages to cities in search of jobs and growth opportunities..but the govts there have created maple opportunities keeping in mind the influx....why cant we have a similar kind of model in mumbai, delhi , kolkatta or bengaluru. we cant control the rapid growth of population ..or can we??
but what the govt can certainly do is fill in the gaps....
there must be something which can intake so many people .,....i hammered my mind a lot for that thing ,,,but than i couldnt come to a conclusion ....
well i thought y cant we have ample opportunities in villages...why cant the tech gap be bridged...
this wil solve the problem of managing huge infrastructure costs for cities and also mainting criminal activities in large cities...
agriculture seems to be the only opportunity india has,,, to guarantee opportunity to a large sections....it must be protected from the importers...or our system will crumblee....we wont have the sustainable development we were originally targetting.....indian population is rising and will keep to rise ...so food security is very much going to be the need always..so agriculture cannot be neglected(especially. by a country like ours ..having 1 billion moths to feed, twice a daily atleast).....
also i wonder, what crime had the child sitting near the ticket window of a suburban station done that he has to do this .....it feels really sad....when i see the old and children(who are helpless)
begging ....asking for a vadapav ...on one side and where people can affors to have a lavish dinner party(where more food is wated than consumed) coz his son or daughter passed the b.com xam after trying for the 4th time ......what an irony !!
what all are the value all the accolades and awards if our country cant guarantee food to 100 million or its citizens..........what value is this blog if so many people living hardly 500 meters away from my house havent had dinner tonite ....
well, i know why cant i start something if i feel so much strongly about the issue and the plight of our country ...why dont i take some concrete action than blogging about it ...the point is i havent got any idea even after thinking about it the whole night in train aboard the vadodara express that night ....but hope someone gets it and i can also contribute towards it ....
2 comments:
This is really the tragedy of our country that the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Inspite of all our claims about India Shining, the fact remains that more than 50% of our ppl are below the poverty line.
How to solve this problem? We dont have to look farther than our neighbour China. The World Bank estimates that more than 60% of China's population was living under its $1 per day (PPP) poverty line at the beginning of economic reform. That poverty headcount ratio had declined to 10% by 2004, indicating that about 500 million people have been lifted out of poverty in a generation.
I think that the NREGA program is a step in the right direction, but it has to be free of corruption so that the people in need actually benefit from it.
The separation between the poor & the wealthy is a true shame.
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