Three Events, One Story: All is not well in the country

Three events in the three days of my visit to home this weekend, away from my routine works at UNICEF, make me repeat that all is not well in the country. Let me start with 23 July.

Event 1: After landing at Kolkata, I took a ticket for an Express train, and got into Kanchankanya Express that usually has few empty seats that gets filled up from Bolpur. So, if one wishes to have a reservation till Bolpur one can ask for upgrading the ticket to a reserved one. I met the Ticket Examiner and asked for such upgradation, and he checked his chart and told me to sit at Coat S7, Seat 28. I took the seat. After we had completed more than two hours of the 3 hr journey, the Ticket Examiner, asked me for 100 rupees, ticked off my ticket, and started walking. I asked him what about the confirmation note he is to give. He said, "That would cost more. But why do you need it? You are nearly at your destination." He just didn't stop. He had gone past. I never saw him again. Lesson 1: Corruption that was much less just couple of years ago in my experience at least in Indian railways is once again looking up.

Event 2: 26 July, Sunday. I went to the local market to buy some green vegetables. I purchased for 250 rupees. The bad I had carried wasn't even half full ! Unbelievable. I returned feeling, this has never happened. Cost of vegetables have never been so bad. Lesson 2: All is not good, neither for consumers nor for small vendors.

Event 3: 26 July, Sunday. At 8.00 pm I caught the Jaynagar-Howrah passenger train that was running nearly 4 hours late to travel to Kolkata from Bolpur. There were two families who were discussing among themselves about their poverty. These families were from a place called Murarai, on the Bengal - Bihar border in central part of State of West Bengal. They were terribly anguished. The first man was sharing that he had to pay 20,000 rupees as commission to get 70,000 rupees for his legally allotted house under the Indira Awaz Yojana (housing scheme of the government for poor). The second one said, his daughter lost a job as Anganwadi worker (as assistant to cook food) under the ICDS scheme, because they were asked to pay 75,000 rupees in advance as cash to guarantee the job. Which they could not. And the job went to someone who could afford to pay up. I joined in to ask, "Why, wasn't the corruption has always been there?". They said, "When the communists were ruling at least the poor wouldn't be asked to cough up, or would be let off with a request for a small donation to the party. But now, it is very straight: either you pay up or make way for one who can afford.". Lesson 3: There is a need to fight corruption at every level by every ministry and person.

Selling Poverty

I was traveling on 08 May from Malda to Bolpur by the Malda - Bardhamman passenger train, after a visit to Raiganj. This train is usually not very crowded, and so I get ample space to continue to work on my laptop. As I completed working I gentleman in his mid-thirties who had joined me en route about a few stations before I shut down the laptop started the conversation in Bangla language.

Co-Passenger: Sir, Where are you traveling to?
Puthumai: I am going to Bolpur

Co-Passenger:Are you a doctor ?
Puthumai: No, I am not. I work in an NGO on polio and on disaster management.

Co-Passenger: Is it possible if you can find a job for a very poor young man? He deserves it. He is very poor.
Puthumai: Hmm...hmm. What does he know to do?

Co-Passenger: He is a very deserving person, and he is very poor. He needs a job very much....
Puthumai: But that is not a qualification for a job. Poverty is not a qualification for job. You tell me what that young man can do. Say for example, he can clean the house, he can maintain a garden. You don't tell me nor anyone that because someone is poor one must give a job. By the fact that some one gets to "do a job", one must be capable of doing what is on offer. So, tell always what one can do, and then say "also this person is poor, and so he also additionally needs the job."
There was a couple of minutes of silence. Then,


Co-Passenger: I am actually talking about myself.
Puthumai: What do you do?

Co-Passenger: I drive tractors. But I don't earn much on that.
Puthumai: Do you know to drive trucks....small or big?

Co-Passenger: Yeah, I do.
Puthumai: Great! So, now you have some potential. I know many drivers who shift to Andhrapradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, Punjab, Tamilnadu and Kerala as the drivers get paid much higher in those states. Why don't you try out something there.

Co-Passenger: I had once been to Kerala. The money was good. But I had problem with food and language.
Puthumai: What work were you doing in Kerala?

Co-Passenger: Mostly menial labor in construction sites and house repairs.
Puthumai: You did something that every other laborer does. You did not do something special that you are capable of....driving tractors and trucks for which salary is high, and there are very less people in those states who can do it. As for language and food, you could have shifted to some other high paying state where Hindi is spoken, and that you could have managed easily. Or, why don't you approach a bank to give you a loan to buy a tractor. That could bring in more money as you will be the owner of the tractor.

Co-Passenger: (another couple of minutes of silence) Thank you. My destination has arrived. I must get down. Thank you for the discussion.

After a minute the train stopped, and he got out of the train....then he looked at me, and walked away with a smile. I am not sure if I guided him right. But I know that selling poverty doe not work. Selling abilities does. Our poor must be taught to look at their abilities and not at the vacuums in life.

Clean and Unclean

Banjara Basti is a small little slum housing about 400 families along the drain that flows along the railway tracks next to Tikiapara station in Howrah, West Bengal. Since our team works among these people too I get to go through some of the places on this route. Yesterday, 18 Feb, I told Ruby and Meena, two social mobilisers to take me into the slum to speak to the men and women there. The houses were practically floating on the filthy water that was flowing out of the drain and each house was raised about 2 to 3 feet above the ground to let the filth flow below them. I wouldn't call this "disaster preparedness" in any way, because they were living on hazards, with no means and way. There were scores of children. About a 100 of them below 5 years. I found none of them wearing any footwear to protect them from the germs. I even found children dropping and picking up things from the two feet wide small narrow raised "road" (probably the raised portion of the tubed drain) with bare hands. Women and children were sitting on filth with no care. I got to speak to children, older ladies and a few young and old men. There was a old man who was sitting and spitting all along. His teeth were sparkling red...green....blue...black, due to many years of chewing tobacco and betel leaves. Hygiene, Water and Sanitation are never heard off in these families. I saw some young girls and boys going to school. That was the only comforting point of life. 

Just a stone throw away I saw the Big Bazaar on the Belilious Road, big and mighty, with large space to park tens of cars, and for the affluent to walk, shop, eat and make merry, oblivious to the other world that exists in filth, discomfort and with no means to live on. Who is clean? And who is not?