A Nation which aims to be the next superpower, yet is hungry at the helm of affairs.
In the flickering light of poorly ventilated room I saw a boy probably 12 years old. In a baniyan with more holes than cloth his slender structure tore my eyes. Rays of the sun was coming from the holes of the washed out structure made of wooden planks which he called “home”.
Somehow, I felt guilty. After managing to see him in his eyes I asked him about his life. The smile of the child deprived of his childhood shook me, the warmth which radiated from his eyes, felt emancipating. With imperiality the little squandrel told me that his was a family of 12. His father barely managed enough to fill 10 stomachs twice. He was the oldest and because there was no other bread winner, he had taken up a “job” at the cycle repair shop, here in Delhi. He and his younger brother toiled hard all day to manage enough for there two square meals a day. They meet their parents about twice a year, where they live on the outskirts of the city which boasts a marvels of international splendor.
Seemapuri where he lives is in the middle of old Delhi. Full of garbage, polluted and barely breathable this place was his home.
That day I realized the gravity of the situation. About 1/3 of people who sleep hungry claim to be from the land which aims to be the next Asian superpower-India. We have big cities, large populations, big policies and even bigger elections but still we have not managed to feed about 194 million people two meals a day. We are an agricultural excess country, meaning we make more crops than the population needs to eat. Yet, we mismanage it. The man who toils on the farms is pushed to suicide. What makes him to take this large step? It is his inability to feed his children as a father, it is his shame on his inability to provide his parents with medicines. Life is hard to him, he works hard about 16 hours a day in the peak, under a sun that you would remember was so harsh that children swooned under it within an hour in the morning parade. But, then his crop fails. Why? Because some corrupt official thought that giving water to a industrial project is more important than diverging it to the canals.
If we as a country do not wish to be a nation of failed ambitions then we must amend our activities. We must start evicting poverty as fast as possible, for men untaught and in the whims of poverty are a burden to the growth of the country.
It is high time we amend our priorities and start making good decisions as a society.