Exploring Slums: Rib Or Reward

The dramatic success of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ has brought a lime light to the slum tourism in India which first began in Rio De Janeiro in 1992 and has now found popularity in Buenos Aires, New Delhi, Mumbai, Nairobi and Johannesburg. The supporters say that slum tourism provides a way to unveil the lives of many who are aliens to us and fan out tourist cash into our slums. But to critics this is the worst kind of travel voyeurism which is a threat on the dignity of the poor. Was the movie acceptable to show the shacked police stations with blind children begging or was it a hope for the depressed that happiness and hope is not the count of money, they can be seen in the slums in plenty. Let us take both views in picture..

Views: “We discovered great riches in our poverty”

Slum tourism not only adds to the funds of our country but also humanize our slum dwellers. Through this effort we get to know that the abstract things of these people are all same to the other ones of the societies. The lives are like hope and despair, bliss and regret, victory and failure and many such more. The difference is that they do things more publicly than other ones! All travel can be considered voyeuristic. When journals intervene the lives of the celebrities, isn’t that voyeuristic? The difference lies only in the reason. The slums are nosed for what they don’t have and celebrities for what they have.. Why should we feel shame of our own men if they are poor and put them out of sight? Our economy is working for their welfare. How will the people on the other side know that there exists a life beyond designer accessories, a desire for more, achievement, littering resources and dying with a balance for the next generation to achieve even more! To hear about the ratio of the poor and to feel the life of that ratio is a big different thing. Without knowing the grim condition how will anyone change to Mother Teresa. It needs the heart to be stirred for the cause which the slum tourism is trying to do if it is done with a social responsibility and awareness not with an intention of mere profit. The most popular slum sites are The black townships in South Africa, slums in Mumbai, Favelas in Rio, natives in Bolivia and villages in Cambodia. Slum tourism is promoted by travel companies to reduce poverty and enable everyone to participate in the cause. It increases the local economy of the developing countries and increase the linkage between tourism businesses and poor people.

Counterviews:”25% of Indians live on less than a dollar a day and 70% live on less than two dollars a day!”

Such and many more such mischievous headlines cover the news of the western media newspapers which are not on correct analysis. A foreigner calling our slum people ‘slumdogs’ ! What does a slum child feel when he and a lot more amongst (who are running after the car of the visitor) along with their dwellings are being snapshot? “oh wow,i’ll be the cover page of the nation’s leading magazine!!” So sardonic even to say that the dwellers of the slums are the ones who maintain the skyscrapers denizens! The sentiments of the people are very thin skinned and cannot be expected to be sensed by a foreigner. It seems parallel to, watching the mental patients in a hospital, to gawking at our slums for fun and exploitation! Don’t we have other things to showcase rather than the slums? Ours is a family and the members should be taken care of the mental trauma faced as exploitation. They themselves are in dearth with empty bowels and pockets , then why to vacate their possessions of dignity and self-respect? For our general knowledge ?? Slum tourism should be restricted.

Conclusion: Poverty needs to be wiped out or the slum dwellers will triple in 25 years. Economic upliftment can do this. But we are concentrating in crafting strong industrial base, shopping malls, housing for the middle class but cheap projects are not in the building equation. Come on! People live there, give birth to the similar destitute ones in the wretched condition that is very indescribable and cannot be imagined by us (who are on the other side of the story). The basic amenities are lacking, people struggling from diseases with pigs and scavangers! Why dint God made them animals too, if He had to give them such a destitute life? There has to be something done. The difference has to be brought in their lives, not ours. Slums do not have a conscience of the national economy and status which will perk up their living standards, they just want and deserve a better living. Whether slum tourism be allowed or not , the difference has to be made in their lives!!

Life Is Not Too Short

Life is too short...say some...but I never felt so. Life is very immense I suppose. At our age, we live our age along with our fathers and grandfathers and grand-grand ones (if we are such lucky to have one!). We listen to what they say and what they share. Isn’t it that we imagine their lives and feel so and live their lives? Isn’t it that when we listen to the stories of the age olds, we somewhere go to their ages and live their lives? And when we’ll come to the age of our grand ones, we will live the lives of our sons and grandsons. And our own lives..Is it that short not to complete what we desire and what we aspire? There has always been time to look back to the past and peep in the future in an idle mood. There has always been time to look up for career and love. Life was never short to fall in love with someone and cherish it (not only one!!). There has always been that time to make you the most educated and precious person in spite of all the fun in life. There has always been time to have room for blinking happiness and sorrow. Has it ever been, that a person is happy every time, whether he be anybody? And has it ever been that a person is always sad, whether he be a deprived? Nah. It is never so. Life is not that short that we cannot express ourselves. It is not that short that we cannot live to the fullest. It is not that short not to make somebody smile. It is not that small not to give somebody something that leaves a space. Life is not about death. It is really not. Death is a conclusion. May be I died, just because I was here. May be I would have presented a better hand if I was a place next to where I died. The stages of life we say is seven. But imagine the subject matter in those seven stages. They themselves can make seven individual lives!

DID U KNO?

Did you know you are the one,

Coming from the womb of your mother?

Did you know you are the one,

With the face of your father?

Did you know you are the one,

For whom there was a waiting brother?

Did you know you are the one,

With lips fragile and eyes to wander,

With tiny steps ready a model,

With lovely frocks and jingling sandals,

With teeny weeny fingers, a toy for others,

With hygienic flash of beam that matters,

With skin and heart to furl around...

Now do you know those days have passed?

But the memoirs will last,

And do you know yourself tomorrow?

May be a piece of ecstasy or a speck of sorrow!

May be a craving girl or other’s furrow!

May be unbeaten or remorseful!

May be poignant, but still beautiful!

So its today that is all,

To rise in love and again fall,

To gain aspirations ideal and tall,

To adore the ones who gave you birth,

To respect the Almighty and remove the dearth,

To nurture good thoughts and wishes,

To begin now with loads of dishes,

And the day starts with kisses,

Without our Mr. And Mrs..

Proposal To The Mankind

I offer a kind heart, with bags full of roses;

I offer you me, with little poems and proses ;

I propose you for a lifetime commitment;

Security, humanity n zeal are some ointments.

Proposal goes to each and one ,

For an earth of life and none of gun;

Proposal to love each other,

And not to rob the poor,

I offer a proposal

To live and die for you ,

To bestow a helping hand for you

To adore your traumatized folk’s heart;

With no picky taste for

The nation of the same caste.

But then I long for a promise,

That one day; when that one day comes

When grief and gloom are the passé;

When glee and glow are in masses,

Don’t let me die, let me stay alive

To see the ‘rich’ contented ,

And the ‘poor’ comforted ;

To see the nerve in apiece,

And the verve for each masterpiece;

For you, I move, as I have to prove,

I now wrap up my little poem and prose,

With fancy for many a propose,

I am fond of you, my country,

Accept my proposal, its mandatory!

Oblige Me

Oblige me with a favour,

To isolate me forever,

cos its hard to be without you

But even harder,being with you,

That restlessness I cannot bear

I pined for you to be here,

But u were not mine

And you were never mine;

Your presence made me absent

From the world of resent

I forgot, went selfish to go on with you;

The incomplete talks,

The incomplete walks;

Was not to be completed

It hangs in the air, and

Sprinkles sweetness everywhere;

You took me off cosmic

Where I went ecstatic;

I keep your smallest of the things apart;

Which remains closest to my heart.

Its only there where its hidden,

Or secondly, I have here got it written.

I got far more than ever desired,

I was innocent then,

Then; when You imposed on my soft heart;

But now I long for you..

It was not for a reason,

But it happened..

Everyone was scared of my happiness.

I got my parts life, which i'd missed

It was all mine,

So I felt nothing wrong.

What I got from you,

Was done by none

With feelings deep or fun..

Life's first feelings were from you,

With success, happiness or blue;

But feelings dont have a mind

and they dont think of the true and kind;

Its away from reality,

In a fantasy world with its own purity..

But now its all what I want from you;

No further regrets, No hurting anybody;

No haunting questions, No insecurity;

I abuse myself for being so unreal from life

Forgiveness is not the word for me,

Let me be punished.

Now you are independent and so am I.

Just a last wish to fulfill and then will savour..

Oblige me with a favour,

To isolate me forever...