My ebook: Journeys with the caterpillar

My ebook
"
Journeys with the caterpillar: Travelling through the islands of Flores
and Sumba, Indonesia
" is available at
this link


Friday, June 17, 2005

The world of Non and Nous

The French have said Non and the Dutch have said Nous. The overwhelming reason cited for many of them rejecting the European constitution was the fear of "Polish farmers" and "Polish workers" flooding their local job market. The situation is very similar in India where we periodically hear campaigns against Bangladeshi workers. Not just the Bangladeshis, we don't want even our own Biharis and East UP workers spoiling the landscape of our metropolises. The same Software Engineer who stands for hours waiting for a US Visa and then answers the questions of the Visa man/woman with kiss-ass politeness, shoos away the Bihari beggar in the most abusive language. Once in US, our IT sunshine boy sleeps on the floor with six other software engineers in a one-room apartment in a filthy corner in Bronx and discusses in the same house with his friends how Mumbai is getting covered with slums. Is our software dude any different from our slumdeweller? But then, it's easy to have a misguided sense of proportions.
We fail to realize that our cost of living would skyrocket if there were no slumdewellers and our bais would charge every month in thousands of rupees. Yes, there are cases of illegal entries and illegal encroachments. But is a nice view (free of slums) from our windows worth more than one slumdeweller getting a chance to feed his family after a hard day's work? So, next time we plan to say "Nahi".........

P.S. Why cant an Indian or a Chinese ever want to be the President of America? Because there is no more promotions for the president.

1 comment:

Charukesi said...

bang on. we would have no bais and no taxi drivers at all in Bombay - or then we wont be able to afford them as you say!
Charu - http://www.indsight.org/blog