Shine On

The sense of despondency is palpable. It is as if the India Shining Story has turned on its head and is walking upside down to drown itself. Even the trees struggle to raise their heads. The tallness of the buildings are somewhat diminished and well….there is a pall of gloom shrouding the brightest light in the malls.

Talking of the malls. Well they don’t run that well anymore. Just yesterday they were full of people spilling cash like children spill water. The crowds are still there…hanging out the atrium and the food courts ….but nobody seems to be spending anything. They look forlornly at the merchandize and then move on ahead..”Not now” they seem to be collectively saying..”We are here only for Déjà vu…”

The spirit of the might have been surrounds the glittering lights.

So is this essentially an Urban phenomenon? Or is it that sadness has permeated down to the smallest village as well. Or did India shine only in the cities and never had the time to reach the Kasbahs that make up Rural and Semi Urban India!

I took a car and prepared to drive into the heartland of what is arguably India’s most developed state. Gujarat with 42% Urbanization and growing fast is the perfect test case. A state with good roads, a rate of agricultural growth that put service growth to shame, Industrial growth that bordered on the ridiculous and people with more BMWs than I have hair on my body. Irrigation has taken water to the desert and canals from great rivers criss cross ambitious cash crop settlements.

I took the turning left from Ashram Road…on the way out of Ahmedabad and stopped. Ahead of me on the sidewalk was a family of 5. Father, mother and 3 miniscule children. They were settled uncomfortably on the sidewalk….meager belongings wrapped up in tattered covers….3 bricks making up an improvised oven on which the mother was roasting Jawar cakes. Didn’t look as though they had bathed for a week or so. The kids were dressed in shirts that must have been of some color when they picked them off the garbage can. They were dressed in shirts and nothing else…their limbs not belying the frailty of their age.

I stopped my India Shining car and went over to them.

They came from the tribal district of Dahod to the city for a better future. So I asked them some and they replied a lot…

They had enough to eat in the village. They had a roof over their heads. They bathed twice a day and the children had friends and land to play in.

Sounded like a better deal to me and so I asked them “Why did you come here ? For what?”.
“For a better life ofcourse”
“So are you getting it here? “ I must have sounded incredulous.
“No….It was a mistake!”
“So why don’t you go back?”
“We have nowhere to go back to. You see we sold off our land to come here. Now the money is over and in any case it was never enough to even cover a few months rent.”

Shine on you crazy diamonds.

I drove back in a tizzy…my rural project abruptly on hold and I assumed rightly or wrongly that the rural situation couldn’t be much better or was it? Had it been taken over by the richer few like the cities had been.

The only difference would be that the poor in the city continue living in glass and concrete. The poor of the village just shift to slums in the cities. They come with stars in their eyes and stay with rocks on their souls. Farmers plouging the concrete and glass fields of development while their lands are bartered for petty profit that hurts in its short sightedness.

India shines on for the solid few. Crazyness dances a chaotic pattern across the rest. The lack of inclusiveness in progress can only lead to dislocation of our dreams in the mid to long term.

Of course India Shining has ensured that there are more sidewalks…..So the homeless can hitch up plastic covers for a settled homestead….till an SUV misses the road and runs over a few…

There will be more looking for a home.