Tempest

Tuesday, 25 September 2007

Confession

I made a mistake. No, it was blasphemy and I would like to apologise to all of you most sincerely.

The following lines from the post 'Home to you' were picked from the book Shantaram written by Gregory David Roberts.

"Like brown and black dunes, the acres of slums rolled away from the roadside, and met the horizon with dirty heat-haze mirages. It seemed impossible that a modern airport, full of prosperous and purposeful travelers, was only kilometers away from crushed and cindered dreams. Had I been a foreigner, my first impression would have been that some catastrophe had taken place, and that the slums were refugee camps for the shambling survivors. Since I wasn’t a foreigner, I knew that they were survivors. The catastrophes that had driven them to the slums from their villages were poverty, famine and bloodshed. Somewhere in my subconscious I had expected to see it. I knew it. Like every Indian does in every picture of every road and scene etched forever in his mind. But it still hurts. For that moment I blamed London for having spoilt me and made my nerve endings raw. But I do remember bleeding for this sight even then before I left.As the kilometers wound past, as hundreds of people in those slums became thousands, my spirit writhed. I felt defiled by my own health and the money in my pockets. It’s a lacerating guilt, that first confrontation with the wretched of the earth. I had worked as a labourer in a restaurant in London, I had lived surrounded by this poverty for most of my life. Still, that first encounter with the ragged misery all around cut into my eyes.That guilt soon flamed into anger and rage at the unfairness of it: What kind of government, I thought, What kind of a system allows suffering like this? In indignant bourgeois thoughts I also wondered what kind of wasteful human attitude allowed the people to let this happen to themselves (I most sincerely apologise for this callous thought).I looked at the people then and I saw how busy they were. Occasional sudden glimpses inside the huts revealed the astonishing cleanliness of that poverty: the floors were spotless, the utensils all stacked together in little pyramids. And then I saw the women (I admit to always having found all these Indian women extremely gracious in spite of the dirt in their lives and in their surroundings) wrapped in all colours of sarees, dupattas and some in just a meagre imitation of both sweeping the areas around the huts, cooking meals on stoves outside the house, braiding their daughters hair; constantly active. Mostly I saw the affectionate camaraderie of the fine-limbed children, older ones playing with younger ones, many of them supporting baby sisters and brothers on their slender hips. Responsibility at such a young age under such dire circumstances where each one should have been only thinking of himself and how to diminish the pain of his own depravity filled me with a certain pride for this beautiful race."

I meant to quote/attribute these lines then...but I never did and then once the comments started pouring in I didn't even clarify. I promise not to allow such an oversight to occur again.

I apologise dear readers, for you have been so supportive in taking the time out to read and comment on my blog and I confess I repaid very poorly.

Posted by Pavitra :: 12:57 :: 8 comments