India’s music is getting sadder…
Mama was reading to me this morning about the incredible inequality that exists in India, a country that has an enormously wealthy middle class and yet still has a government that continues to do nothing for the poverty-stricken (about as many as the entire population of the United States!) who still defecate in the streets and have no access to proper education that could eventually, possibly change their very miserable lives.
She also told me that this emerging middle class looks down on poverty and treats their servants, who mostly come from the poorer classes, like dirt.
There is no excuse for that in any culture. Treating another human being like a dog is unforgivable. Heaven knows how they treat their kitties!
According to Roger Cohen’s very succinct article in the International New York Times, “A rich man builds a 27-stort house for his family in a nation of 1.2 billion people where more than a quarter of them lives on less than $2 a day”—imagine a house that huge! What’s more, imagine a house filled with the man’s family who are probably fighting tooth and claw over his riches and where they will go when he kicks off. Families do that. Even families who say they won’t.
Mama puts on Indian music sometimes when she does exercises or just wants an exotic background music to think or relax with, and I love it. It calms me and I love smelling the curry mama fixed tonight with all of the condiments and the raita of cucumbers and yogurt (which I licked off the floor when some spattered out of the bowl) and most of the world is now in love with Bollywood and its charming films (I’ve seen kitties in two of them), but the reality of India is equality does not exist. The caste system is still operative, the rich get richer and the poor run out of space to use as open bathrooms, the shanty towns expand as the many-storied houses are constructed and according to Mr. Cohen, the government seems not to give a hoot.
To think that India is moving towards emulating the USA, where the average American C.E.O. “now makes 273 times the average worker compared to 20 to 30 times in the past.” What a role model!
So sad, so sad. I listen to news and I read over mama’s shoulder and I see far too many stories of how outlandish wealth is pushing those who used to have fairly decent work into joblessness and poverty. And of course, as more have to live on the streets, so do their kitties and doggies, but at least they will have companions with them who do not care if they are rich or poor.
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