August 19, 2013

"The India of dirt, danger and determination that I saw as a child was far more interesting."

"This was the India of villages, village politics, poverty, many smiles, laughter and strong social ties," said the poor little rich girl of Delhi.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Im assuming the lowest cast Indians may have had their lives improved somewhat by India's capitalist successes. I bet they wouldn't wish to go back to dirt and danger and are determined not to. How about the bored rich girl give some of her spending money to some orphanage, or something similar? It may give her purpose.

Henry said...

From the article: When she was 13, she asked her parents for a top of the range laptop, and she got it.

For a minute I read that as a laptop you could use on your stove. Who cares if the burner is on! Just plop that thing down and look up a recipe. Now that would make an interesting story.

Instead we get this leftover hash of sociology and scolding. Call it post-postcolonialism, if you would. What has all been written before by the the British, is written again, but lacking satire or silliness.

Bob_R said...

The poor little rich girl is avoiding her actual problems. She disguises them with a rather bland, but true, statement. Yes, poverty is usually more "interesting" than upper middle class wealth. War is more interesting than peace. The old "interesting times" cliche applies. Wealth is better than poverty. Peace is better than war. There are still problems. They are just smaller.

the traveler said...

A market economy has indeed improved the life of most Indians, but the "dirt and danger" are still there, trust me.

I went to India last year hoping to volunteer at...something. I soon realized that India has all the manpower it needs, and plenty of energy and imagination behind all those hands. What it needs most is a market for its goods, and low-interest microloans to get entrepreneurs started.

Sam L. said...

Their being is nothingness. And they can't imagine a way to change, or a reason to change.