The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World
One night in May my parents and I, camped out in my brother and sister-in-law’s motel-room-sized apartment in D.C. My mom just wanted us to be together. My parents had a futon to sleep on; I slept on a papasan chair cushion on the floor. It looked like a doggie bed.
The next day I looked at their book-shelf and realized I needed a book to read. Mire Bobbi (Hindi for my sister-in-law) recommended The Blue Sweater. My Dad said he wanted to read it, and took it out of my hand. My brother said, “Wait I haven’t read that yet, you can’t take it.” Mire Bobbi insisted I should take it, because he had plenty of other books to read first. Then we sat outside and I “read,” while she “studied.” Within a few pages my mind was going wild with ideas and we just kept talking about what I was reading. Here are some of the first words of Jacqueline Novogratz that stirred me up as I sat in my home nation’s capital:
In America, my grandparents raised 6 children, who then brought another 25 individuals into the world. My cousins and I stand on the shoulders of our grandparents and people like them who never asked for handouts, but supported one another and shared suffering and, through hard work and determination, gave their children better futures in a country that assured them hope and opportunity, if nothing else.
Today poor people the world over are seeking opportunity and choice to have greater dignity in their lives—and they want to do it themselves, even if they need a little help. Today we have the tools and the technologies to bring real opportunities to people all across the world.
The time has come to extend to every person on the planet the fundamental principle that we hold so dear: that all human beings are created equal.
Novogratz tells the readers that in this world that is getting smaller, markets, public policy, and philanthropy all play a vital role in offering this opportunity of equality all of humanity. But if you are afraid that this idealistic book of methods is not for you, you are wrong. This book is written much like a memoir with fascinating stories of adventures around the world, yet it challenges the reader to action.
I am under no illusions that we can make equality for all humanity happen. I am not an Enlightenment child. And as I read Novogratz story, the cycle of evil that grips our world is made clear. She spent years working in Rwanda before the war/genocide, making what seemed like progress. And yet two of the founding members of her organization that gave small loans to poor women and helped charities turn to profitable business, ended up in prison for their involvement in the genocide. Yet like Novogratz, I believe that we must do what we can.
I believe that our service to the poor is worship to the one who created all humanity equal. We can be the people who do not refuse the thirsty person a drink of water—and not only that but we can be the people who show people where to get the clean water and how they can sell the water to the people who need it and in doing so, improve the lives of an entire village.
SHANTARAM
My friend Saroop said that “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts was a book that everyone who loves India should read…I agree. Not only that, but it is a hilariously entertaining and educating book. It is about an escaped convict from New Zealand who takes refuge in a slum of Mumbai. It is a 933 page book, I am 371. The following are a few more of my favorite quotes so far.
“There was an anouncement. It might have been in English. It was the kind of sound an angry drunk makes, amplified through the unique distortions of many ancient, cone-shaped speakers… (Roberts 100)”
Setting: the Victoria Terminus train station, Mumbai
I recently discovered the the only way to find out accurate information at a train station in India is by asking a coolie. They know everything. The catch is you have to know a little Hindi to be able to ask them your question and understand the answer.
“As the minutes passed I relected on that particulary Indian custom of amiable abduction (Roberts 185).”
In my experience people say, “Come.” You ask, “where?” “why?” and they say “Just come.”
Then there was the time that a friend sent a hired bear to give Linbaba (as the main character is affectionately called)a hug. But let me start at the beginning of the incident:
“We stood together for a moment, and then he reached out impulsively and enclosed me in a warm, bearish hug. I laughed as we came apart, and he fowned at me, clearly puzzled.
‘Is it funny?’ he (Abdullah) asked.
‘No,’ I reassured him. ‘I just wasn’t expecting a bear hug, that’s all.’
‘Bare? Do you mean it is naked?’
‘No, no, we called that a bear hug,’ I explained, gesturing with my hands as if they were claws. ‘Bears, you the furry animals that eat honey and sleep in caves. When you hold someone like that, we say you’re giving them a bear hug.’
‘Caves? Sleeping in caves?’
It’s okey. Don’t worry about it. I liked it. It was…good friendship. It was what friends do, in my country, giving a bear hug like that (Roberts 213).’
……a month later…..
A bear with her handlers comes to Lin’s door. The handlers who are painted blue from head to foot tell him that they have a message for him, but they will not tell him what it is or who it is from until he hugs the bear. The crowd starts shouting “Karo, Karo, Karo” (Do it! Do it! Do it), and he has no choice but to hug the bear–which is so big that it knocks him over. But the bear is quite tame. Lin is then handed this note:
“My Dear Brother,
Salaam aleikum. You told me that you are giving bear hugs to the people I think this is a custon in your country and even if I think it is very strange and even if I do not understand, I think you must be lonely for it here because Bombay we have a shortage of bears. So I send you a bear for some hugging. Please enjoy. I hope he is like the hugging bears in your country. I am busy with business and I am healthy, thanks be to God. After my business I will return to Bombay soo, Inshallah. God bless you and your brother,
Abdullah Taheri (Roberts 235).
Three Cups of Tea
So over New Year’s I was in Shimla freeezing with the rest of Delhi who ascended upon the quaint mountain town, but I was reading the most incredible book: Three Cups of Tea. Please buy, read it. Learn, love it. It is able Greg Mortenson a mountainer who fails to summit K2 but stumbles upon a village in need of a school and ends up spending his life building schools for girls (and boys) in villages Pakistan. It is a beautiful, inspiring book. Check out the website. http://www.threecupsoftea.com/
It is a must read for people traveling to this part of the world.
Fools for Christ at the Traffic Signal
The following is written out of the struggle of how to live in a place where poverty is everywhere with the frustration of knowing many people who are so calused that they do not see the street people. Even being in my second year I find myself less apt to feed a random street kid. It is great to be with Abby who is in her first few month here, because she wants to feed and talk to almost every street kid we encounter. If we buy street food for ourselves within a few minutes we have given it away and we have to order more (luckily it is cheap enough that we can afford to buy more).
Jesus looked out at the crowd and he had compassion on them because they were helpless and harassed like sheep without a shepherd. If Jesus were here in Delhi today I think he would feel the same way. His insides would turn with love for the poor. If he were pushed by the crowd getting on and off the metro or if he were pick-pocketed in Sarojini Nagar Market—he would have compassion. But more often than not when we have to face the crowd, we are filled with anger and resentment. We shout abuses, we grumble under our breath, we see how foolish the people are.
And when we see beggars we have a whole system built up that protects us from having compassion for them. We know the facts: the government offers free education. Why aren’t these kids in school? If they would go to school at least they would have a hot meal each day. These people must be bent on a lowly life, they enjoy it. They are trying to con me. That little kid has a shirt. He is only hiding it so people will feel bad for him and give him money. He can have a shower and clean water anytime he wants, he just is making himself dirty so he can make more money off of begging. I am no fool. I know these people making a killing on their cons at the traffic signal. I won’t give a Rs.
I saw a whole movie based on this senareo, it’s called “Traffic Signal.” In the movie the people seemed happy to be living out their existence of the generosity or lack there of—of the people who stopped at their traffic signal. And, I know there is truth there in that film. I know people fake. I know people, those people make up sob stories. Homeless people in the U.S. do that too. But I also know that a few weeks back when I my frineds and I made some hot food and we went to the local traffic signal/flyover to feed the beggars, they ate like they were hungry—very hungry. Have you ever seen a hungry person eat?
If the choice is between being foolish and compassionate or being wise and compassionless—I want to be foolish and compassionate. It is ok for us to be foolish in the eyes of the world. God’s wisdom is different that the worlds. Jesus was born not as a rich King, but as a poor laborer’s son. And we can use that same knowledge that we are tempted to use to protect us from feeling obligated to help the poor, to help them. Perhaps parents of boy with the clown face and hat doing the dance does not know that going to school is free or that going to school will increase their son’s chance of going somewhere in life. Perhaps they need someone like you to help them, to do more than hand him a few coins. Perhaps you need to start with learning his name.
John Wimber once saw a street evangelist wearing a sign board that read, “I’m a fool for Christ, who’s fool are you?” He thought the guy was insane but once he gave his life to Jesus he got it. Let’s be fools for Christ in Delhi–even at the traffic signals.
Where is home?
I am feeling homesick. The problem is that I don’t know where home is. They say that home is where the heart is…if only that was a simple answer. Perhaps there is something about only being a month away from returning to the U.S. that has me longing for my home land. This last nine months has been my longest time away from the States. My mom has taken a vow to see if she can go the entire time in the U.S. without having rice. She is over it. It is hard to know if it is better to talk to more people from home, eat more french fries, drink coke, drink wine, look at In Style Magazine or if it is better to put all of that aside for a few weeks and just throw myself in the water. Maybe if I do nothing that reminds me of home, I won’t miss it so much. The weird thing about this is that just last year I was in Jersey and went I felt home sick I’d make chai or Indian food.
I started reading this book last night called The Christ of the Indian Road by E. Stanley Jones. As a foreigner who committed his life to India this is what he wrote
I felt that we who come from a foreign land should have the inward feeling, if not the outward sign, of being adopted sons of India, and we should offer our message as a homage to our adopted land; respect should characterise our every attitude; India whould be home, her future our future, an we her servants for Jesus’ sake.
A few months ago my friend Hena who is an N.R.I. (Non-resident Indian) told me that I was a real American Desi. I was flattered. I love India. But can I bind myself to India as Jones suggests? Should I? Is this my calling?
I write this as I am preparing to go home for five weeks. Then I will return to India for at least six months. I will always love India, but is living here my vocation or season of my life? I do not know. Yes, though some of my friends may not believe it I am a “J” (on Meyers-Briggs). In other words, I like to make plans. I like to know what is next.
Water
If you like intense movies and have a heart for India, Water is a great film. It takes place in 1938 before indepedence and shows the liberation of widows from a secluded life of oppression. Plus you get to see one of Bollywood’s heart throbs, John Abraham in a role that doesn’t include lip singing and dancing.
My dad doesn’t understand my desire to watch a movie in order to be ‘moved’ he only likes to be etertained by movies. I like that too. But for me, this kind of film stirs compassion in me and motivates me to action. Human Trafficing was another one like that I watched recently.
Travel Author William Dalrymple: Bringing History to Life through Travel
December ended as it had begun, both bleak and cold.
On New Year’s night the poor huddled in primeval groups under the flyovers. You could see them squatting on their hams silhouetted around bondfires; sometimes one of the figures would throw a lump of dried buffalo-dung on to the flames. Nearby, the Golf Links and Chanakyapuri, the rich were celebrating. As midnight drew near, they burst balloons, popped champangne corks and tore around Delhi honking the horns of their new Marutis. At the traffic lights, as outstretched palms were thrust through open car windows, the two worlds briefly met. (Indian Edition, 151)
For the last month or so I have been hooked on William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi. This book is an autobiographical account of a Scottish man’s time in modern Delhi where he lived with his wife and investigated the history and culture of the city. As I am living in Delhi I can relate to his experience as a foreigner and I am intrigued by his explorations. But anyone who is interested in travel, history, and enjoys a clever prospective would enjoy this book. Each day I am taken back into the Mogul period and am shown why things are the way they are in modern India. Dalrymple points out that “All the different ages of man were represented in the people of the city. Different millennia co-existed side by side. Minds set in different ages walked the same pavements, drank the same water, returned to the same dust.”
Then today I went to the English Book Store at Connaught Place to search for a copy to send to my brother who is living in China (English books are so hard to come by there that the ex-pat community passes around every book they find) and found Dalrymple’s first book In Xanadu: A Quest. Dalymple
wrote In Xanadu while he was still studying at Oxford…he received a grant from the institution and went on journey following the quest of Marco Polo from oil from the lamps at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to Kaunas Kan in Xanadu (North East China).
