An in-depth view of my understanding of the word “poverty”.
Yet another beautiful day in Bangalore! After my daily doze of morning ‘freshly made by my dad’ coffee I decided to take a jog to my college ( 4kms). It was a holiday. I put on my running shoes and off I went with ear phones plugged to my two ears. I passed by some very old trees and some broken temple walls. Its interesting how some things look better and better as it gets old! It got better and better as I pushed myself ahead. Golden shafts of crisp sunlight beautifully caressed the old buildings and crumbling walls. How much more beautiful can a morning be? I asked myself.
As I conquered my third kilometre I noticed a change in the general mood of the surrounding. I suddenly found myself on a path with slums on both sides. It was 7 in the morning. I noticed that the people in the slums were waking up lazily after a good night’s sleep. I saw little kids,with no clothes, playing about with toys which were once used by the rich and the wealthy. I saw how 5 to 6 people managed to sleep in huts which could only accommodate 2 to 3 comfortably. I also noticed how happy the stray dogs seem to be around the little cute kids. I noticed how they managed to build toilets and bath areas with minimum resources. But most importantly, I noticed how happy they all seemed to be!
“wait a minute!” my mind screamed.
Oxford meaning of poverty states that poverty is state of being extremely poor.
Oxford meaning of poor states that poor is lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable.
They seemed to be openly defying oxford’s definitions! They were living comfortably ( whether they wanted to continue to live like that is a different question). By comfortable I mean happy!
This made me question the exact definition of poverty. What exactly is poverty I thought.
As my mind travelled through a maze of deep thoughts, I saw this little kid running towards me. I stopped and asked him what was bothering him. He pointed at my ear phones shyly. He wanted to listen to music! I gave him one ear phone while the other was fixed to my ear. We sat down not acknowledging each other’s presence while at the same time admiring the same music that played on in our ears. I could not help but notice this amazing smile on his face. Then it hit me! My mind had come up with a possible solution to my dilemma.
Poverty is not the state of being extremely poor.Poverty is not the state of being sad. Poverty is the state of inability of doing things that we want to do.
The kid was not sad before he met me, nor was he sad after meeting me but before meeting me he could not listen to music owing to poverty. Generalizing this new definition to a wider spectrum we realize that almost all of us are poor. In what sense? Well, because even if we have money we have the inability to do things that we want to do. Want to become a photographer? A doctor? journalist? Be it anything, if we come up with a justification that we cannot achieve it then it is poverty. Poverty of the mind! Poverty is not a physical state but rather a state of the mind. A state where our minds ignore the fact the all human endeavours are infinite. All human spirit are limitless and the fact that nothing can ever be impossible. This is poverty!
Come out of it now! Poverty sucks!
