Amidst the sultry afternoons of June, it was common to see people lose their cool, quite a few times during their journey. Everyday thousands like me travelled from Lucknow to Kanpur, worked their energy out at their jobs and then returned back to the capital in the evening. The train took 2 hours to make it from the capital to Kanpur. I preferred to stand near the gate and … [Read more...]
When Asked If He Was Happy, A Poor Rickshaw Puller Sums Up His Miserable Life In One Line
The opportunity to have a conversation with Ravinder, a rickshaw puller based in Ghaziabad, gave me an insight into the life of rickshaw pullers. These are people who ferry us from one place to another in the sun, rain and cold. Ravinder lives with his wife and younger brother, who’s also a rickshaw puller. Their house in a slum on the outskirts of Delhi is a small one room … [Read more...]
You Need To Be Run Over By Salman To Get Talked About, Because Dying In The Heat Doesn’t Count
Poverty is like a punishment for a crime you didn’t commit - Eli Khamarov If you follow the news in India, you probably would know that around 2200 people have died due to a heat wave in the country. If you didn’t know, I would not blame you. Placed at the bottom of every national news website, at a corner somewhere, this piece of information apparently is not important for … [Read more...]
Wrapped in the darkness of poor life, this is the story of a maid which will stun you
It’s not every day when I sit down to listen to my mom’s conversation with our maid, which is more or less the same each day. But things went a little differently that day. I was sitting down in front of my mom, getting my hair oiled as the maid settled down just a few feet away from me, eating her chapattis. Her name is Suneeta. She started the conversation by asking my … [Read more...]
Hot soup in a warm blanket is not for everyone – The dark side of winters in North India
Every year the northern part of our country, India faces severe temperatures during the first few and last two months of the year. Every year we perform the ritual of unpacking our woollens, putting them out in the sun and the repacking them safely with naphthalene balls kept inside the suitcases. But have we ever stopped for a moment and thought there is fraction of our … [Read more...]