My Saturday lunch with Amit, Ashish, Abhishkek, and Ajay was postponed until Sunday. So I decided to get on Delhi’s new(ish) metro and get off at a random stop. I took the blue line to the eastern end, to Indraprastha, once the capital of the Pandava Kingdom in the Mahabharata epic, and today just another Delhi suburb along the banks of the Yamuna River.
The metro ride itself was pretty smooth and, mercifully, air-conditioned. Depending on the length and cost of your journey, you have to purchase a different colored token which I assume uses RFID to automatically open the gates. From Rajiv Chowk (Connaught Place) to Indraprastha cost me 9 rupees, a sky-blue token. The token seller found my request for two tokens just as ludicrous as I found the fact that you have to wait in line every time you want to travel on the metro. “But sir, you are only one person,” she told me, startled, as if I believed there was an imaginary friend by my side. “I can’t have two tokens? You mean I have to wait in this line again to come back?” “Yes sir, that is correct.” A cheerful smile.
When you get off at Indraprastha two things immediately catch your eye. One is a giant blue and white building, which it turns out is the Indian headquarters of the World Health Organization. Directly behind this behemoth of paper moving bureaucracy is a large slum with barefoot kids flying taped-together kites. The contrast of the new Japanese-designed metro line and a large slum, all in the shadow of one of the largest international do-good organizations, was, as so many things are, a photogenic depiction of modern India. I walked along a dirt path that serves as one of two entrances to the labyrinthine slum and pulled out my camera to take a picture. In the amount of time that it took to snap the picture — one-five-hundredth of a second, according to the picture itself – I was surrounded by ten boys asking me to take their portraits while they posed like teenagers in a Southern California mall.
After I took pictures of them and they took pictures of me I was greeted by Khan, a truck driver who said he wanted to show me his neighborhood. “It’s nice neighborhood,” he told me, “you are very safe.” By the end of our walk, I couldn’t disagree with either sentiment.
I apologize for all the times I repeat what Khan tells me and for all my stupid “ah … OK’s.” As you can see, Khan and I had some communication problems. Besides, as an American, it is my duty to sound as idiotic as possible. Sorry also about the picture quality – because of the slow connection I had to upload the smallest file possible.
This is fourth slum I’ve seen. On the one hand, it should serve as a reminder to Americans who like to chant “we have poverty right here at home!” that American poverty and third world poverty are two very different things. On the other hand, like the previous three slums I’ve seen, I left Khan’s neighborhood thinking, well, aesthetics aside, they have pretty much everything that most neighborhoods have. A school, clean water, a hospital, a small market. Hell, they even have a Chinese restaurant. (That is, a grease-filled wok on someone’s porch. I politely declined an invitation to chow mein.)
There was another familiar observation: Unlike La Jolla, Beverly Hills, or Bellagio for that matter, Khan’s neighborhood was full of smiles and laughter. Makes you wonder what, if anything, needs changing.
“Why do you Americans always romanticize the happiness of poor dark people in foreign lands?” I was asked once by a wealthy friend from a developing country.
“Probably because they are happy,” I replied.
It’s strange how we often falesly associate happiness with consumption….
True, though I have to say, I’m pretty happy consuming this Kingfisher at Delhi’s airport right now. 🙂 Looking forward to catching up Mohamed.
el mundo esta lleno de contrastes que nos ponen a pensar, un lugar en tristes condiciones económicas contrasta con las sonrisas de quienes le habitan, los nuevos avances en infraestructura con las zonas más “olvidadas” por los gobiernos…
ayer vi la sesión de fotos con los niños y me conmovió bastante, sinceramente me pareció muy tierno, curiosamente, contrastó con el post en que haces un llamado a leer los post que vinculas.
saludos.
But isn’t the assumption that they’re happy just part of that romanticization?
Anyway, I really liked this video… simple story nicely put together. What kind of camera do you have? I want to get a new one for my next stint of traveling down south.
hey Oso,
so you’ve reached Hindustan! yes, couldn’t help laughing out at your description ofthe delhi subway which you have to earn the right to enter token by token…i enjoyed taking it to old delhi last october and emerging from the stainless steel tube into crowded, antique, exciting chandni chowk.
anyway, i remember being told or reading donkey’s years ago that happiness is one thing the poor experience exactly the same as the rich. in other words there is no difference in the quality of happiness one experiences, once one feels happy. somehow that made a great imrpression and has never left me. an odd egalitarianism there despite all the other indignities and inequalities that separate us…
are you off to Cal next? remember Rustom…
I loved the confidence with which Khan tells you that bhutta is the same as mustard…lol (its corn by the way, as you would have guessed from what they were grilling :D) …i guess he was right in a way as they both corn and mustard are seeds that produce oil which is used for cooking in India…
Oso,
Very true…I still have my doubts on happiness research and consider it more of a fad than real science.
With that said though, I still tend to believe in the overall link between consumption and happiness. Not primarily because of happiness research, but because of my strong belief in what economists call revealed preferences. You look at what people do, not what they say…to see what they really prefer.
And without a doubt, what people do shows a clear link between consumption and…if not happiness…atleast something close. Given the choice, over and over again, people in poor countries want what people in rich countries have. They want the higher standard of living, the ipods, the computers and everything that comes with being wealthier. The reverse is never true (unless of course you romanticize the poor).
I’m not saying that poor people are not happy…or that rich people are not sad…or that poor people are not sometimes as genuinely happy as rich people. I am just trying to avoid making the fallacious claim that a wealthier life is objectively the same as a poor one – something liberals often have a hard time doing.