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Quality Of Life ???

RAVI ABHYANKAR writes a rather weird view on the Quality of life in India:

Once I took a broken showerhead to a frail plumber living on the pavement across us. His scantily dressed children were playing alongside. He checked the showerhead, then fetched a spare part and fixed it. “It will now work.” “Thank you, what do I owe you?” “Nothing,” he said.”You must take something,” I insisted. “I have no ambition to build palaces,” he said, refusing the money. This plumber was rich enough to be charitable to an expatriate manager. A “quality of life” survey cannot measure such richness.

The irony of India is that if a telephone/power/any other essential stuff / services provided by the government needs to be fixed, even an ordinary Indian has to bribe the employees through his nose to get the things moving. What kind of quality of life would an ordinary citizen enjoy where the system fails to enforce the accountability in fulfilling the fundamental duties.

I went to collect the monthly bill from the Nepali guard, who lived in a 100 sq ft room on the ground floor of our building recently. At his room, I found the door open and the guard, his wife, child and a guest, taking a siesta. They lay on the bare floor, utilising every inch. Embarrassed, I closed the door. In the evening, when I spoke to him, he happened to remark how lucky his family was to get a place like this in Mumbai. Is “quality of life” a concept that is absolute or relative?

The quality of life could be relative from the guard’s perspective, but his contentment comes from the bliss of being uneducated, ignorant and chronically deprived of basic resources. No wonder, India is called the third world country as its system fails to provide recourses necessary for a decent living to people like this guard and his family.

In 1988, as a tourist guide, I had accompanied three Russians to Mumbai’s Hanging Gardens. A shabbily dressed boy of about 10-12 years ran to us with some goodies. He began talking to the Russians — in Russian! He greeted them, told them the prices of the peacock feathers. He made them buy. Two months later I went to the same place with an Italian friend. I recognised the boy. He began speaking to Roberto, greeted him, offered him his wares—in Italian! The illiterate boy had developed a sales vocabulary in all the common tourist languages, and he unerringly recognised who came from where. The UN survey does not include a measure for wisdom or natural talent. Such boys are part of the 39 per cent “illiterates” of India.

This child must be studying in school, playing cricket and having fun with his buddies. It is such a shame that this kid has to use his wisdom to learn numerous languages to sell stuff to tourists. Talk about Child Labor!

My father once visited his multimillionaire friend. His friend suggested they go for a stroll. They walked. A few minutes later, his sandal broke. They went to a cobbler nearby. The cobbler was reading a newspaper. The multimillionaire pushed his foot forward. The cobbler looked annoyed at the distraction. “I need this repaired,” said father’s friend. “Please come at two,” said the cobbler. It was ten past one. “What do you mean?” “I take a break between one and two.” “I will pay you more for fixing my sandal urgently.” “It is not a question of money. I rest at this hour.”

I should admit that this is a good one, however I wonder what kind of living this cobbler is providing to his family and his kids.

I have seen firsthand the poverty in India and I know that the people that live in this poverty are relatively more content with meager amenities as their scope of thinking is limited by their illiteracy. Should we start taking such ‘Quality of Life’ as a benchmark?

Posted by Ramdhan Yadav at November 14, 2005 12:26 AM Perma Link