A customers thoughts - Kriti Bharadwaj

A gift from Palaguttapalle (Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh).
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I received these bags on Saturday afternoon. I wanted to rip off the package and distribute them to everyone in the bank, but I am glad I thought better of it. They are very sturdy and cute, and perhaps one of the last deaperate attempts at livelihood. I bought ten of them and have only been giving away to like minded friends.
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While our unapologetic, brainwashed, consumerist lifestyles keep siphoning away life from our rural hinterlands, megalomaniac stunts like demonetization literally crush the life out of informal economy. Failed crops, deliberate marginalization, gambling education, and repeated humiliation by asserting that somehow they need to be “salvated”by the likes of us, we make a mockery of a self sufficient economy and feed off it like thieves. We, who have not known these uncomplaining shoulders at all. We, who have our heads and eyes in bubbles for so long that we have the audacity to “speak for them”without the courage or integrity to share with them.
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Countless Varalus, Eashwarammas, Anithas, Annapurnas are rendered hungry at the mercy of our “obligation “ and “generosity”when we decide to buy what they need to sell.

We may want to clearly strike a difference between our needs and wants. We may then gradually do away with the latter and supply the former with needs of others.
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Poverty is not an alien infestation. It’s a crime. A crime we are all guilty of. A disease which is man-made and is deliberately kept alive. One which breeds many more with it. It takes tremendous honesty and self-reflection to even be aware of the hundred thousand privileges we are born with. Yes, I know the metaphysical answers of the nature of duality, the non judgmental, guilt- free experience of the physical drama, the illusion of finite resources and the possibility of overflowing abundance in all spheres of life. It is, however, something which continues to ache me and confuse me. We need to buy what our informal economy has to sell. If they perish, they atleast know it. We think we thrive on capitalism, but we are already dead and not even aware of it.
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I don’t know many Aparnas out there, today. I m not sure if they wish to be known either. I thank her and she dismisses it...Much thanks for the bags, the blogs, the stories,the pictures, the milk, the aswagandhadi, the gods, the rituals, the school, the cattle, the jallikattu, the annadanams, the sangatis, the muggus and the commitment to do it all. Much love and best wishes to you all. 

(via Kriti Bhardwaj)

Parting with our share of ‘extra’doesn’t qualify as generosity, kindness or compassion. It only qualifies as logical and civil. Can only be a miniscule attempt to balance our otherwise criminal attitudes and lifestyles.

We should remember this in case our laughable “donations”or “charities”or “corporate social responsibilities”( actually Income Tax Exemptions) get to our heads and deprive us of humility. Everytime one feels proud and not humbled, in having served a little, one must remember that we are only accounting for our own consequences. Its like the countries who create refugees in the first place by bombing others, then boast of being “considerate” in giving shelter to refugees.

No its not our hardwork, worth or value being rewarded to us in our socioeconomic class. We, the rich and the privileged, create the poor. We ensure that their vertical mobility is limited.Their existence is important to all of us. To the activists, to the capitalists, to the sociologists and to the state. They serve our agendae.

Income inequality can never be done away with, I am aware. Neither of the –isms is an absolute answer, I am also aware. In that unfortunate reality, we find enough space and flexibility to debate morality, justify our means and create alternative ends. We are so comfortable with our lies that we have the audacity to speak of our “success”, “struggles” and “hardwork”, when we refuse to acknowledge that so much of potential and talent goes unrewarded simply because of our accidents of birth. And nature doesn’t recognize rich from poor, surely, does it? Its our making. All of us naturally born but socially marginalised- be it the poor, transgendered, women, gays, dalits or the disabled-is the making of the majority.

However, every ripple matters. Our small, insignificant actions do matter. If only we could stop wrapping them in “nobility”, making fundamental humanity also an inaccessible, unaffordable, voluntary luxury.

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