Book List

Spending time in Darjiling I've had a great opportunity just to read. I haven't had that in so long. Reading is such a precious thing, the stories of lives and places unknown (and sometimes all-too-familiar). Thus far I've had a chance to read Galveston by Paul Quarrington, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, Brighton Rock by Graham Greene and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Reading Mistry and Roy have brought more depth and breadth to the way I look at India. Quarrington, Haddon and Greene have helped me to escape - if only for brief moments - from the intensity of this country. The balance (the fine balance) between depression, acceptance and elation over the past weeks has been difficult. Days go by where there is little interaction with the real stories, the real lives of people around. And yet there are days like yesterday, and the day before that, where these stories become real, they become real in the telling. The tale told at breakfast time of the child who works daily at his parents' restaurant. He works not because he's on a break from school. He doesn't work there because he necessarily wants. He works because there is no choice. no option. I see him everyday at breakfast. Frequenting his parents' shop. His parents' shop that barely makes enough money to keep them off the street and in clothes. His parents' shop that serves some of the best Chai in this city. His parents' shop that barely accomodates twelve people, but accomodates a lot of bullshit from tourists all the same. Lives lived accomodating others in order to survive. Who can afford anything else? The other choice is poverty, and the street. And what choice is that? it isn't much of a choice at all. What choice have I? I make the choice to go back every morning and eat at this place. I make the choice to leave a tip for them, hopefully helping them out a little bit. But what choices can I make wherever I am to deal with the poverty that exists here? Who should I support, who should I withhold support from? Who's responsible for the plight of the working poor here in India? Anywhere in the world? certainly not me...