A new kid on the block

my children, oh my children

when you dance around the jasmine

that i planted for you

in the centre of the garden

spare a thought for the earth below your feet

and the roots she nourished and mothered

- roots below the ground that you do not see

from which your jasmine flower

drew its fragrance

drew its life.

I was travelling on the underground in London on my way to speak at a gathering of international aid and development professionals. I was not yet fully prepared. Too many thoughts kept clamouring to be expressed  – thoughts about the ever increasing poverty across the globe even though governments have signed up to the millenium development goal of halving poverty by 2015, about the free market economy and how it contributes to wealth generation on the one hand but drives farmers to commit suicide on the other. About glitzy apartment blocks and state of the art offices and shops mushrooming in Bangalore but creating slums in its shadows, slums inhabited by the very people who built the opulent homes and offices. About the entire development and aid industry and how its jargon ridden lexicon blunts and hides the reality of experiencing poverty and injustice on a daily basis.

There was much I wanted to talk about but I could not find a peg to hang it all on. At that point the tube pulled into a station – Hammersmith I think it was – and I experienced a Saul like moment – as a voice kept repeating over and over again till it registered in my thought muddled brain. “Please mind the gap. Please mind the gap”.

And that was what I talked about that day – the ever increasing gap between a minority who inhabit centre stage and the majority who are consigned to the fringes or even left out of the theatre altogether and our unmindfulness of it. But I am more of a doer – not so much a thinker and even less of a writer. Thought must lead to action and back to thought again. For the last 20 odd years we have been working with the adivasis (indigenous people) in the Nilgiri Hills of South India. (you can read more about it on www.adivasi.net).During the last decade I have had the privilege of travelling to different parts of the world and sharing the experience of working on issues of injustice and the resultant poverty at the grassroots. With climate change and other things it seems best to travel less. But the opportunity to share our thoughts based on our experience of working on the ground to a very diverse audience and to learn from their experiences, has helped us tremendously. It has opened many doors – for further thought, further reflection and further action. How then to continue to benefit from this sharing of ideas, thoughts and experiences without jumping onto areoplanes all the time to attend conferences and talks?

I decided to learn from my children and catch up on my now rusty IT knowledge and skills to start a blog like they have done.

So here it is: A blog to remind everyone of the increasing gap – repeating it over and over again like the tube station in London. A blog of thoughts that spring not from erudition or wisdom – but from the ground. From underground actually – from rubbing shoulders with people who are so out of sight in our society that many – even their well wishers – think that they are incapable of intellectual thought.

I promise not to post all gloom and and doom – we would not have survived 30 years if remarkable stories did not emerge to gladden our hearts and strengthen our resolve. I assure you there will be lots of this. Humour too… one thing that I learnt from the adivasis is that if you can laugh at life it will never get the better of you.

I do not seek ownership of this blog and hope it will develop into some kind of a guerilla think tank. Where people will all contribute and maybe one day these thoughts from underground will surface and occupy the minds and hearts of many more people around the world.

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~ by Stan on April 18, 2010.