Statutory Warning: This is not the "feel good" factor. We cannot be responsible for your response, you may not like what you read and often may be shocked or dismayed. Remember, you read these at your risk.
While "India"
Shines, there are sobering truths about Indian society that often miss
the public minds - through social indifference and media negligence.
During our interaction with rural India, we learn of these facts and
get provoked, angry, frustruated. Here we share some of them as they
are.
Did you know that
the divorce rate in India is going up like crazy? That the software
industry heads the divorce rates, we heard of software engineers
who have divorced in 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 4 months,… A software
engineer gave us these statistics: In her batch of 18 classmates
(all women), 5 are yet to be married and out of the 10 that were
married, 8 are divorced. She has been out of college for 3 years
now.
If urban India is
only getting divorced in a hurry, wait, rural India is not far behind.
A resident school that is situated in a rural area in Tamilnadu
had advertised for applications for post of teachers. Out of the
300 applicants (all women) 75% were divorced.
A girls high school
in villupuram was conducting regular medical check-up for its students
between class 8 and 12 (age 14 - 18), when 2 of them fainted. On
suspicion, they were examined and found to be pregnant. Then the
school decided to do the pregnancy check for all its students and
found that 28 students were pregnant.
In Thiruvallur District
(north of Chennai), villages consist of agricultural labourers.
These villages have faced the worst urban exploitation, the illiterate
agricultural labourers have been rendered jobless through mechanisation
of agriculture in the past decade, taken to the city for petty jobs,
have had the remaining menfolk in the village completely get addicted
to liquor, have traded in illicit liquor to survive, face police
brutuality whenever there is a need to show 'cases'. Here people
this year have a new trade - Water. Villagers are inviting private
water suppliers to come and dig deep borewells in their lands to
pump water till the bore runs dry in return for a few thousand rupees
(which many of them have never seen before). When one section of
the village has completely gone dry, the private operators do not
have to look far, the other section of the village is waiting and
welcoming them. And when one village has gone dry completely, the
next village is waiting…poverty and sudden promise of money
has pushed them to look at the water lorries with hope, the villagers
on being queried about what will they do for their water respond,
"we will get water from our Panchayat water supply", that
is their level of ignorance.
Sirumalai near Dindigul
in Tamilnadu is famous for its plantains. "Sirumalai pazham"
is famous for its smooth, sweet taste. However, Sirumalai has been
burning for some time now literally. The people living in the foot
hills are used to the evening forest fires in the hills. It is said
that the poor villagers on the hills are co-operating with rich
contractors to set the trees on fire, they get doused after awhile
due to wind and the half burnt wood is chopped and collected to
be sold as charcoal and transported in lorry load.