Rupees and Guilt

So, here's an original post from an American abroad in India... Lately I've been feeling guilty. Not just sort of, "Oh Gee, I sure come from wealth" kind of guilty. It's the sort of guilty that makes me feel that maybe, just maybe, I've been wrong.

When I decided to come to India, I decided to prepare myself by reading every possible source I could find. I read fiction, history, and those infamous guidebooks/survivial guides/rough guides/tourist guides. At least one section of each tourist guide talked about beggars, explaining that giving money only perpetuates the cycle and that donations discourage them from finding jobs. I was able to sort of process this back before I left, sitting in my cozy, air-conditioned room. It made sense, I supposed. Apparently, the only way to make it through a semester would be to become jaded, which I didn't want to do. I'd been warned by nearly everyone who I met that India would be tough on me, mostly because of what I'd see in my everyday encounters. And it's true. Things upset me easily, especially seeing other people suffer. So, I'd resigned myself to getting upset over here.

But the blinders went up. When I first arrived, I couldn't fathom the way that Indian citizens were able to ignore legless women sitting on the curb and starving children pulling at their shirtsleeves. It seemed callous and inhuman to ignore it. I didn't know what I should do, exactly, but I knew it had to be something. The months went by, and I started to get less and less upset. I'd read articles in the Indian Express about beggars who were offered jobs but turned them down because the jobs paid less than a day of begging. An amazing girl on my trip, Sara, came up with the solution of giving food to children instead of money. After a few times, we noticed the children tossing the food to the ground as soon as we turned our backs. It was disheartening, to say the least. I believed, and possibly still believe, that giving coins to children doesn't help. It goes to their families, who are then probably encouraged to put their barefoot children back on the streets to weave through traffic. But then, what do you do?

I started ignoring it. It makes me feel horrible to say it, but that's what I've been doing since October or so. Telling myself that I couldn't really do anything, since food was wasted and money would encourage it, seemed to help. But, to use an already overused expression, it was like putting a Band-Aid over a bruise. When the logical disconnect of hanging up my cell phone to deny a rupee to a beggar started to pick at my brain, I just shut it off. But I don't know if I can do that anymore.

The last thing that I want is a few nice, cleansing, alleviate-my-guilt-from-white-priviledge paragraphs followed by months of inaction. That's not going to cut it anymore. The truth is, I do next to nothing to help others around me. I make some money at campus jobs, but I donate next to nothing of it. I spend hours reading Stephen King, but no time reading to children. Why? I don't want to think that I'm so selfish. But maybe I am.

So, what brougth on this surge of confusion and waking up? I wish I could say it was a poignant, Hallmark Channel-worthy moment with a little girl. Nope. It was reading John Grisham's The Street Lawyer. Figure that one out. Now that I've acklowledged my self-inflicted blindness and justifications, I need to do something about it. If I don't, then thoughts like this and writing like this are pretty much worthless.

Love,
Sarah!

iPod: "Pain," Jimmy Eat World; "23," Jimmy Eat World