Only the fools know what it means.
Ah the world, she turns.
I decided to catch up on "current events" today, what with my time warp issue the events I encounter first hand may not be trusted as current and one does like to keep a finger on the pulse of the globe. Katie Holmes is quitting acting? The Oilers kicked the avalanche in their cocky mountain passes and thus the everything is as it should be. truthfully the I have nothing against the avalanche per se, except a bit of old grudge regarding passed defeats and m support for the Oilers is purely based on their being Canadian and having a sweet old logo. As for Katie, well she says she wants to be a full time mom... good for her, Tom and his brude could use a little stability in their lives, she's cute as a button but all the more reason to get out of the rat race before plastic surgery becomes a contractual obligation and ruins her chances at long term happiness. Also India has made some hopeful steps toward further peace and collaboration with Pakistan. It seems that the bombers of Delhi were mostly from over that ever so tenuous boarder but in the fading shadow of the US nuclear agreement India seems to be opting for a more friendly rhetoric towards ending terrorism. Who says nothing good ever comes of US politics...if there were not so many indicted members of the current administration their might be ICBMs where there are currently earthquake relief camps.
Clearly I have some time on my hands.
In Indian news I was delightfully accosted by some street performers, (I put their age conservatively between 7 and 10), while sitting in an auto rickshaw during the Delhi rush hour. These kids were bloody impressive. not only their cordial showman ship which given their circumstances was a feat of human endurance but also the level of choreography. For my voluntary contribution of 50 rupees (1.4 $CAD) I was treated to a five minute drumming routine that would pack a crowd in downtown Toronto, and that's without the two girls doing elegant and rapid dance moves punctuated by back ward aerial summersaults. The cabbie said he was pleased to see a foreigner pay any attention but assured me I had paid them too much. This did not surprise me and truthfully I was aware of the usual pay grade in Indian street performance but it really does hit home when you are confronted with the effort and exuberance of such young children in such poverty who's enterprising spirit would in the west be treated as merely cute and yet here serves as their total livelihood.
Later that day in a coffee shop, I had the good fortune to read an article in the Delhi Times about these very children. The same spot in the road where I had stopped is apparently a bottleneck where a select few of very talented orphans are a going concern with their show business. The article was hung with all manner of politically correct expressions of grief but still culminated with a thesis that suggested something must be done to stop this disturbance. The suggestion of education or any valid alternative to their livelihood was absent. I agree of course that children of such an age talented and exuberant as they might be would do well to have someone intervene on their behalf but I doubt that the motorists, for whom this article seemed concerned would gain anything by the lack of jubilant entertainment being provided during their commute. To this end I propose the creation of an NGO or similar hopefully less burocratically hampered organization to provide rehearsal space, gas masks and better (cleaner) costumes for these kids. With the protection to their lungs (Delhi smog is among the worlds worst) I’d say they would have as good a chance as anyone in India to make it big in Bollywood. What they don’t need is to be spiritually crushed by the removal of what is probably the one thing they rely on in their lives for joy. The right as children to dance and bang drums and make adults smile.
If this seems to some a tongue in cheek or in anyway unsavory suggestion, that street children should be allowed to continue to subsist on road sides I submit the following.
Poverty is like everything a matter of degrees and comparison. In my travels I have encountered a meger sum of what is the very very well documented reality of human suffering at the hands of poverty and it's many attendant symptoms in human society. The way I am able to see hope for the billions (let's not mince words or numbers here) of people afflicted by this reality is by recognizing that on any given day they might be and in many cases clearly are far more capable of making the best of their situation than any pampered outsider with a cheque book and a kindly heart. The social organization, infrastructure and cultural habits of a place like India, are organically formed by the impoverished millions who live within it and since it has I think been recognized that a grand sweeping elimination of poverty is not a possibility in this time in human history we must make every attempt to improve lives on a case by case basis. There is not enough wealth in common hands to feed the starving of the world. And there are far too many factors, many of them factors that drive seven cars and eat too much, to expect such a miracle to occur. That being the case, let them dance, give them all that can be given, and take whatever I or anyone says on the matter with a grain of cynical salt. Its a funny old world.
So any way, Katie Holmes is pushing for a prenuptial......
I decided to catch up on "current events" today, what with my time warp issue the events I encounter first hand may not be trusted as current and one does like to keep a finger on the pulse of the globe. Katie Holmes is quitting acting? The Oilers kicked the avalanche in their cocky mountain passes and thus the everything is as it should be. truthfully the I have nothing against the avalanche per se, except a bit of old grudge regarding passed defeats and m support for the Oilers is purely based on their being Canadian and having a sweet old logo. As for Katie, well she says she wants to be a full time mom... good for her, Tom and his brude could use a little stability in their lives, she's cute as a button but all the more reason to get out of the rat race before plastic surgery becomes a contractual obligation and ruins her chances at long term happiness. Also India has made some hopeful steps toward further peace and collaboration with Pakistan. It seems that the bombers of Delhi were mostly from over that ever so tenuous boarder but in the fading shadow of the US nuclear agreement India seems to be opting for a more friendly rhetoric towards ending terrorism. Who says nothing good ever comes of US politics...if there were not so many indicted members of the current administration their might be ICBMs where there are currently earthquake relief camps.
Clearly I have some time on my hands.
In Indian news I was delightfully accosted by some street performers, (I put their age conservatively between 7 and 10), while sitting in an auto rickshaw during the Delhi rush hour. These kids were bloody impressive. not only their cordial showman ship which given their circumstances was a feat of human endurance but also the level of choreography. For my voluntary contribution of 50 rupees (1.4 $CAD) I was treated to a five minute drumming routine that would pack a crowd in downtown Toronto, and that's without the two girls doing elegant and rapid dance moves punctuated by back ward aerial summersaults. The cabbie said he was pleased to see a foreigner pay any attention but assured me I had paid them too much. This did not surprise me and truthfully I was aware of the usual pay grade in Indian street performance but it really does hit home when you are confronted with the effort and exuberance of such young children in such poverty who's enterprising spirit would in the west be treated as merely cute and yet here serves as their total livelihood.
Later that day in a coffee shop, I had the good fortune to read an article in the Delhi Times about these very children. The same spot in the road where I had stopped is apparently a bottleneck where a select few of very talented orphans are a going concern with their show business. The article was hung with all manner of politically correct expressions of grief but still culminated with a thesis that suggested something must be done to stop this disturbance. The suggestion of education or any valid alternative to their livelihood was absent. I agree of course that children of such an age talented and exuberant as they might be would do well to have someone intervene on their behalf but I doubt that the motorists, for whom this article seemed concerned would gain anything by the lack of jubilant entertainment being provided during their commute. To this end I propose the creation of an NGO or similar hopefully less burocratically hampered organization to provide rehearsal space, gas masks and better (cleaner) costumes for these kids. With the protection to their lungs (Delhi smog is among the worlds worst) I’d say they would have as good a chance as anyone in India to make it big in Bollywood. What they don’t need is to be spiritually crushed by the removal of what is probably the one thing they rely on in their lives for joy. The right as children to dance and bang drums and make adults smile.
If this seems to some a tongue in cheek or in anyway unsavory suggestion, that street children should be allowed to continue to subsist on road sides I submit the following.
Poverty is like everything a matter of degrees and comparison. In my travels I have encountered a meger sum of what is the very very well documented reality of human suffering at the hands of poverty and it's many attendant symptoms in human society. The way I am able to see hope for the billions (let's not mince words or numbers here) of people afflicted by this reality is by recognizing that on any given day they might be and in many cases clearly are far more capable of making the best of their situation than any pampered outsider with a cheque book and a kindly heart. The social organization, infrastructure and cultural habits of a place like India, are organically formed by the impoverished millions who live within it and since it has I think been recognized that a grand sweeping elimination of poverty is not a possibility in this time in human history we must make every attempt to improve lives on a case by case basis. There is not enough wealth in common hands to feed the starving of the world. And there are far too many factors, many of them factors that drive seven cars and eat too much, to expect such a miracle to occur. That being the case, let them dance, give them all that can be given, and take whatever I or anyone says on the matter with a grain of cynical salt. Its a funny old world.
So any way, Katie Holmes is pushing for a prenuptial......
posted by Chris and Nilu at 3:34 AM
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