It hadn't been but 5 minutes after I left the airport in Chennai, India that we drove by a Honda dealership on one side if the road and on the other there was a slum lining the sidewalk.
So many of my friends who have been to India kept telling me that there is virtually no line seperating poverty and wealth in India. They said that povery and wealth were not found on opposite sides of town, but existing hand in hand all over. I don't think I really understood the magnitude of what they were saying until I drove down that street.
There is an overwhelming feeling of helplessness when you see this type of reality for the first time. I have been all over the world but none of my travels have really prepared me for the degree of poverty here in India. It's unavoidable and unescapeable.
It has continued to amaze me that where you are born basically can decide whether you eat or go hungry, whether you are housed or homeless. And in many cases, whether you live or whether you die. How has this become possible? Where did things go so wrong?
I wish I had some great wisdom to end this with but really this is just me thinking out loud, trying to work through the intracicies of our existence.
I think that life will continue to throw these types of things at me. Situations that have no acceptable explanation. And all that lingers in my mind after stuggling with this day and night is that I have to do something about it. I have to begin to live for something more than myself.
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