Keeping a Balance: Beggars and Homelessness

No longer quite so sprightly!

I am glad I brought a good, solid walking-stick with me to India. As I move towards my mid-70s, I am aware of a decline in my ability to balance. I first noticed it after my hip replacement. I was lazy, and I never really followed on with the exercise sheets and walking regime as I should have done. Now I pay the price every time I face a staircase, whether I am hauling myself up with the handrail, or trying not to miss my footing on the way down.

Earlier this year, I blamed my new glasses, and there is an element of truth in my belief that the varifocal lenses made me slightly giddy. But I refuse to wear glasses all the time, because I can stroll down the street, or work happily on the computer without them. (If I strain to read the text, I just adjust the view on the screen to 150%.) I can shop in the supermarket, but if I am wearing my varifocals, and I need to read the microscopic print on a label, I have to nod up and down till my eyes align with the right bit of the varifocal lens. So instead, I don’t bother with always wearing glasses, and just stick my reading specs in my breast pocket for when I want to verify a sell-by date. That works fine, unless I forget to take them off again, and walk around town, wondering why everything is a bit fuzzy.

Four legs are better than two

Striding Out

I never really thought about why old people use a walking stick. Now I know. It’s a stabilising third leg. And in Bangalore, it works like crampons and carabiners on a glacier, the former stop you slipping and the latter provide a sense of security. Which is what you need when road repairs mean digging a hole, but not necessarily filling it in completely, and when a kerb at the edge of the pavement is up to 25cm high, (about 10 inches, in old money.)

A splash of local colour

If my taxi is stuck at traffic lights, a sad widow will tap on the window, hoping for a few rupees. 

India's legally recognised third gender

Sometimes a group of hijras will lobby the motorists. Hijras are people born male but who dress as women and identify, under Indian law, as belonging to a third gender. Like London drag queens they are often glamorous, and sashay between the cars at road junctions, scrounging for small change. Like gypsies in Europe, they are considered to have the power to curse those who treat them badly, and hence their begging tends to be very successful.

It's another splash of local colour, and there are other surprising differences between strolling along the pavement in Bangalore, as opposed to Birmingham. 

The biggest shock is very sobering, and makes me reflect in a sobering whatever-happened-to-Blighty sort of way. 

Rough Sleepers

Most British cities have their quota of homeless people sitting on the pavement with their dog for warmth and company, and their paper cup for the occasional donation. 

Homeless in central London

This is not something I see in Bangalore. Although there are well over 1.7million officially homeless in India (2011 census) this represents just 0.15% of the population. By comparison, Shelter estimates that there are currently 600,000 homeless in the UK – a staggering 0.9% of the population. This reveals a proportion of homelessness in Britain which is six times greater than the percentage reported in the last Indian census. It is probably true to assume that there are differences in the definitions of “homelessness” between the two countries, but by any stretch of the imagination and even allowing for creative massaging or distortion of the numbers, this is a frightening statistic.

A bed in a night-shelter

In India, rough sleepers are chased out of doorways and sent on their way, but there are hostels and night shelters that provide some basic hospitality.

The UK statistic haunts me: almost one percent of the population statistically “homeless.” The reality is that the UK's biggest problem is in thinking that homelessness itself is the problem. 

Homelessness is not the problem, it's a symptom of a far greater problem, and it will take much, much more than soup kitchens and night shelters to solve it.

Working towards a better future

One of the greatest attractions of living in India, is to know that there is an underlying optimism throughout Indian society. The most important thing that Building Blocks teaches, right from Day One, is that our students create their own future, and their past need not limit their opportunities.

They have an opportunity that their parents could never dream of

I cannot remember the last time I felt this spirit of positivity in my local environment. It was not much evident in the community when I lived in Lincoln. Prior to that I had lived in Italy for a few years and discovered that Italians loved communities – but only their small, local community: nothing bigger than the village, or a small zoned-off quartiere of their birth-town. 

India has its divisions: its castes and classes, its languages and religions, but there is national pride in being one sixth of the world's population, all under one flag. If only Britain-in-Europe had grasped the opportunity to be a dynamic part of a greater community . . .

But Britain has never shown any passion for being an active part of Europe, and working together to build a better Europe. I sometimes feel that once Britain saw the acronym EEC they decided instantly that they certainly did not want to be a part of anything that called itself a Community. When it morphed into EU, the word Union was just one step too far.

Which is why I am here. 

India wants to succeed and I want to help their next generation achieve it with a focus on community: an emphasis on the many not the few ( - a phrase so very relevant in 21st century politics, on both sides of the Channel and both sides of the Atlantic.)

Sadly, I cannot imagine returning to life in England, with its suffocating fog of negativity. For the rest of my span on this Earth, I want to stay as motivated as the 8-year old BB graduate who lives in the squalor of the Bangalore slums, but has set her sights  firmly on becoming a Bank Manager. What a privilege it is to be able to help children like her, - and so many others who proudly flaunt their ambitions!

Little girls, big ambitions.

No matter where you are in the world,you can help our hard-working children achieve their dreams. A few pounds a month funds all kinds of extra-curricular activities; a scholarship through from age 6 to age 16 costs less than £1 per day. 

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