FOUNDER'S NOTE

The Economics of Poverty

Many years back in a lower middle-class locality, there was a small bakery. A famous biscuit brand used to supply small packets containing 6 glucose biscuits, for two rupees.  I would watch some little kids walk up to the bakery with a 50 paisa coin. The bakery man would tear open the packet, take out one biscuit and give it to the kid.  Many children would run away happily holding their treasured biscuit. Eventually the Bakery Man would get 6 x 50 paisa i.e. Rs.3/- for the packet which would otherwise sell for Rs.2/-.

I thought of the poverty of the parent who cannot give two rupees to his child.  The bakery man who, though he is making an extra rupee, had the patience to keep giving individual biscuits and collecting the half-rupee coins.  And more than anything else, I was fascinated by the joy and glow on the face of each little one who would run back home with the achievement of having obtained a biscuit!

Poverty is very difficult for us to understand, but it does exist around us. How sensitive we are and what can we do to uplift them is a big question mark. 

Most of us live in 2 BHK and 3 BHK apartments with attached toilets.

The family size is constantly diminishing, and with no live-in guests or servants, inevitably one bedroom is given exclusively to the single child. He bolts the door from inside and spends hours alone without their elders disturbing them. If parents shout from outside the door, they turn up the volume of their music system pretending that they did not hear the calling.

The world of the Digital Native children is now shrinking to the six-inch screen of their smartphone.  And with their room door securely bolted, they are free to do whatever they wish to, without any disturbance. Weaning children away from gadgets has already become a major problem for parents. Convincing them to keep their door open is going to be the next greatest challenge. 

Do parents have the guts to remove the bolts from their child’s door?

At times someone we trust or love hurts us badly.

The person may have let us down, cheated us, humiliated us or ignored us.  When outsiders do the same we are upset for some time but we recover and move on.  But if the person was (or is) very dear to us then it becomes difficult to get over, and the emotional hurt persists for a long time.

Here are some simple tips to reduce the pain and thereby become more relaxed or functional:

1. Acknowledge and Accept Your Feelings, label them
2. Practice Self-Compassion
3. Challenge Negative Thought Patterns
4. Cultivate Forgiveness
5. Spend time with those who have been good to you
6. Do Healing Activities
7. Set Boundaries in to prevent hurt in future

Don’t expect quick results.  The above have to be practiced regularly for a long time before you feel lighter.  Best of luck!

Some of us are very good in Math, some in languages, others in science, and some in creative work.  Each of these abilities opens doors for good careers.  With globalization and progress of the Indian economy, many traditional careers that did not offer sufficient returns have now become very lucrative.  Teachers giving on-line tuition to students abroad are earning more than 10-15 Dollars per hour.  Designers are being absorbed in large companies on six figure salaries. Writers are finding very rewarding openings in technical writing, specialized publications, web-based portals etc.

While no one can predict which career will offer higher returns in future, one safe prediction would be to say that the most successful people in this generation are going to be those who develop the flexibility and adaptability to anticipate, accept and adapt to change.  With rate of change increasing exponentially, one needs to remove mental blocks and be alert to whatever new is coming on the horizon, and change oneself accordingly.

For example, do you know what is a cyborg? Prof. Kevin Warwick, the first cyber-organic human can control computers through his mind, because he cut his nerves and inserted a micro-chip. Did you believe that humans and computers will get merged into one entity?  It has already happened.  Now visualize how life will change due to this, and where you will fit into the new ways. 

“Even a millionaire’s son has to be born helplessly poor and to begin his lesson of life from the beginning; he has to learn to walk like the poorest of children, though he has means to afford to be without the appendage of legs.  Poverty brings us into complete touch with life and the world, for living richly is living mostly by proxy; thus, such living is a world of lesser realty.  This may be good for one’s pleasure and pride, but not for one’s education.  Wealth is a golden cage in which children of the rich are bred into artificial deadening of their powers.” 

Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore

Two Sides of the Virtual World

Game Design has already become a very exciting career with dozens of colleges offering Bachelor of Design and also Diploma courses specializing in this field.  Start-ups have made millions within a short time of devising the most unusual and challenging games that are being downloaded by tens of thousands of young and old people.

The criticism against computer or mobile games is that it shuts the person away from the real world into one of make-belief and thus takes away his life skills, particularly social skills.  Since some of the games are so fascinating that they become addictions, some people are getting completely isolated into the virtual world.  As a great relief has come Niantic Labs’ project Pokemon Go, which was originally launched as Ingress.  It is estimated that the game is downloaded more than 11 million times.  The unique feature of this game is that it gets the player out of the house, to discover the city’s landmarks, making people walk around and go into new areas, meeting others in person.  Some people are also travelling to other cities as part of their exploration.

Though the game primarily involves competitive spirit, people do meet to set aside differences and show camaraderie, and there are many instances of members of one faction helping lower-level members of the opposite faction to come up to their level.  People are known to meet and share stories, eat and drink, and show off their latest acquisitions.

On the other hand, for those who are stuck to gaming and Internet, are losing valuable time and are unable to wean themselves back into the real world, NIMHANS has SHUT clinic at Nimhan’s Centre for Well-being.  Contact 080-26685948 or mail them at shutclinic@gmail.com