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With the position of privilege comes the responsibility to not view the world with rose-tinted glasses.
Yes, it’s not easy to get the understanding of the society from our sweet spots- in our comfortable homes and air-conditioned offices but if we, who have the resources and voice to make things happen for those in less fortunate positions don’t work towards a better tomorrow for all of us, what is the point of enjoying the privileges that we do?


“They say the sun shines equally on everyone
And I don’t think I’ve heard a bigger lie,
For me, the sun is warmth and summer sweetness,
And for my sister walking home -
The harshest thing in the sky”

With India locked down over the coronavirus and no way to earn money, the migrant workers faced a grim choice of either walk the roads to home or die hungry in the city. Lakhs of migrant workers were left unemployed by the full shutdown in the country, this sparked an exodus from metro & major cities with many forced to walk back home hundreds of kilometres on foot as public transport remained disbanded.
Although some trains started operating, connecting to major state capitals of India, the larger point of the conversation is to highlight the apathy. The lack of consideration shown by those in power for those whose livelihoods and lives have been endangered in the past year.

I’ve seen people from the well to do socio-economic status belittle the struggles of those forced to walk home and it left me disgusted. How can we, who don't know anything about walking several miles to reach home and instead were at the luxury of sitting at home, ridicule the struggles of those who have to endure this dehumanising experience? But what I absolutely cannot fail to look past is how everyone, irrespective of where they come from and where they belong always seem to think that home, wherever it might be, is always the better place.

Keeping the above points in consideration, I continue to believe that the world, intrinsically and actually, is a good place. That despite everything we hear on the news every day, kindness survives and people are by and large - good at heart.
That positivity is sitting folded in the seams, waiting to take over the world.

Better days are coming and if you are paying attention, you’ll get a WHIFF of them too.

References:

Agencies, A helping hand for the migrant workers walking home, The Economic Times, Politics, March 28th 2020, 02:16 PM IST

Illustration by Tanishq Nakra

CURSOR 5.0 | VOLUME 3 ISSUE 2, JULY 2021

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