City of Joy…..?

Guten Morgen Peeps, have been taking a back seat off late owing to my busy schedule and travels.

Saw this article when I was visiting Delhi earlier this month, “West Bengal had the highest number of graduate beggars in India”. Makes me really wonder why the Eastern part of India is so underdeveloped and backward while the rest of India though far from being perfect is still progressing.

India has a lot of issues to be solved like poverty, corruption, dirt, sanitation, illiteracy, electricity, and infrastructure. Wondering why such basic amenities still are burning issues. I Moved to Kolkata in 2012 from Singapore, being a “Probashi” Bengali, who never grew up in that part of India, Bengal was like the biggest shock or nightmare. I and my family had to face a lot of issues after relocation. My primary reason to come to Kolkata was to solve property issues as both my parents had died and my hearing disabled brother and wife were unable to cope up with their normal hearing son.

The dishonesty, backward thinking of the people, stunned us. It was like a culture shock for us. Though the then Chief minister was building new roads, highways, malls, fancy high-rises, there were no jobs and industries besides the mainstream professionals like Doctor, Engineer, Lawyer, Teacher.

The chief minister was fighting a legacy, left by the Marxist government who ruled West Bengal for decades. In the three years we lived there, we saw people in our circle, outsiders leaving the state one after the other, land grabbing, occupying, killing for property everything was prevalent here. Our living cost was higher than what we had in a country like Singapore which was fully developed. We waited three years for my daughter’s 12th grade to get over and moved to Mumbai.

Things are not perfect in Mumbai but at least some things work, some more, some less and a different world altogether though the same country. Property matters I have left in God’s hands as only he can solve it there but hope for all the poor people who helped and supported us in the time we spent there that things change, and improve, also for some of the good people, who deserve better in this so-called “City of Joy”, where the City and Joy part are dismantled now and searching for their existence.

A hopeful Bengali!!!

Mo Roy Lang..