Losing touch with my humanity

*Sniff. I've got the flu. Considering that I stay in Pune, I'm hoping that it isn't the porcine variety. I'm talking about the swine flu. Its all the rage in the media these days. I can just imagine what newsrooms across the country must be like. "Dying child's parents on line one. I think we've got sunday's front page story!". " A stampede you say! Only 4 dead? Call us after an hour." Alright, thats probably not what its like but I couldn't resist throwing in a little black humour to make my point which is, why do we need a celebrity virus to get our country to talk about the abysmal state of public health care? The only answer I can come up with is that we have become so immune to seeing people suffer that their plight has just faded into the background and assumed less importance over our own. And when I say we, I'm talking about myself as well.
I was walking down a crowded street yesterday when I was accosted by a small girl in her early teens with a little steel lunch box minus its lid. It was crowded, I was feeling sick and I really just wanted to catch a bus and get back home. So I decided to ignore her. She wasn't the type to admit defeat and walk away. As I started to walk away, I could hear her quick shuffling steps that weren't quick enough to overtake me but were quick enough to maintain an annoyingly close distance to me as I tried to walk away. I stopped and tried to cross the road and to my surprise, the little wild cat took a shot at me, lunch box and all. Glaring at her after I crossed the road I realized that she had a big rock with her as well (no wonder my arm hurt so much). When she saw me looking at her, she lifted her hand and pointed at me all the while hurling abuses at me from across the road. I was so surprised. I hardly expected her to attack me. Should I have felt angry with her for expecting neigh demanding money from me? Like it was her birthright... I don't know, but I found myself feeling absolutely wretched instead. Would it have taken me all that much time to just give her a coin or two? Probably not. Why didn't I? That one rupee coin may have made a big difference to her day. I realized that I didn't giver her money because to me she was just a concept. Just another nameless, faceless poor girl. I would surely find another poor girl over the week who would allow me to assauge my guilt over this little incident. Like theres just one little girl in this whole country. That was a pretty pathetic reason.
Everyone talks about poverty so we're tired of hearing about it?... Movies about poverty are so 'inconvenient'... Look away, there's other 'good stuff' happening in this country... Look away, our actors are walking the red carpet at the oscars... Look away, I can't believe Dhoni asked us to cheer for Pakistan. How could he?... But DON'T look away. Our poor are vulnerable to being indoctrinated with Naxal ideologies, they are vulnerable to being indoctrinated with islamist extremism, they are working with countries like China to bring about the downfall of their own country... and they don't even know it. All they want is a little attention. Some development. A voice.
Forget the poor, today finding a way to relate to another person has to be a conscious effort. If we don't make that effort, we just settle into the rat race and risk losing our humanity. We have so many avenues that encourage hyper-individuality but none that balance it out. If we continue ignoring the problems the people of our country face, we're going to be caught with our pants down. Do you really believe the rebellion in the forests of AP are not going to reach the streets of Mumbai soon? Think again. The poor don't stay powerless forever. Every order changes.