Land of Contrasts: Wealth and poverty

As I have talked about before, and am reminded of every day, India is a land of great extremes - with opulence at on end of the scale and abject poverty at the other.

My grandfather put it best:

"India is said to the a land of fantasy and dreams, a land of colour and variety. Whilst this is no doubt true, it seemed to me it was also a land of great realism, with millions of human beings involved in the most basic forms of survival. Many of the fantasies and dreams are link to the need to cope with the rawness of daily life."

The lines of separation in India's caste system are still perceivable, as are a good measure of its intrinsic social restrictions. The splendour of palaces and temples is at times difficult to enjoy when, just outside, you witness unfathomable poverty and despair.

Beggars, many of which suffer from crippling deformities, are an every day reality in the cities - testing the consciences of passers by. Tourists are discouraged from giving money to them, but ignoring a tiny, barely clothed child's plea for money to eat is one of the most difficult and

saddening things I have ever experienced. The guilt clutches at your heart strings and there appears to be solution.

The slums of India are everywhere. After a battle

with my conscience, I visited the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, said to be Asia's biggest. The sprawling acres of the slums are patched together from scraps of metal, warped plastic, old bricks and bamboo, with narrow lanes winding between them. Seeing the slums, you would be forgiven for thinking this was a temporary fix, but they are a very permanent reality for their inhabitants.

A guide took us through the outer edge of Dharavi, which softened and moulded by initial reaction to seeing the thousands of tin rooftops from above. People were hard at work, being incredibly resourceful with the humble things they had and we were greeted warmly. The slum dwellers had little in terms of possessions, but were rich in so many other ways and could certainly teach the rest of the world a thing or two about recycling!

As the slums continue to thrive, the middle and upper classes are growing in line with India's global industry and consumerism. India's rich and poor continue to operate in separate world's, kept divided by marriage traditions, land ownership, education and, I think, fear. The poor live outside, enduring the sun and basic survival, while the rich are circulating in their air-conditioned lives and eating in new, flashy restaurants and buying into Western culture. I have struggled to consolidate the two and I have met the most heart-warming and honest people from both ends of the spectrum.