Bloody first-world problems!
Recently, I have
been working on a consulting engagement for a Disaster Management Agency of one
of the first-world nations; there had been reports of a fraud in flood insurance
claims disbursal. While my job involved figuring out how to predict and avoid
such a mess in the future, the task also carries digging into the past and
identifying the events that led to the current state of affairs, so to say.
As I ploughed through transcripts of thousands of conversations, I realized how vastly different the concepts of “devastation”
and “homelessness” are between the people of that mighty nation versus the
perceptions of our own compatriots here in India.
People there seek
government grants and insurance claims (funded by taxpayer money) to repair the
wall paint in their basements and to replace consumer electronic appliances-
clothes driers, room heaters et al.- that have been damaged in a flood. For a
large part, the rest of their homes, the superstructure, the rooms and the rest
of their furnishings are more or less intact. And they speak of their homes as
being ‘devastated’ and of themselves as being ‘homeless’ when they had to empty
parts of their homes that are being repaired.
Compare that with
the ‘floods’ here in India. All we have is the only basement level, where all
our possessions are, including our own bodily selves. A few feet of rain water
in the house and we don’t even bother to call it a ‘flood’. What can we do-
this is an annual occurrence in our many flood-prone areas. In fact, we have
gotten so used to it that we kinda miss it when it doesn’t happen that year. Even
those multitudes that live in ramshackle shacks don’t call themselves homeless
or devastated in floods. They just pick what they can and go where they can
wait out the storm; and once the worst is past, they come back and start
rebuilding it all with whatever the flood has left behind.
They don’t wait 2
years for the government to give grants or aid to rebuild the houses. Perhaps
because we know that we can count on the certainty of another flood more than
we can count on the certainty of government grants here.
I am not saying we
are awesome or anything. Nope, not at all. Tonight, I’m working a presentation
for the aforesaid assignment that would be discussed in board rooms several
times over the next few weeks. If things go well, it may even lead to a million
dollars changing hands over the next few months. A million dollars of money
spent on painting someone’s basements or replacing a rusty, flooded clothes
dryer in the ‘developed nation’. A million dollars that could potentially build
a few hundred concrete houses in flood-zones in an ‘underdeveloped’ or a ‘developing’
nation.
Trouble is, I can't not work and tell my boss all this tomorrow...
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