Jiho!

"Jiho" means "May Victory Be Yours".

I have some thoughts about this movie that are flying all over the map right now.

The slums of Mumbai are the sort of environment that few people can imagine without having seen it. People live in tin shacks covered with moldy blankets next to garbage dumps. Children swim through poop. Bathrooms are collective and there is no sanitation. The stink alone is unspeakable.

Human beings should not be living that way in an abundant world ~ and the world is abundant. There are sufficient resources on this planet to feed every man, woman, child and beast. The social structures have to place that as a value and currently they do not.

I found the premise of the movie rather silly, given that most of the children in Mumbai are not educated and struggle daily for basics. The idea of someone having the energy to memorize a lot of trivia is a bit unrealistic. But that aside....

One thing the creators of this movie did understand is that consciousness raising without action is meaningless. Talking about a problem, ruminating about it, hand-wringing about it is useless.

The producers of the movie have created a school in the slums of Mumbai in an effort to offer free education to all the children of the region. It will provide them with a chance to begin the process of improving their lives. In my opinion, that is to be praised. The producers didn't make a big issue of it or try to use it as a means to elevate themselves. If I am understanding correctly, it's really not a well-known fact.

The one thing that concerns me is inaction and lack of cooperation on part of the Indian government. They still operate under a social system that predestines a person's status in life by birth. If one is born into the wrong caste, there is no chance of change, no opportunity for growth or self-determination on any level. At the risk of making some people mad, I'll say that it is a disgusting, barbaric and unconscionable social system that should be challenged by every human rights group on the planet.

Karma can be used as a battering ram, just like anything else. It can be used as an excuse to ignore glaring social problems by determining that someone deserves his or her fate because of past deeds in another life. That's not a belief system. It's an excuse.

In my opinion, it's crap.

Karma is a system of cause and effect, not a meritocracy.

We all have a duty to alleviate suffering whenever and however we can. Not to rack up brownie points but because that is our purpose here.

Maithri quoted a Sufi saying that I particularly like and it seems to fit this occasion as well.

"Past the seeker as he prayed,

There came the helpless and the hungry and the homeless,

And seeing their suffering he cried out to his God saying

"Great God, How can you see your children suffering and not do anything to
help them?"

And God in His heaven replied "I did do something.

I made you."

I hope that if seeing the movie that won the Oscar does anything, it will convince all of us on a very personal level that we are responsible for the way the world works, that we can and should make a difference. This isn't a Horatio Alger tale. It's a morality play.

Jiho!

~*