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Many people in India are so poor they barely survive, and dream of having their children in some kind of desk job so they can earn money. Any money. But not all

Many people in India are so poor they barely survive, and dream of having their children in some kind of desk job so they can earn money. Any money. But not all parents love their children as much as this dad did; the reason most families stay poor forever is the guardian (usually the father) of the family is indulged in cigarette, tobacco or alcohol consumption. What they earn goes to fulfill the most basic needs of the family, and on intoxication. Hundred of thousands of families stay that way for years until the kid grows up, and either gets a job, or continues like the guardian. It’s sad, but true story that I lived through. Not really an Indian, but from a similar kind of community in its neighboring country. I’m telling all this because this kind of kind gesture from a father is rare, that's why it became a news. Many people ride bicycles everyday for work - my father rode 30kms a day for probably 12-13 years because that was the only vehicle we had. He’d have rode 105 any day for me. Kudos to all the dads who put their children before anything else!

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
You basically described life in lots of Eastern European villages.
wayoverthecloud 6y ago
Hello fellow Nepali :)
- njsubedi 6y ago
  Haha, hey! It’s the first time in 8 years someone waved a hello to me. I’m sure there are many out here but how’d we know.
econcon 6y ago
Indians actually donated a lot of money from their salaries specially PSU sector workers but somehow the donated money is now a private fund. For anyone interested read "PM cares fund"
- throw93 6y ago
  Quite an interesting read on Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PM_CARES_Fund https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PM_CARES_Fund 1. According to article some government organizations deducted percentage of salary towards this fund by default. After some protests this default was reversed. 2. This fund is exempt from audit because it’s not a “public fund”. Can someone throw some light on what this actually means? I’m referencing “Accountability and transparency” part of the article. 3. Part of this fund was used to buy ventilators manufactured by a local(Indian) company. Some hospitals returned these ventilators because of quality issues. Source - https://m.huffingtonpost.in/entry/agva-ventilators-pmcares-covid-19-order_in_5ef1ea38c5b6001a27157ccd https://m.huffingtonpost.in/entry/agva-ventilators-pmcares-c...
  - econcon 6y ago
    >. According to article some government organizations deducted percentage of salary towards this fund by default. After some protests this default was reversed. As we speak, the banner for PM Care fund can still be seen on the bank login page of Public Banks.
- ffpip 6y ago
  Still cannot believe Modi got away with it. Glad I could help some people directly, instead of donating to the fund.
  - vinni2 6y ago
    I feel disgusted that I donated to that fund and encouraged family and friends to do so also!
  - puranjay 6y ago
    Democracies only thrive when there is strong opposition. Modi will keep getting away as long as the opposition is non-existent.
    - raghava 6y ago
rmrfstar 6y ago
Ed Thorp's book had an entire chapter explaining that "Joe Sixpack" is poor because he spends all his money on beer and cigarettes. A similar narrative emerged in the British press during Ireland's great hunger. It's a recurring theme. Utterly false, but recurring.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- smabie 6y ago
  It's not false at all. When your life is unimaginably shitty, it's hard to plan for the future and most excess income is used to make yourself feel better (flavorful food, alcohol, drugs, etc). I've observed this about myself (the worse I feel, the less money I save) and others. I lived in Africa for two years, and it's quite common for men to spend money on alcohol or meat, even if that means going hungry. Clearly, more value is being derived from a nice meal or a drink than a shitty, flavorless one. I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that this is utterly false, but I'm telling you that this isn't the case.
  - crooked-v 6y ago
    I think the point is more that, for most people, cutting back on minor luxuries wouldn't actually matter much because it doesn't actually add up to enough money to materially improve life in other ways. Or, more pithily: You're not poor because you spend everything on beer, you spend what little is left over on beer because you're poor and really need the pick-me-up.
    - smabie 6y ago
      But it does! For example, in Tanzania (the place in Africa that I lived), a lot of women sell vegetables. They don't have enough money to buy them outright at the beginning of the day, so they take them on credit, and then pay for them at the end of the day. The vegetables on credit are very expensive, 25-50% more. The vegetable women is always one day behind, and losing a ton of income because she is being fronted. If she had enough money to buy the vegetables outright, it would make a huge difference in her life. And indeed, this is the whole problem microfinance loans aim to solve. There are so many people who just need a very small amount of money ($10-$20), and it would jump start their business. But instead of saving until they have it, they spend everything they have at the end of the day. And it's easy to see why: when life is very hard, you need something to just feel okay enough to start it all again tomorrow. Those that end up in a good place are the very people who have the willpower to delay their consumption. Most aren't like that, but some are, and the difference in outcome is stark. I actually started a school over there, and taught some classes about personal finance, investing, compound interest, etc to a class of mostly young women (young men are much more difficult to teach). Their minds were totally blown by how powerful even just saving 25 or 50 cents a day. One even told me a year after she attended the class that I had changed her life forever. And indeed I had, she went from having nothing and selling donuts (essentially) on the side of the road, to opening her first small convenience store, to saving money for her second. These things matter, and there's a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of affecting change in 3rd world countries.
Temasik 6y ago
if you can't feed don't breed what's so hard?
timonoko 6y ago
But you did not have to steal your bike to survive, like in post-war Italy (Ladri di biciclette 1948). Interestingly Italy with no cars, no motoscooters and no fat people looks much more habitable place. Likewise one might ponder what India would be if even more people would afford cars instead of bicycles.
jacobr 6y ago
What do you think would happen if everyone stopped using tobacco and alcohol over night? Would poverty disappear? It’s of course tragic when parents make a bad position even worse, but addiction is a symptom of poverty and not the cause.
- newyankee 6y ago
  Indeed, a lot of hard laborers need the addiction to plough through their life. Although one unfortunate aspect of this habit unlike in other countries is the casual disregard for spitting anywhere. The issue is that India is a highly resource strained country and most internal issues are manifestations of the same fights over limited resources that show up as something else.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  And nicotine usage is heavily skewered towards people who have had a bad quality of life. Usually due to financial issues. It's also surprising that we could've played a better role with tobacco but instead heavily promoted and romanticized it for decades.
- njsubedi 6y ago
  Nothing can make poverty (as a national problem) go away overnight. But if a guardian started buying 50 rupees (USD 80 cents) worth of milk/eggs/notebooks/pens instead of cigarette, tobacco and alcohol tomorrow, or just saved that up for later, the quality of life will start rising for sure. That fifty rupees, which is what an average person spends a day, makes a difference.
  - frequentnapper 6y ago
    Most likely the price of milk/eggs/notebook would go up if like you say vast majority of those people could start to afford it.
    - radegast 6y ago
      Do you know why there are left and right-wing economists? Because economics is not a science. So yeah, "most likely" is just a wild guess. My guess is that if the price of milk/eggs/notebooks increases, it will drive more people to get cows/chickens/start creating notebooks, thus lowering the price. Hey, its economics, you can say whatever.
xfer 6y ago
> the reason most families stay poor forever is the guardian (usually the father) of the family is indulged in cigarette, tobacco or alcohol consumption. Any studies or citation or is this your personal experience extrapolated? I have seen many bad/uncaring poor parents without any addiction(unless you can call drinking tea addiction). Good parents in poverty is a blessing though and definitely a major part of their children's success.
- phekunde 6y ago
  > Any studies or citation or is this your personal experience extrapolated? Well, the OP's citation is "Not really an Indian,..." So you don't require more credibility than that when someone is commenting on an Indian story!
  - Yetanfou 6y ago
    If you cite make sure to use a complete citation. He wrote "Not really an Indian, but from a similar kind of community in its neighboring country." which gives more credibility to his statement than the partial citation you used. It is still anecdotal of course but given the history of the region the culture does not shift dramatically as soon as you cross the border.
    - phekunde 6y ago
      > which gives more credibility to his statement than the partial citation you used. It is still anecdotal of course but given the history of the region the culture does not shift dramatically as soon as you cross the border. This gross generalisation is nothing new about India. People who do that(even if they are from a "neighboring country") do not understand the many contours of a vast and very diverse country! Indians have now become used to this partial vision of others about the country. The rest of the citation you included itself would have given you a hint: "similar kind of community in its neighboring country". Comparing a community to a whole country is quite a leap!
      - 6y ago
crispyporkbites 6y ago
> the reason most families stay poor forever is the guardian (usually the father) of the family is indulged in cigarette, tobacco or alcohol consumption Um no. The reason many Indian families remain poor is due to living in extreme poverty with few opportunities, and a bizarre caste system that emphasises it further. It’s not like if you stop drinking or smoking you’ll magically become rich.
- naruvimama 6y ago
  Addiction and not saving for a bad day along with all the bad decisions typical of anyone in poverty is a significant contributor. The poorest people are the ones who need "caste" the most, it gives them the social security that they need the most. https://www.amazon.com/Caste-as-Social-Capital-Vaidyanathan/dp/9388689119 https://www.amazon.com/Caste-as-Social-Capital-Vaidyanathan/...
- onion2k 6y ago
  It’s not like if you stop drinking or smoking you’ll magically become rich. Except you kind of do though because "rich" is essentially shorthand for "being able to buy what you want". I know plenty of people who considered themselves poor (couldn't afford a car, vacations, etc), and as soon as they stopped smoking realised they actually could afford those things when they weren't setting about $10/day on fire. Smoking is a choice that everyone is free to make, but let's not pretend it has no impact on your ability to buy other things. It definitely does.
brnt 6y ago
While 30km is certainly on the long end, it's not uncommon for people to commute such distances by bike here as well (Netherlands).
- srean 6y ago
  Road conditions would be rather … different though. While I was in Kanpur, which is a prominent city in another prominent state, I would find cadavers of every kind, some road kills, some not, excrements of every kind, recklessly driven thundering trucks that could run you over, elephants waiting at street lights along with shiny imported cars. Its quite surreal if you think about it.
  - brnt 6y ago
    Hehe, being behind an elephant at a tollbooth on the Delhi-Agra freeway was certainly a highlight of my trip to India.
- throwaway200929 6y ago
  :-). I cycled 30 km a day while in college in South India (Tamilnadu). When I reached college, I would splash water all over my shirt because cycling in the heat (35 to 40 degree celcius on a nice day) would make me sweat profusely. The sweat dried quickly in the heat so I had white streaks of salt on my shirt which I felt embarrassed about (couldn't do anything about the smell of sweat, which is another story). When I washed my face, the water would run black due to dust and smoke. I suffered heatstrokes, got hernia (cycling caused it) by the second year in college. My story is typical and not special at all and to a large extent I was better off than most of my peers at that time. Incidentally, I was in Netherlands (Wassenaar, Duinrell vacation!) last year. Compared to Netherlands, conditions are vastly different in India -- place on earth, quality of life, social aspects, etc.
  - brnt 6y ago
    Sure the places are different. If it comforts you, we get wet (and cold) from the plenitude of rain ;) I've lived in France, a place with 35-40 degree summers, and I'm happy my ride was only 3km, not 30 ;)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
chaostheory 6y ago
> But not all parents love their children as much as this dad did; the reason most families stay poor forever is the guardian (usually the father) of the family is indulged in cigarette, tobacco or alcohol consumption. This is not limited to India. I've seen it in other developing countries in Asia

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

You basically described life in lots of Eastern European villages.

wayoverthecloud 6y ago

Hello fellow Nepali :)

njsubedi 6y ago
Haha, hey! It’s the first time in 8 years someone waved a hello to me. I’m sure there are many out here but how’d we know.

econcon 6y ago

Indians actually donated a lot of money from their salaries specially PSU sector workers but somehow the donated money is now a private fund. For anyone interested read "PM cares fund"

throw93 6y ago
Quite an interesting read on Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PM_CARES_Fund https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PM_CARES_Fund 1. According to article some government organizations deducted percentage of salary towards this fund by default. After some protests this default was reversed. 2. This fund is exempt from audit because it’s not a “public fund”. Can someone throw some light on what this actually means? I’m referencing “Accountability and transparency” part of the article. 3. Part of this fund was used to buy ventilators manufactured by a local(Indian) company. Some hospitals returned these ventilators because of quality issues. Source - https://m.huffingtonpost.in/entry/agva-ventilators-pmcares-covid-19-order_in_5ef1ea38c5b6001a27157ccd https://m.huffingtonpost.in/entry/agva-ventilators-pmcares-c...
- econcon 6y ago
  >. According to article some government organizations deducted percentage of salary towards this fund by default. After some protests this default was reversed. As we speak, the banner for PM Care fund can still be seen on the bank login page of Public Banks.
ffpip 6y ago
Still cannot believe Modi got away with it. Glad I could help some people directly, instead of donating to the fund.
- vinni2 6y ago
  I feel disgusted that I donated to that fund and encouraged family and friends to do so also!
- puranjay 6y ago
  Democracies only thrive when there is strong opposition. Modi will keep getting away as long as the opposition is non-existent.
  - raghava 6y ago

rmrfstar 6y ago

Ed Thorp's book had an entire chapter explaining that "Joe Sixpack" is poor because he spends all his money on beer and cigarettes. A similar narrative emerged in the British press during Ireland's great hunger. It's a recurring theme. Utterly false, but recurring.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
smabie 6y ago
It's not false at all. When your life is unimaginably shitty, it's hard to plan for the future and most excess income is used to make yourself feel better (flavorful food, alcohol, drugs, etc). I've observed this about myself (the worse I feel, the less money I save) and others. I lived in Africa for two years, and it's quite common for men to spend money on alcohol or meat, even if that means going hungry. Clearly, more value is being derived from a nice meal or a drink than a shitty, flavorless one. I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that this is utterly false, but I'm telling you that this isn't the case.
- crooked-v 6y ago
  I think the point is more that, for most people, cutting back on minor luxuries wouldn't actually matter much because it doesn't actually add up to enough money to materially improve life in other ways. Or, more pithily: You're not poor because you spend everything on beer, you spend what little is left over on beer because you're poor and really need the pick-me-up.
  - smabie 6y ago
    But it does! For example, in Tanzania (the place in Africa that I lived), a lot of women sell vegetables. They don't have enough money to buy them outright at the beginning of the day, so they take them on credit, and then pay for them at the end of the day. The vegetables on credit are very expensive, 25-50% more. The vegetable women is always one day behind, and losing a ton of income because she is being fronted. If she had enough money to buy the vegetables outright, it would make a huge difference in her life. And indeed, this is the whole problem microfinance loans aim to solve. There are so many people who just need a very small amount of money ($10-$20), and it would jump start their business. But instead of saving until they have it, they spend everything they have at the end of the day. And it's easy to see why: when life is very hard, you need something to just feel okay enough to start it all again tomorrow. Those that end up in a good place are the very people who have the willpower to delay their consumption. Most aren't like that, but some are, and the difference in outcome is stark. I actually started a school over there, and taught some classes about personal finance, investing, compound interest, etc to a class of mostly young women (young men are much more difficult to teach). Their minds were totally blown by how powerful even just saving 25 or 50 cents a day. One even told me a year after she attended the class that I had changed her life forever. And indeed I had, she went from having nothing and selling donuts (essentially) on the side of the road, to opening her first small convenience store, to saving money for her second. These things matter, and there's a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of affecting change in 3rd world countries.

Temasik 6y ago

if you can't feed don't breed what's so hard?

timonoko 6y ago

But you did not have to steal your bike to survive, like in post-war Italy (Ladri di biciclette 1948). Interestingly Italy with no cars, no motoscooters and no fat people looks much more habitable place. Likewise one might ponder what India would be if even more people would afford cars instead of bicycles.

jacobr 6y ago

What do you think would happen if everyone stopped using tobacco and alcohol over night? Would poverty disappear? It’s of course tragic when parents make a bad position even worse, but addiction is a symptom of poverty and not the cause.

newyankee 6y ago
Indeed, a lot of hard laborers need the addiction to plough through their life. Although one unfortunate aspect of this habit unlike in other countries is the casual disregard for spitting anywhere. The issue is that India is a highly resource strained country and most internal issues are manifestations of the same fights over limited resources that show up as something else.
aaomidi 6y ago
And nicotine usage is heavily skewered towards people who have had a bad quality of life. Usually due to financial issues. It's also surprising that we could've played a better role with tobacco but instead heavily promoted and romanticized it for decades.
njsubedi 6y ago
Nothing can make poverty (as a national problem) go away overnight. But if a guardian started buying 50 rupees (USD 80 cents) worth of milk/eggs/notebooks/pens instead of cigarette, tobacco and alcohol tomorrow, or just saved that up for later, the quality of life will start rising for sure. That fifty rupees, which is what an average person spends a day, makes a difference.
- frequentnapper 6y ago
  Most likely the price of milk/eggs/notebook would go up if like you say vast majority of those people could start to afford it.
  - radegast 6y ago
    Do you know why there are left and right-wing economists? Because economics is not a science. So yeah, "most likely" is just a wild guess. My guess is that if the price of milk/eggs/notebooks increases, it will drive more people to get cows/chickens/start creating notebooks, thus lowering the price. Hey, its economics, you can say whatever.

xfer 6y ago

> the reason most families stay poor forever is the guardian (usually the father) of the family is indulged in cigarette, tobacco or alcohol consumption. Any studies or citation or is this your personal experience extrapolated? I have seen many bad/uncaring poor parents without any addiction(unless you can call drinking tea addiction). Good parents in poverty is a blessing though and definitely a major part of their children's success.

phekunde 6y ago
> Any studies or citation or is this your personal experience extrapolated? Well, the OP's citation is "Not really an Indian,..." So you don't require more credibility than that when someone is commenting on an Indian story!
- Yetanfou 6y ago
  If you cite make sure to use a complete citation. He wrote "Not really an Indian, but from a similar kind of community in its neighboring country." which gives more credibility to his statement than the partial citation you used. It is still anecdotal of course but given the history of the region the culture does not shift dramatically as soon as you cross the border.
  - phekunde 6y ago
    > which gives more credibility to his statement than the partial citation you used. It is still anecdotal of course but given the history of the region the culture does not shift dramatically as soon as you cross the border. This gross generalisation is nothing new about India. People who do that(even if they are from a "neighboring country") do not understand the many contours of a vast and very diverse country! Indians have now become used to this partial vision of others about the country. The rest of the citation you included itself would have given you a hint: "similar kind of community in its neighboring country". Comparing a community to a whole country is quite a leap!
    - 6y ago

crispyporkbites 6y ago

> the reason most families stay poor forever is the guardian (usually the father) of the family is indulged in cigarette, tobacco or alcohol consumption Um no. The reason many Indian families remain poor is due to living in extreme poverty with few opportunities, and a bizarre caste system that emphasises it further. It’s not like if you stop drinking or smoking you’ll magically become rich.

naruvimama 6y ago
Addiction and not saving for a bad day along with all the bad decisions typical of anyone in poverty is a significant contributor. The poorest people are the ones who need "caste" the most, it gives them the social security that they need the most. https://www.amazon.com/Caste-as-Social-Capital-Vaidyanathan/dp/9388689119 https://www.amazon.com/Caste-as-Social-Capital-Vaidyanathan/...
onion2k 6y ago
It’s not like if you stop drinking or smoking you’ll magically become rich. Except you kind of do though because "rich" is essentially shorthand for "being able to buy what you want". I know plenty of people who considered themselves poor (couldn't afford a car, vacations, etc), and as soon as they stopped smoking realised they actually could afford those things when they weren't setting about $10/day on fire. Smoking is a choice that everyone is free to make, but let's not pretend it has no impact on your ability to buy other things. It definitely does.

brnt 6y ago

While 30km is certainly on the long end, it's not uncommon for people to commute such distances by bike here as well (Netherlands).

srean 6y ago
Road conditions would be rather … different though. While I was in Kanpur, which is a prominent city in another prominent state, I would find cadavers of every kind, some road kills, some not, excrements of every kind, recklessly driven thundering trucks that could run you over, elephants waiting at street lights along with shiny imported cars. Its quite surreal if you think about it.
- brnt 6y ago
  Hehe, being behind an elephant at a tollbooth on the Delhi-Agra freeway was certainly a highlight of my trip to India.
throwaway200929 6y ago
:-). I cycled 30 km a day while in college in South India (Tamilnadu). When I reached college, I would splash water all over my shirt because cycling in the heat (35 to 40 degree celcius on a nice day) would make me sweat profusely. The sweat dried quickly in the heat so I had white streaks of salt on my shirt which I felt embarrassed about (couldn't do anything about the smell of sweat, which is another story). When I washed my face, the water would run black due to dust and smoke. I suffered heatstrokes, got hernia (cycling caused it) by the second year in college. My story is typical and not special at all and to a large extent I was better off than most of my peers at that time. Incidentally, I was in Netherlands (Wassenaar, Duinrell vacation!) last year. Compared to Netherlands, conditions are vastly different in India -- place on earth, quality of life, social aspects, etc.
- brnt 6y ago
  Sure the places are different. If it comforts you, we get wet (and cold) from the plenitude of rain ;) I've lived in France, a place with 35-40 degree summers, and I'm happy my ride was only 3km, not 30 ;)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

chaostheory 6y ago

> But not all parents love their children as much as this dad did; the reason most families stay poor forever is the guardian (usually the father) of the family is indulged in cigarette, tobacco or alcohol consumption. This is not limited to India. I've seen it in other developing countries in Asia