No way out
Two instances I encountered yesterday made a connection with some of the realities that confront me through the work I do: the first was a column in Mint by Ramesh Ramanathan where he eloquently describes his encounter with an Indian youth whose story is similar to maybe tens of thousands of other young people who come to Bombay to make a living. In this case, the youth was a taxi driver with limited skills.
The second instance was a Bollywood movie I saw last night where a young girl from a small town comes to Bombay to make a living, realizes she doesn't have any skills or education required to find even the most basic of jobs and ends up becoming a call girl. The portrayal of the call girl in the movie is a glamorous, high flying "escort" version which is probably not true for 99% of the girls who end up as prostitutes in big cities.
The commonality in both instances is that a young person ( and there are around 200 million of them in India today and increasing) is unable to illustrate ambitions and dreams as in the case of the young taxi driver or is forced into prostitution as in the case of the girl in the movie, primarily because there is no framework for either of them to cash in on the opportunities to create wealth for themselves that exist in India today.
The example of the call girl was much too close to reality for comfort. There have been times when I've interacted with girls who have received timely interventions and it left me more than slightly shaken as to their plight. Similarly, on an almost daily basis I see so many young people earning far below what they could be, only because they lack one or two critical skills that are the need of today's private enterprise. And this reinforces the importance of employable skills training and life skills training for youth, especially those at risk. I don't intend getting into a thesis on my work but despite the great Bollywood-Yash Raj combo, the veneer of fantasy suffered a slight crack as fantasy inevitably does when confronted with cold, hard reality.
The second instance was a Bollywood movie I saw last night where a young girl from a small town comes to Bombay to make a living, realizes she doesn't have any skills or education required to find even the most basic of jobs and ends up becoming a call girl. The portrayal of the call girl in the movie is a glamorous, high flying "escort" version which is probably not true for 99% of the girls who end up as prostitutes in big cities.
The commonality in both instances is that a young person ( and there are around 200 million of them in India today and increasing) is unable to illustrate ambitions and dreams as in the case of the young taxi driver or is forced into prostitution as in the case of the girl in the movie, primarily because there is no framework for either of them to cash in on the opportunities to create wealth for themselves that exist in India today.
The example of the call girl was much too close to reality for comfort. There have been times when I've interacted with girls who have received timely interventions and it left me more than slightly shaken as to their plight. Similarly, on an almost daily basis I see so many young people earning far below what they could be, only because they lack one or two critical skills that are the need of today's private enterprise. And this reinforces the importance of employable skills training and life skills training for youth, especially those at risk. I don't intend getting into a thesis on my work but despite the great Bollywood-Yash Raj combo, the veneer of fantasy suffered a slight crack as fantasy inevitably does when confronted with cold, hard reality.
Labels: bollywood, social impact
posted by Abs @ 10/24/2007 10:16:00 AM
0 comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home