Buzz Kill...

What kind of man would I be if I used this absolutely free forum to blog about nothing except monkeys on motorbikes and the pretty new raw silk table clothe I practically stole from some poor vendor? I can answer that honestly...not much of one.

Do you know what I learned? Approximately 50,000 children in India die every year from dysentery...an entirely treatable waterborne bug. I know, "Awwwwww, poor kids," right? In D.C. this was just another "fact" you could read on some NGO's pamphlet or hippie's shirt in Georgetown or hear Sally Struther's whine about on an early-Sunday morning "Save the Children" program. Maybe we heard it from some celebrity, fresh out of rehab and searching for a comeback via promotional empathy. For me it used to be a fact that affected me for a moment or two, until I felt I'd given it its due, and then I went on with my day. 50,000 to dysentery, and that's probably underrepresented. That's likely a drop in the bucket compared to the other completely preventable diseases that take these children young, not to mention the more immediate health risks...like taxis and buses and "tuck-tucks" running over them, which in New Delhi is simply the reason for yet another traffic jam...they'll be scraped up soon, and I can be home in time for dinner. In D.C. these were facts, nothing more. Statistics. Lies, lies, and damn lies, rights?

Everyday I get to ignore these "lies." While sitting in my car or walking to a market, I get to ignore the "walking dead." These children who are born to die. Conceived by parents who've forgotten them to a society that treats them as ghosts who dwell in a world that uses their deaths as fodder for fundraisers or political maneuvering or career ressurrection. The facts were easy to ignore in D.C. As I understand it, with practice these children will become easy to ignore here also.

In the end maybe I'm just a bleeding-heart liberal or a naive Westerner who sees meaning where none exists or maybe I'm just tired right now and overly sensitive. Whatever the case, tomorrow I'll count the number of children who, statistically, will be dead by next year. What makes them different from my own children but chance? Poor, poor me...all that sadness that I must witness and bear and choke on when I complain about being sooooo full or soooo tired or soooo hot or cold.

Ehh. Oh well. Bedtime.