Ground report from India: Poverty? It's not what you think it is

I am sitting here in a small town in India, where 95% of the people look to the ways of god to work their miracles. But why shouldn't they? <br><br>The kids, especially those who drop out, move to the cities and make a life for themselves. Some stay in the small towns and work in agriculture for their families, but this doesn't pay, so they generally end up leaving their homes too. It's a small miracle to have a house, electricity, and internet in India. The temperatures today are currently 39 degrees Celsius, and the pipes run dry sometimes. Hardly anyone in India wears sunscreen. Poverty is not food, a house, or a phone: it's living in the midst of crumbling lives. It's what the world doesn't see. <br><br>People move to the cities because the land is hardly fertile, the labor is grueling, and the pay is low. The migration to cities is often seen as the culprit to the degeneration of the world. But what's a person working day in and day out supposed to do if the government doesn't provide them with anything but a bank note in return? What is a mother who provides for her child and her father supposed to do if the money is low? But this sign at a hotel I stayed at tells you how bad it is, and if the pipes run dry, (which they do quite often), this sign at a hotel in India tells you what water is: it's a miracle to have a house, let alone a phone to type on. <br><br>And look to the ways of god? Do you know how people in India look to the ways of god? They look to sign their life away when they marry their daughters off at 18 to some man who will be their husband. They look to the ways of god when their children stay at home while you go out and work in the sun. They look at the ways of god when medical care is low. They look to the ways of god when their kids get married. Do you know the toll that takes on women? It breaks them, sometimes. They look to the ways of god when they lose one of their children because a bus, a car, or a bike took them away in an accident. <br><br>In India, people use god as a cop out to do hard work. Look to the ways of god when you barely have enough money to afford basic necessities: kids, sign your life away when you get married. Friends, when someone dies, we must look to the ways of god. When one of your parents gets ill, but you don't have enough money for their surgery, then you must look to the ways of god. And sometimes that actually happens. Sometimes the money pours in. A kid drops out, he has nothing: but sometimes he will make it big and get money. Sometimes if a parent is sick, someone will donate for the surgery.<br><br>That's poverty in India. Sometimes it's money, sometimes it's sitting in the sun. But more often than not, it's the crumbling lives of an already broken person. The choice we always have is to drop out, go to school, or work: but more often than not, that choice is to drop out. This is not just the story of India. This is a story that India represents the world over.