British millionaire Seema Sharma is a dentist and business women of Indian origin went to Mumbai slum Dharavi to witness and help the poverty there, she was shocked and horrified by the poverty there. Good TV doc. on C4.
Seema Sharma is a sympathetic lady, it is interesting to see how Seema Sharma from British middle class background reconcile the Mumbai poverty within the system. Or her education, medical and UK mainstream media environment, forbid her from asking the challenging question. If the rich there living in those luxurious seaside villas and apartment could tolerate poverty under their eyes, i'd say there would be something seriously wrong with the so-called largest democracy in the world.
There are some heart warming moving moments when she gave money to help others and make the poor happy. The typical thinking behind charity from the rich is just to do something no matter how little to help the poor without arguing the morality behind the social disparity. Like Buddhists they prefer to avoid the big issue of injustice but do as much or as little as they can.
In the same Indian winter season of C4, another episode of Dharavi Slum was presented by a British celebrity, Kevin McCloud. the guy admired the poor people's spirit and happiness in front of camera. Obviously according to him, the Prince Charles expressed the same admiration when he visited Dharavi, briefly of course, and reflect poverty and happiness. That is a bit sickening, what a bunch of charlatans!
It is amazing to see how those richer people conclude the extreme poor could live with dignity living on handouts and piece-meal charities from the affluent.
update on Jan. 25, 2010:
Chanel 4 slum series was accused as "poverty porn" by Indian High Commission. A source in the high commission in london said"we thought it would be about the achitecture of Mumbai, but it was nly about slums."
"the was poverty porn made to get ratings, and we are upset."
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