SAINATH

Couldn't help feel that surge of pride when I heard about P Sainath being nominated for the Ramon Magsaysay Award. Memories flooded in: Impressionable me, all of 18, in a classroom with other girls my age, riveted to Sainath talking to us about unsavoury 'isms' we'd never given thought to -- globalisation, commercialisation, and rural poverty.

I'll never forget how this girl from Bihar burst into tears when Sainath made a scathing remark about an unfeeling administration in the 'Bimaru' state that simply lets people starve.

But then, that's what Sainath does to you. He shakes you up. Into thinking hard, at times even violently disagreeing, but never passively letting what he says go over your head -- unlike what most media reports and the entertainment industry do to you.
You may think he's talking in extremes, but you simply cannot ignore the man. Because, at the end of the day, he hits you in your gut. You just know you're part of the same rotten system that watches and lets things pass without moving a finger (Nero's guests, he'd love to say: "How could THEY indulge in excesses and just watch?")

Whatever slot you may want to fit him into, there's one thing you can't deny: The man has the courage to pursue what he's passionate about, and what the world doesn't give a damn to. It also takes helluva lot of guts to spend your gratuity and all your savings to report from the poorest villages of the country, and on people no "respectable" publication or television channel would care to reach out to. More than anything else, I'm proud to say, he's left many generations of students -- and that includes me -- with a conscience.

He's talking about issues all of us know are crucial to the survival of our ecosystem and community, but choose to discuss in passing or even ignore... I've often wondered, when I'm at a sprawling new mall that's part of this resurgent economic superpower-in-the-making India we're all talking about: What's happening to all the mill workers and their families who've been shunted out of this space to make way for another monstrosity in the skyline? Where are they going? And DO I really need that 8th pair of Levis jeans when I know the guy who once worked here struggles to make ends meet while his son is probably being recruited by the underworld? Who's responsible for the disparity all this has created? Does anyone have a voice here, and does anyone care about the sociological implications? And who's answerable? Most of all, why do I just sit there and watch?