Unfulfilled Potential & Avoidable Suffering

Jayaprakash Narayan, the founder and head of the Loksatta Party speaks of two cardinal sins widely prevalent in our country. One is unfulfilled potential and the other is avoidable suffering.

Each time I see a construction worker building yet another swanky glass building hosting an IT company, I am reminded of the first phrase; where did this man/woman/boy/girl come from? The same person with some education and exposure would have easily blossomed into an average blue/white collar employee.Instead she is stuck in a menial job with a bare minimum wage, no insurance, no benefits and in fact there is some risk to life.

A few days ago, I came upon an accident scene on the Gachibowli highway, four auto rickshaw passengers lost their lives as a truck zoomed through the median gap in the highway. Couldn't the gap in the highway been placed away from a direct street entry point? On the health care side there is a litany of such stories all speaking of massive avoidable suffering.

For some reason these two phrases have stuck in my mind, and summarise our country's state in simple terms.