Survivor's Guilt

I am writing this from a comfortably-appointed room at the Indian Institute of Health Management Research[1]. That has an important significance -- I have left Bhorugram. Not for good, since I know I'm going to end up coming back to check on the project and on the village, but for the next few years. I am now in the process of going home. It is an extended process, with waypoints in Bombay and at my parents' farm, but those are basically just places to sit and get fed. The most stressful thing I am likely to endure between now and my return to Pittsburgh is trying to fit all my luggage into the train tomorrow. (Thankfully, Indian trains are commonly occupied by people trying to carry too damn much stuff, and if I can't handle it, the princely sum of Rs 50 will find me a porter who'll deal with things nicely.)

I find myself with a bit of a case of survivor's guilt. I am, without question, pining for the luxuries of the modern Western world, but I've been doing everything I can not to talk about the fact that I'm taking a first-class train back down to Mumbai, or exactly the comforts that await back home. I get to have them be part of my daily life, and to be making the equivalent of about Rs 20,00,000[2] next year. (On that amount here, one could live like at least a duke, if not quite a king.) The new REACH project manager, who came down in the car with me, gets to go back to the desert and stay there. The guy who brings my tea is, if he gets the luck he wants in the next few years (and I did put in a good word for him), going to still be making perhaps $5 per day. I find it hard to say "I'm going home" without feeling like I'm rubbing it in.

Those of you who know me know that both Jennifer and I are not particular consumption-heavy people. We like good food and good wine -- so we cook it at home and buy Two Buck Chuck. If it can be recycled, we recycle it, and if we can walk or take the bus, we do. We minimize our meat consumption, try to buy sustainable products (difficult at our level of income, especially with me unemployed), and generally attempt to be responsible global citizens. So, on one hand, it's not like I'm actively promoting exploitation of the developing world for my comfort, or that I've somehow acquired creature comforts by trampling on the necks of the proletariat. Nevertheless, I still have this sense of guilt, perhaps summed up as "I am very happy not to live in India, but I feel bad that I'm happy about it."

It's a passing thing, and on the whole, I'd rather have that over the opposite pole, a some smug self-satisfaction that "look at me, I spent a whole THREE MONTHS helping people who aren't white!" More importantly, if it keeps me committed to coming back to Bhorugram and/or doing further global work in future, then it's a good thing.

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[1] Where, instead of just kicking back and playing video games, I'm busy writing blogs and burning CDs and trying to be productive, instead of just enjoying a few hours to myself. One of my more annoying personality traits, I agree.

[2] Yes, that's how you punctuate it. Numbers above 10K are reckoned in "lakhs", each lakh being 100,000. So, you would say that as "twenty lakhs", not "two million". Thus endeth your math lesson for today.