Ivan Jin

“I want to know if you can see beauty

even when it is not pretty everyday.”

 

Christmas Day was the day I felt betrayed by the world. On this day, we were in Dharavi slum, and I stood in an area once destroyed by a fire, not paying much attention to anything anyone was saying. Instead, I looked around and my eyes drifted to the towering skyscrapers which, had there not been a fire years earlier, might not have been as visible before. I cursed under my breath. It’s not fair, I thought. Why should those who work the hardest have so little? They spend their entire lives in a room about the same size as my own. And why are these kids smiling? How hypocritical of me. For the first time, an unjustifiable feeling of misery swept through me. I felt a sense of guilt, and a longing for the comforts and luxuries of my home in New Zealand. To be honest, I was sick of it at this point, sick of India. The truth is I was afraid of seeing this reality; a real person’s reality. Because I looked so hard for answers, for reassurance of my own life, I never really saw what India was trying to tell me. On this day, I saw hopelessness, yet in that, hope. I saw people who endured more pain and hardships than I ever have, yet in that, the most natural smiles. I saw beauty in a country I thought the most ugly.

 

India, I feel, has given me chance, to carefully rethink how I want to do things in my life. The very first question asked jokingly by my friend the next day after returning, “Did you return a changed man?” led to a recollection of the events of Christmas, a normal day to everyone else. When you have talked with, had a meal with, watched a movie with, people who work the hardest just to put food onto the table, you find more to life than working for materialistic possessions. When you have shared these important and special moments of your lives together, you gain a sense of duty for the people – for your people. Simply spending time with them was the best gift we both gave and received. To answer my friend’s question, yes, I do feel changed. And now it is up to me to use this change to make a difference. The four simple lines, “Life is hard. You are going to die. You are not that special. Your life is not about you” are ones that have stuck with me; four lines whose meanings have changed throughout the trip. Spending the past few days or so trying to express in words how those lines have changed however has been something that I still cannot write down. I know that I do not understand enough about life to quantify it so easily, “but that’s okay.” There are still many more years to come.

 

I have been inspired by a smile. I saw that something as small and simple as a smile makes life worth it. I am privileged to have been able to see whole-hearted smiles of those in Future Hope, the Magicians, Freeset workers – those who have no need to keep up appearances. I have realised that I want to be one to put those smiles onto people’s faces, even if I have to start off small.

 

 

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop