Saturday April 12, 2008, 1:21 am
Many people fail to differentiate between material poverty and spiritual poverty. An individual can be quite content with meeting his meagre essential needs, whereas another individual toiling away needlessly to gain material sufficiency ie. cell phone, cd player etc.. is ever suffering, ever complaining, uncontent most of his life!!

And Bollywood?? Whoever will say that Bollywood films depict reality?? Bollywood film depict everything other than reality!! It therefore surprises me to read,

"As if to demonstrate that poverty is now a residual issue in the world, the poor are being slowly eliminated from the imagery of the busy global media. “Nowhere in Bollywood films do you see a poor person,” says Pandurang Hegde, activist in the forests of northern Karnataka.

Pandurang Hegde definitely seems to live in his own world of illusions!!!

Saturday April 12, 2008, 5:48 am
India and the accuracy of Bollywood aside (or notwithstanding) (after all, Hollywood is essentially the same way, right?), Disappearing the Poor speaks to me also of the efforts of many, many other counties and parts of the world to disappear their own poor. Swept away in forced evictions whenever the Olympics or some other international event comes to town, the poor go unheard.
Perhaps it is hoped that, through silence and censoring, the very real warfare carried out against the poor by the means of social injustice and inequality will go unnoticed.
Well, when one is out in the rain, wind and cold, one can not help but notice. When one is shut out of society, one notices. One notices the stress, sleep deprivation, malnutrition and hunger... one notices the brutality and violence committed against the poor and the homeless by those who hate, blame, and fear the victims.
"I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace."
--Frederico Garcia Lorca

Saturday April 12, 2008, 9:11 am
Noted. Thanks Mark.

Sunday April 13, 2008, 3:15 am
That the poor of the world are useless to those in power, except to exploit is a sickening reality all over the world.
As Rajan so clearly wrote above, there is a vast difference being poor spiritually and materially; unfortunately those who are simply financially poor are the ones Big Bu$$ine$$ deems as 'undesirable' to society.
I'd rather be 'poor' in the material sense than in spirit any day!