darpan singh

There is a dangerous romanticisation of poverty happening in public life now. Many powerful and privileged people casually appropriate the language of deprivation because it creates emotional legitimacy among ordinary people. But real poverty is not a metaphor. It is not a temporary financial dip in an otherwise secure life. It is not a filmmaker father facing a few bad years while the child still studies in elite schools, retains social capital, cultural access, family networks and future opportunities. Real poverty is structural helplessness. Real poverty is a child going to a government school without breakfast and pretending not to be hungry because classmates may laugh. It is mothers diluting curry with water so everyone at home can eat something. It is workers collapsing in the heat because missing a day’s wage means no food at night. It is Dalit, tribal and coastal families trapped across generations without land, savings, influence or inheritance. It is students abandoning education because bus fare itself becomes unaffordable. It is fisherfolk, migrants, plantation labourers and sanitation workers knowing that one illness can destroy an entire family. People who grow up with social insulation, influential parents, elite schooling, industry access and pathways into stardom may certainly experience hardship, emotional pain or periods of financial instability. Nobody denies that. But hardship within privilege is not the same as poverty without escape routes. The problem is not merely factual exaggeration. The problem is political. When affluent leaders repackage themselves as products of extreme deprivation, they invisibilise those who actually survived hunger, caste humiliation, bonded labour, displacement and lifelong insecurity. Poverty becomes a cinematic aesthetic instead of a lived wound. And the poor themselves often do not object because they emotionally identify with leaders who speak their language. That emotional connection is real and politically powerful. But public narratives still deserve scrutiny. Especially in a country where millions continue to experience generational poverty, malnutrition and debt traps. There is dignity in saying: “I was privileged, but I understand suffering and want to fight inequality.” There is no need to manufacture slum-like origins to appear morally authentic. Being temporarily broke is not poverty. Facing uncertainty despite privilege is not poverty. Real poverty is when society is designed to ensure that even your hardest work may never liberate you - A K Shaji Facebook post

Have never seen a scooter getting transported on a scooter before🫣 Not from India…

Every narcissist is out taking credit for West Bengal. The only people that this victory belongs to is the BJP karyakarta and the Party leadership. Those who stood their ground against the TMC fearlessly.

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