Brown Paper Bag

When I called up S, an old friend from school who has been in touch over the years, and told him about the exciting new job I had been offered at a law firm in a wonderful city  with an enviable pay package, he was eager to know when I would start. When he realised that I didn't intend to start at all, he was progressively shocked, surprised, and then, resigned. He did, however, try to persuade me with an oft-heard refrain that I can help "poor people"- as he called them, by donating half my salary to charities, and that I do not need to get my hands dirty for what I hoped to do.

I tried to explain to him, but he didn't understand that while I did want to help the "poor people", I wanted to be right there when it happens. I want to live amongst them, and experience their poverty. I want to sink my feet in the freshly turned field in a  village snuggled somewhere deep in the country and speak to a poor person who comes along.

He didn't understand, and hung up the phone. 

In retrospect, I don't understand it myself. In my head, I think, the "poor people" are romanticized.

Read this.