Exploitation

This is something which i really think is exploited here, or maybe, i was brought up in a country where handiwork is much more valued. Almost everything here in India is made painstakingly by hand. They spend like 12 hours daily sitting on stone cold cemented floor, staring at the tiny art pieces or small strand of strings, doing repetitive work, trying to perfect those art pieces just to earn that few rupees that can hardly feed the whole family.

Take those artists making marble crafts for instance. They're actually real decendants of labourers involved in creating the Taj Mahal. Not a single one of the artist who's doing marble crafts today are not decendants of those people so as to protect the secret behind the flawless art of Taj Mahal. Incredible indeed. But, i've seen it myself, how they're being exploited. Their art should be worth so much more, but those art are sold cheaply because that's what their work are worth sadly. I thought these artists should be treasured instead of being exploited.

Randomly, i'd wonder if exploitation is so common at the expense of the booming tourism, which i'm guilty contributing to, because i bought a few marble magnets which were painstakingly created by the artist at a lower than value price and the fact that i'm a tourist doing so.

This is also a fact why i hate bargaining. Well, other than the pride thing, i have other reasons why i don't bargain okay. I feel that they deserve more for the amount of work they're putting in. They really work damn hard to earn money, unlike us, we can simply sit in office, in comforting airconditioned rooms and soft cushioned chairs to complete our everyday duties. It's only mentally torturing. But for most of them, i believe it's both mentally and physically torturing. I hate to see them work so hard yet earn so little and having to end up asking for tips which they never receive.


Yesterday, we took a Shikara (boat) ride down the Dal lake with 2 old man propelling the boat using paddles and sheer muscles. It's really hard work and yet they're paid so little trying to get us around their beautiful hometown. When the beautiful excursion ended, we paid, and naturally, they asked for tips. Sad to say, we couldn't afford tipping so we simply walked away. I really wanted to apologize for not tipping their hardwork but i'm guessing they wouldn't understand why i'd apologize.


Maybe, you guys should take sometime to ponder about how lucky we actually are. How much we're paid for the amount of work we're doing back at home, most importantly, include comfort in your line of thoughts. It makes a huge difference, it does.

A whole provision shop on the shikara.

How cool!

Mad love the heart shaped paddle!