Secret Millionaire Slumdog

I was watching 'Secret Millionaire Slumdog' on tele today, and my flatmate asked me a very valid question, "Why are you so moved watching this?"

The Secret Millionaire series is basically a television series where they get a millionaire posing as an ordinary person seeing how the less fortunate live their lives around a certain area, and then eventually give a big donation to whatever they want within the community they have chosen.

Tonight was the first of the Slumdog version, ie in India (as per the Slumdog Millionaire movie). Anyhow, it was set in Mumbai, and this Londoner Indian lady was the secret millionaire.

Then the clips from the episode obviously pictured a lot of the poor within the city. And it reminded me of my trip to India all those many years ago. There are a lot of poor people there! In the clips today, it showed little children having a 'shower' by the roadsides, their living conditions, children having to 'work' instead of attending school, and work is picking up cardboard around the city, and eventually selling it to make less than £1 per day!!!

When I was in India, we had visited the poorer community within Dharwad. And we were taught how to sort of quantify poor people. Within thier household, I remembered we were told to measure the surface area, then dividing it by the number of people living in the house, the kitchen facilities, the number of rooms, the number of windows available (for ventilation) etc. And the houses we went into were poor!!!

Upon gesturing my flatmate to cast an eye on the screen with the Indian child having his shower by the roadside, my flatmate said, "Come on, you have that in Brunei. I have that in Syria."

And my reply was, "No. I don't have that in Brunei. It's either hidden, or only within the rural areas, or well supported by the government. I don't have this by the roadside in Brunei. As a Bruneian, I am spoilt. We are a spoilt nation. I don't think we realise that there are a lot of people who are much more unfortunate compared to us."

I honestly think my reply surprised him.

I honestly think we don't appreciate how easy it is we are as Bruneians, living in Brunei.

I want to go to the developing world, and even if I don't do a great help, I want to volunteer my services, even for a short time.

This dream of mine is currently being halted by my mom and others, because, "You will lose seniority in your chosen career path" or "It is unsafe for you to go on your own"

I understand COMPLETELY where they are coming from... But just as plain human beings, what's seniority, and if you take precautions, surely my idea of doing some travelling and volunteering will not actually hinder my career path at all... Sigh... Brain hurts from thinking again...