Tuesday

There are some roadworks at the front of the hotel and so yesterday the driver took me on a different route to the office. It was much more interesting and we passed through a section of slum area. Although I just get a glimpse as I pass by, I find myself fascinated by these places. They tend to be areas of 'make-shift' housing, held together with plastic sheets, stones and anything to provide some shelter. The gaps between these shelters are narrow, providing little alleyways and ginnels. It's a vicious circle for the majority of people living there because they can only focus on survival and don't understand the value of education, hence their children are only shown the basics of survival, as their parents were.

Now I'm probably talking rubbish because I won't get the opportunity to see these places up close. There's a great divide between the rich and the poor. Here in India, I am rich. I have a private driver who makes sure I reach where I want to go. Everywhere I go I am treated with the utmost respect. In fact I feel about a 100 because everyone seems to call me Ma'am. In the hotel, if I want anything at all, I just sign a little slip and it will be charged to my room. And everything is so perfect; not a crease in the sheets, not a smear on any glass and food that is prepared by Mumbai's best chefs.

It makes me feel ashamed because I am living in this place of luxury, surrounded by absolute poverty that we just can't comprehend in the UK. Even the poor in the UK are rich in comparison.