[In this fortnight’s From the Archive Friday, we go back to February 2004 when a family in India with Servants decided they would live on $110 US for the entire month, living out our Principal of Simplicity. In two weeks time, we’ll see how it went…]
Many of our poor Indian friends and neighbours live on about 100 rupees (US$2.20) rupees a day for their family. That’s about 3,000 rupees ($US 65) a month. By contrast, as a family, we use about 20,000 rupees ($US 450) a month.
Our 7-year old son Tony was born here in India and often asks probing questions about God, poverty, faith and our role in it all.
On hearing how much we spent every month, he was aghast and asked why we didn’t live on as little as our Indian friends. After trying to justify it to Tom, by explaining that we had to spend money on many things that an Indian family wouldn’t have to (like sending a newsletter back to Australia), we acknowledged that his criticism was valid and, as a family, we embarked on the challenge of living on 5,000 rupees ($US 110) this month. (Admittedly we chose February because it only has 29 days).
It’s only the 12th today, but already it’s been an interesting and sometimes frustrating experience.
We’ve already cut out some luxuries like cornflakes for breakfast and jam on our bread. We’re also feeling the weight of a brief phone call to Australia (100 rupees) and have begun trying to take buses everywhere rather than the speedier auto-rickshaws (seldom less than 50 rupees).
In all of this we realise that we can never really know what it’s like to be poor, as we always have choices that our poor friends don’t. Never the less, we’re hoping it’ll give us a little more insight into the vulnerability that the poor face every day.
Next month I’ll write again to let you know how we went and some of the things we learn.
[Matt and his wife Kate (names changed for security reasons) live in a Muslim slum in a major Indian city with their two sons]
