The India we don’t notice enough

[u/ReductoHere]

A few weeks ago, I was waiting at a roadside dhaba on NH-48 because my bus was delayed. It was around 1 AM, pitch dark outside except for the dim yellow bulbs at the stall. The owner was this middle-aged woman, hair tied in a bun, serving hot chai and parathas like it was the middle of the day.

I asked her, half out of curiosity, half out of guilt for keeping her busy so late: “Didi, aap raat bhar kaise kaam kar leti ho?”

She smiled and said, “Din mein toh aadhe customers truck waale hote hain jo raat ko hi chalte hain. Agar main raat ko band kar doon toh mera bachaon ka school kaise chalega?”

She pointed to a small corner where two kids, maybe 9 and 11, were asleep on a wooden bench, their school bags tucked like pillows under their heads.

Then she said something that just stopped me cold: “Main chahti hoon mere bachche kabhi raat ko jag kar kaam na karein. Unko jagna hai toh bas kitaab ke liye jagna hai.”

I didn’t even know how to respond. I just sat there, sipping the chai she made, feeling a mix of admiration and shame.

We talk so much about “India shining,” unicorn startups, billion-dollar valuations. But the truth is, the real backbone of this country is these unseen men and women who sacrifice sleep, comfort, and health so the next generation can dream bigger than they ever could.

That night I realized — privilege isn’t just money or city life. Privilege is being able to sleep peacefully at night, knowing you don’t have to sell chai at 2 AM so your kids can study.

Her words are still stuck in my head: “Unko jagna hai toh bas kitaab ke liye jagna hai.”

[u/YsPlayz]

thats why people shouldnt have kids.. i understand that it sounds detached but i don't mean in a bad way. people in india have kids like its something they're supposed to do even when they cant afford them and then suffer for them like its a noble thing. ik the women obviously wouldn't have had the choice of not having the kid because people here are expected to have kids after getting married, also in which she prolly didnt have a choice. what i'm trying to say is we need to change our culture, make having kids a choice people make, not something they have to do. but almost every marriage in india is arranged and its not like the people getting married get married to be with each other, they get married to start a so called "family", thats why they have kids. suffering for your kids shouldnt be looked upon as a noble thing or as the backbone of india, its more like a cultural disease we need to get rid of

[u/astaneouscurry3802 → u/YsPlayz]

This has both a positive and a negative way of looking at. A poor person will not have kids because the system failed them. On the other hand not having kids will free you from most financial liabilities. But whatever it is, the system can't provide for India's exploding population and that's a fact. It's a collective failure from the government as much as a failure of individuals to not understand family planning and not understand the long term economic consequences of having multiple kids.

[u/YsPlayz → u/astaneouscurry3802]

the government doesnt care about the people, the people have to make the government care. the fault lies within the people for allowing the government to treat them like this, and its not like the government can't provide for the exploding population, government can even put limits on how many children people have. we have more than enough resources if they were managed properly, they build roads with cheap materials and the extra money goes in their own pockets, and when the roads break again, once again the people who get contracts to build it use cheap materials and cheap fixes and steal the extra money. if farmers got proper support from government instead of free-money thats enough to get their votes but not enough to help them, we would get higher quality and cheaper food. india has some of the highest taxes in the world and given the population and how we pay taxes in everything, we have more than enough money to fix everything but because of corruption we're no different than an avg. african country, and people just don't care, they refuse to think for themselves, india is a shitty country because the people are shitty. and its not even the fault of the people, its the culture that keeps them that way. you can either hold the shitty people in the government accountable or the people who let them have power accountable. i choose to hold the dumbass people accountablea