A 52 pack of cards

Sam Lindberg

Life is like cards, you don't choose the hand you are dealt. Some are dealt aces and kings, and some get dealt threes and fours. In Kolkata there is the full deck of cards. Aces living the high life, in suite resorts with the best views and unlimited wealth.

 These royalty cards have pictures and colour and are important and everyone wants to be one. Then there are the twos and threes; begging on the street, living under tarpaulins with holes and little to no essential needs for life. These cards have no picture and are considered wasteful cards yet they do not reflect the poor people of India. In this blog I want to specifically talk about Brooklyn the slum and how these people have been dealt low cards but seem as if they had jacks and queens. This is a very plain, black and horrific place yet so full of life and hope. 

I remember vividly viewing the rundown filthy living environment these people were in and it hit me like a brick wall and my heart skipped a beat in pure shock. The port buildings were as if a bomb had been dropped on the area, tonnes of waste had been dumped everywhere yet families still lived there. Walking around I felt like a celebrity but for the wrong reasons, I was walking around having all of these people enjoy my company yet I couldn't give back to them. I felt total guilt as I was in a situation where the scale of poverty and all the twos and threes that had been dealt I couldn't do anything to improve their lives which added to the struggle of trying to process the sights we had seen. All of the kids had lit up faces at our presence whilst us boys were in complete contrast with looks of pure grim and emptiness. 

So in reality life is like cards you can't choose the cards you are dealt but you can have an impact on someone else's cards to try change their outcome which is something I wish to do not only on this amazing trip but for the rest of my life.