Don’t adopt a child…

Firstly my heartiest reverence for people who have adopted children without an iota of hesitation that could have arisen considering the religion, caste, creed, colour, race or sex of the child being adopted. These people have been able to give a better future to kids born either in depravity, were abandoned or put up for adoption by their biological parents due to various reasons.

Seriously guys… I BOW…

This note is in no way trying to say that people who are adopting children are doing anything wrong. Adopting a child, giving her a home and a name of the family helps in achieving certain aspirations of the adoptive parents. The child lives with the family and an invaluable parent-child bond is created that fills up a certain gap in the life of the parents. I am, like always, just giving a perspective to ponder about.

FACT: 50% of Indians are poor. Really poor. These people cook in the open using wood or coal. These people don’t have toilets and hence defecate in the open. And believe it or not, these people DO NOT have mobile phones. What? Didn’t you seriously believe that EVERYONE has a mobile phone these days? And you thought your maid, driver, plumber, vegetable vendor, paan wala were poor.

No sir, not even by a huge margin.

The people I am talking about are really REALLY poor. For them getting two square meals in a day is an end in itself, forget about buying clothes or putting their children in schools. These are the people who you read about in newspapers as a number who died due to excessive cold or heat or rains. So it was just the other day when I was discussing with a friend about farmers committing suicide because they could not payback a loan of just Rs 50,000 (that’s a paltry $750) when my friend replied pronto “I wish he could have just asked me for it” (Obeisance Shantaram)

That’s when this thought came to my mind.

What if the top 50% strata could adopt one family from the bottom 50%. In the case of adopting an entire family the cost of food, clothing, shelter, medical & education would be much lower as compared to that of adopting a child since this family would be more than happy to have a minimalistic lifestyle while the adopted child becomes a part of the family and hence incurs the proportionate lifestyle cost of the parents. As a condition to this “family adoption”, the head of the adopted family should continue to pursue legal jobs even if these were odd, low paying and temporary in nature and stay away from addictions like alcohol or drugs. Any violation of the conditions would make the monthly upkeep allowance stop. The allowance need not be paid in cash instead be paid directly to the school for the fees, to the e-commerce portal for food & clothes or to the hospital for medical treatment.

Imagine what would this mean? Petty crimes would drop substantially, deaths due to inclement weather & lack of medical attention would reduce, literacy would skyrocket, swachh bharat becomes a reality as people become more aware and eventually the nation would become prosperous as the so-called demographic dividend really kicks in.

Of course, this is just an idea and would need much more fleshing before it could become a reality but then all big revolutions germinate from small ideas.

Think about it…