The disparity

I was pleasantly surprised by the Hyderabad airport. It is spacious, and feels new. I was picked up by Naeem who gave me a ride from the airport to my temporary accommodation.

We drove at 80km per hour, and it seemed really slow given the roads were empty. The speed limit was 60km. I thought we run really slow on wheels, I just didn't know why.

Naeem has three kids, two of the them go to school. One of his son wants to become a doctor when he grows up, he is in KG. Naeem spends about a fourth of his salary for the kids school fee. He takes up things like picking me up from the airport at 3 in the night, so he can make some extra money. What he earns per month is what a group of people spend on alchohol on a friday night in US.

He told me sometimes he doesn't get to see the faces of his children for the whole week and that both his school-going kids do their own homework and he doesn't have to look after their studies. They do well. I told him my parents raised me with difficulty, and that if he persists, his kids will make him proud one day.

I asked him if he had plans to continue in his current job, or was he looking for something else that paid him better. He said he plans to earn enough so he could buy a his own autos and have his own business.

I asked him what he wanted his kids to become, and he said it is upto them. He just wants to give them good education. Amen to that.

(name changed to preserve identity)