Listen "Of public chaos and amateur Indians stranded on islands of privilege"
Episode Synopsis
"I feel India's politics is the revenge of the poor; it's why things are the way they are. They might not look at it as a violent act but it emerges from some kind of violence against us, the middle class. Whatever politicians do, usually there is local support. So it's a peep into human nature. We were always paying a price to escape India. Now, it costs a lot of money to fully escape. Now, it seems even if you pay 200 crores for a flat, you can't escape the air! We look much poorer than we are while most nations look much richer than they are. Unconsciously, India has developed an optical device to comfort the poor to whom public places belong. If there's too much order in India it would upset the poor. India's public chaos is the only thing going for them; it kind of resembles their lives. What the elite wants is some kind of aesthetics, which they are unable to persuade the political class to execute" - Manu Joseph, author, Why The Poor Don't Kill Us; The Psychology of Indians talks to Manjula Narayan about urban chaos, poverty being relative, and why intellectuals are invariably wrong
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