Lives of quiet desperation and that red balloon

I'm nearly at the end of Theroux's book , Ghost Train, and I cannot help but feel impressed by his description of Vietnam. It strikes me as an almost ridiculously optimistic place and his account of it makes me want to jump on the next flight to Hanoi. And I probably will in a few months' time. I do feel an urge to run away that must be acted on quickly.

All this made me start thinking of the people where I live now. One would imagine that in a country so desperately poor ( yes, in spite of whatever maybe shining for the chosen few!)- and chaotically and suffocatingly overcrowded and with its urban squalor-  one would imagine that in such a place people would be leading lives of quiet ( and sometime, not so quiet) desperation. And yes, many do. I personally know several who don't see any end in sight.

Source: Here

And yet, even here, in this place that defies description or generalization or any kind of theoretical pinning down ( and not for want of trying either), there exist those who are optimistic to the point of being deluded. Or maybe that's just my curmudgeonly way of looking at things. A friend went trekking the other day to a forest resort.Her guide there, a young man of twenty or so, knew every kind of plant and bird they encountered on the trek. During the trek, he pulled out a book about the birds of India and proudly told her that he'd learned it by heart. He went on to tell her that he planned to become a forest guard. He was going to sit for the exam ( for which he had been studying since the age of 15) and get selected. She asked him when he intended to do this. And his rather surprising answer was that he'd do it as soon as he'd saved up 200,000 rupees. It turns out that when he went to register for the exam , the officials ( employed by the government , of course) had said that this was what he needed to pay them if he hoped to sit for the exam.

So, there you have it. Here's a country with young men and women willing to serve ( and he was doing it out of a genuine passion for the forest and the fast dwindling forest resources) , and the government, or at least those who claim to represent it, were doing their best to discourage him. Still, it's good to know that this hadn't dissuaded him completely.

Maybe that's good. Maybe, if we had more like him, some of the despair may by some weird alchemy transform into hope. So,here's to him and the nameless others that still hold out hope. Here's to those like him that make you believe- in something... the future...the human spirit... whatever. Here's to that elusive red balloon.