I've Said It Before And I'll Say

I Was Spending A Lot Of Time In Mumbai After I Met My Husband, Who Is Indian, And While Parts Of The City Were Prospering Like Crazy, I Couldn't Quite Make Out How The New Wealth Had Changed The Prospects Of The Majority Of City Residents Who Lived In Slums. So After A Few Years I Stopped Wondering And Started Reporting.

...much Of What Was Said Did Not Matter, And That Much Of What Mattered Could Not Be Said.

When I Pick A Story, I'm Very Much Aware Of The Larger Issues That It's Illuminating. But One Of The Things That I, As A Writer, Feel Strongly About Is That Nobody Is Representative. That's Just Narrative Nonsense. People May Be Part Of A Larger Story Or Structure Or Institution, But They're Still People. Making Them Representative Loses Sight Of That. Which Is Why A Lot Of Writing About Low-income People Makes Them Into Saints, Perfect In Their Suffering.

In My Kind Of Reporting Work, You Don't Parachute In After Some Big, Terrible Event, Which Is Important And Has To Be Covered, But Offers Only A Glimpse. It's The Kind Of Work In Which You Ask, What Is My Understanding Of How The World Works, And Where Can I Go To See These Questions Get Worked Out In Individuals' Lives? That Was Really The Question For Me: Whether I Had Anything To Add To What Had Already Been Written.

People Naturally Long For A Bit Of The Wealth That Is Whorling All Around Them, And If The Work And Education Available To Them Won't Get Them Closer To The Comforts That They See Others Enjoying, The Temptation To Take Shortcuts Can Be Fierce.