I spent part of this summer in India, both in the town where I spent my adolescence, and in Lucknow, where I lived briefly after finishing high school. It was the first time that I’ve spent time in India as a visitor, without it being my home.

Visiting Lucknow was particularly special as it was the first place I ever lived alone. The narrow gullies, smelling like a mix of fresh-cooked roti and rotting rubbish, hadn’t really changed. There were still goats browsing the streets looking for kai; still people living in small rooms made of bare brick and cement. The air was still pale, nearly white, with air pollution, even when the sunshine was warm, and homing pigeons and kites tracing their paths through the air.

The five years since I lived there have given me new ways to see this familiar place. As an 18 year old, I was focused on the sensory: eating jewel-like pomegranates in my room, the slosh of water over the floor when taking a bucket bath, the cacophony of horns across the streets while I waited for a bus on the route towards work. This time, though, I was noticing the way that this community was able to care for one another.

The people living in this area of Lucknow, largely in illegal dwellings built on land owned by the government, have been let down by the parts of the state that are supposed to care for those who have the least. The government schools are often teacherless; many people are illiterate. Getting pensions or food rations is a battle with bureaucracy for those who have little paper documentation. Receiving healthcare at under-resourced public hospitals requires long waits in queues and idiosyncratic instructions.

Despite this, people take turns cleaning the gutters to prevent blockages; people stopped in the street outside the room we were renting to help pick up a massive sack of spilled rice. With limited financial resources, there is generosity with time. Hanging out the washing, I had a long chat with two of the women living in adjacent rooms about why neighbours are important to help take care of children and that young people don’t want to get married as quickly these days.

I am wary of turning poverty into a tidy anecdote for my column: of course, a few days spent in the slum where I used to live does not give me access to the deep complexities of misery created by inequality. But while external support and money, can help change people’s lives, I was reminded that people living in poverty are often talked about by the relatively wealthy in ways that ignore how these communities already use the resources they have to look after one another. In how I think about and relate to people with different backgrounds from mine, I want to remember that most people are open to the needs of their communities and hopeful about what can change.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 278 February 2023: 26