On April 13 in Washington DC I talked to a 1st grade class about why we were preparing to oppose the upcoming World Bank & IMF meeting.  It was an unexpected assignment.  Someone found me among the puppetmakers at the A16 convergence center and asked if I wanted to visit the elementary school around the corner.

"Imagine," I told a hundred children in this inner-DC school, "living in a place without any money."  Oohs and aahs rippled through them, their eyes brightened in wonder.  "How would it be?" I asked.  Splendid, they thought.  Why?  "Because everything would be free!"  "Because then we could have all the treasures."

What are some of those treasures? I prompted them.  If we all lived in a village, we would have trees, fresh air, pure water from a nearby stream, we would grow flowers and food ... all this and more they imagined.

"What if someone wanted to give you money and buy these things, but you would have to leave the place?"

They puzzled over this complex scenario.  I then took a gamble: "Which would you rather have, your home in the village, or the money?"

"Home! village!" they replied, and then went a-goggle as the large puppets of IMF, World Bank and WTO arrived.  I had to move fast.  "Whose village is it?"  "Our village!"  "Whose forest? whose land? whose river?"  I asked them.  "Are we going to sell it to these people?"  They had no doubt: "No!"  "What do we say to these people?"  "Go away, go back!" they all shouted.

I later repeated this exercise with my niece and nephew in the suburbs.  The thought of living without money induced fear and dread.  My 12 year old nephew said, "We would starve.   We would have to steal."  Step by step I convinced them that we could grow food, and my nephew was still worried about fencing in the garden, selling food to get money.  What took me 5 minutes in the city took much longer here, but they too finally came to the conclusion that their village was not for sale.  My niece went a step furhter and said that it is not actually our land but gods.

That is also what the indigenous communities say.  In the 21st century few indigenous communities are living entirely without money, but it is a recent and minor part of the economy.  That there are things that money cannot buy is all but forgotten in the first world (aka free market)  today.  Those of us in the first world (which is there within the third world countries also) live as if what happens in  the world cannot directly affect us.  Even if we were in DC on A16, we are uneasily aware that deals are signed every day. When US based Ogden corporation, during Clinton s India visit, signed a deal to finance the controversial Maheshwar dam, we are infuriated.  Shortly after the Clinton visit,  U.S. based UNOCAL sends surveyors, backed by police to the lands it plans to acquire for a port on the Gujarat coast.  These acts outrage us, but are there effects of globalization that hit us where we stand, so that we learn to connect, without mediation via intellectual and abstract principles, our own every day circumstances and decisions to the forces of global capitalism?

Recently I read an article in the paper about the new subway (underground walkway) coming out of CST, a major station on the local rail in Mumbai. The article said that plans for a subway had been suggested 10 years ago but were rejected by the citizens as it would deface the beauty of CST. Now, the paper reported, the advantages of the subway were more clear, as it would allow vehicle traffic to flow more freely and also, one could simply walk out of the subway into the McDonalds without having to cross the street.

This news disturbed me for a number of reasons.  What is happening to our public spaces, which are getting fewer by the day? Clearly the people of Mumbai had expressed their opinion on one occasion that they valued the look-and-feel of CST.  It is part of the culture of Mumbai.  Old and grand cinema halls are there (though the films they show are neither), the Khadi shop is there, small, old cafes are there, numerous carts peddling bhel puri, chopped fruit, fresh juice, roasted corn, peanuts, stamp pads, light-up yo-yos, faux Armani ...all are there.

So what has changed to bring on this subway?  Were people really clamoring to get off the streets?  Who wanted to push the people underground?  What is all this vehicular traffic that needs to take precedence in claiming the space of the city?  It is the same traffic that is giving rise to so many ports, airports, express highways etc.  It is GLOBAL TRADE.  Get out of the way, we have to ship kiwi from New Zealand and appliances from China and orange juice from America to the elite that so disarmingly calls itself the "middle class."

 And in case any of this elite happens to be in CST, we have to keep them away from all the street vendors and give them direct access to McDonalds.  Ah, you look rich enough (or fair enough), the security guards will let you in.  Ah, look how clean this place is! Let's pay high prices for junk food and throw out plastic & styrofoam just like they do in the first world.

Then what happens -- McDonalds buys the space to dispose its trash and passes off as "clean" while contributing most to pollution.  Then its customers start wanting disposables in order to be "clean" and stop going to the bhel puri or fruit juice stand which is washing its plates and glasses and reusing them all in the same spot.

Now what has happened?  Where rich and poor alike were frequenting the sidewalk vendors, now the rich have been siphoned off to McDonalds, and only the poor take the snacks on the street.  Meanwhile McDonalds' demands for resources like clean water will increase and the needs of the sidewalk vendors will be ignored.  Once they are patronized only by the poor, their access not only to clean water but to clean space on the street will decrease in priority.  We can read the same story in the new multistory shopping complexes creating first world zones.

In Uzhavur, Kerala, I was bitten by a dog.  It was just a scratch, but I saw a doctor in Ernakulam.  He hardly looked at my leg ... he just started writing the prescription for the rabies vaccine.  We tried to ask him if it was really required, since it was a household dog.  He said, "look if you want to take the risk, don't come to me. There is no cure for rabies."  We called a friend who was also an allopathic doctor, by phone and he said, "why take the risk, definitely take the shot."

I had my own reservations and finally I decided not to take the vaccine.  I did see a homeopathic doctor who recommended that I take echinacea.  Next morning on the internet I found from New England Journal of Medicine that if the dog is available for 10 days' observation, then the person should not take the rabies shot until the dog shows symptoms of rabies (unless the bite was near the head).

Now why didn't the doctor tell me this?  We spoke to another MD who works for an NGO called Community Health Cell in Bangalore.  "I learned about rabies only in my third year and never touched it again. The only information I get on the drug is from the medical representative."  The vaccine costs Rs.1300.

We have seen the poor take shots for fevers though we know better.  Similarly in US people may know better than to take the rabies shot when it is not necessary, but the medical representatives still push it in India.  We think that doctors have the knowledge to help us make these decisions, but instead everyone operates by fear.  Doctors are afraid of malpractice, patient is afraid of death.

Be it a subway, a vaccine, a shopping mall, or a World Bank loan, what is passed off as "development" of the "third world" is actually increasing the profits of the first world.  Within the third world an image of the first world lifestyle and a demand for it is created.

Someone recently told me that in his vision of development, he would like everyone to have access to internet.  I told him that the poor whom he wanted to help, might also wish that the first world had their kind of communicative abilities.  I remembered walking 8 hours to a village in the Narmada Valley, and en route finding 200 people assembled under a tent.  They had come from several states, to attend a funeral.  This is a region without phone or even postal service.  How did the message get out?  Their communication is not based on technology but on human relationship.

Ironically, globalization abets individual isolation.  We can counter globalization by spending our money on things not so much oriented to our immediate use, but things of lasting value to the community.  A pair of shoes or tickets to a play?  One ride in a taxi or 10 rides in the bus?  Two mass produced plastic hair clips or one made of bamboo by a village artisan?