'Ok Tata' Truckland

As a result of this new interest in India, people are now visiting not only the tourist spots like Jaipur and Jaisalmer, but are going to Bangalore, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, even Calcutta—and not just to see the homes of Mother Teresa but the new industries that are coming up.

But there are two Indias today. The India of the Maruti and Sumo wallahs, of all those energetic businessmen who travel the world, the India which is shining. And my concern is that the India that is not shining, the India of children who never go to school, where people never go to sleep with a full belly—that India must not increase. I am always telling my Indian friends: don't let the gap increase between you and the other India that is not winning. That is very important because we don't want this huge mass of people not to get a share of the country's increasing prosperity. Why should people have to stand in a queue for four hours a day for a jugful of drinking water when, at the same time, millions of dollars are being invested in new technologies and hundreds of industries are coming up?

The way forward, I firmly believe, is through education. Take the literacy programme I have taken up in which women in 2,000 villages are taught to read and write. The impact has been quite dramatic: in these families where the women are now literate, the number of children in each family has fallen from four to one. And this in only five years. Education can change so much. I have started schemes of microcredit for the really underprivileged in Bengal—not assisting them but really just restoring their pride. It's like a pump: you give them a small amount of money, they do some business, start earning and repay.

But nothing can be fully achieved unless corruption is rooted out from all sectors of society. Like everywhere else in the world, progress needs a reliable, trustworthy system in order to fully develop.

I am anxious that all my Indian brothers and sisters can benefit from the country's prosperity. I know this is difficult to achieve. On my part, I am doing my little bit. For the last 25 years, half of my royalties and all the donations from my readers have gone towards humanitarian actions in Calcutta and other parts of Bengal. I am proud to say that among other development programmes, I have contributed to cure 10 lakh TB patients, to rescue from the slums of Calcutta some 10,000 children suffering from leprosy, to dig 540 borewells for drinking water in very poor villages; and started a fleet of four hospital boats in the Ganges delta that brings medical supplies to 10 lakh villagers living in 54 islands. This is my repayment for the love and everything else that I have received from India.