Welcome to India

[AllPastYears]

No-one else been watching this?

Now I'm not naive about the way some people in the world live, plus I've been to India, but I was still shocked at this programme. Shocked at the way people were living, but moreover I was astounded by their resilience and cheerfulness. Climbing into drains at 3am, collecting buckets of sludge, sluicing yourself off of course you'd get hypothermia if you tried that here then going back to your room shared with about 19 roommates. And then trying to better yourself by getting a higher price for your buckets of sludge so you can move to a slightly better hovel shared with only half a dozen others ("Wow, windows. And we could cook in here." He was genuinely delighted!)

People are often grumbling on mumsnet at the trivial first world problems others are moaning about. I don't think I've ever had anything to moan about that isn't a first world problem, apart from bereavement. Even redundancies have not left us destitute or anything.

And yet, having watched it, what then? I'm not by nature a campaigner or charity volunteer or anything, so what next? I go back to stressing over what shade of cream to paint my hall, and how many Christmas cards to send this year?

[NotGeoffVader]

I missed yesterday's episode but will be catching up on Iplayer. I though it was great, Allpast, you're right - most of us have anything to complain about.

What next? Well, anything that you feel is useful. You say you're not by nature a campaigner or a volunteer but why not have a look further into the types of help some of those organisations need? They will probably have plenty of chuggers but they might need bloggers? They might need people to help produce and distribute literature or to co-ordinate fundraising? Or maybe you would want to do something more hands-on? A friend of mine does work for the underprivileged in Ghana - she and her family go out once a year, work with local communities to build toilets, shower blocks, take pens, pencils, paper to schools and generally 'muck in'.

[bunjies]

I think this is an excellent series and yesterday's programme was excellent, I thought the woman recycling plastic bottles was fab. What a fantastic attitude but I did think her husband was a waste of space .

What really struck me the most though was how much of what these people do is considered illegal. I did feel sorry for the guy who renders beef fat to make tallow but those maggots were grim. How many people in the West would cope with working conditons like that?

[xmasevebundle]

I love watching this, its amazing to see how they live in another country.

I felt sorry for them lending money then back to sqaure one again.

They all dream of becoming doctors, its very sweet.

[Charliefox]

Fabulous programme. Similar vein to the one Kevin mccloud (or whatever he's called) made.

[AllPastYears]

Didn't see Kevin McCloud's so I can't comment, but it was a refreshing change from celebs doing whistle-stop tours (Michael Palin I'm looking at you).