The census man comes calling
on Jana Gana Mana (India), 03/Mar/2011 04:32, 34 days ago
Similarly to the UK, India has a census every 10 years and 2011 is that year. Although we’ll be missed in the UK, we will be counted in India as the census man paid us a visit last night.In a much more civilised approach than in the UK where one simply gets a form to fill in and post, the India census is carried out in person. So we invited him in for a cup of chai and a chat. Our census man, Rajiv, is a school teacher from north India who spoke good English. Like many Indian people we have met, he was curious to know more about us, more so than the 20 questions that the census form allowed and found it particularly hard to understand why we were earning so little!As the‘head’ of the household, all questions were asked to me – even the ones about Katie…even though she was sitting next to me! Most questions were the usual straightforward “date of birth” although I was somewhat flummoxed by “does she have any issues?” My mind wandered with how best torespond (doesn’t like doing the ironing sprung to mind)….but with Katie glaring at me, I asked for a further explanation. “Any issues – children” came the response. Ah!!As we explained to Rajiv, we both worked at NGOs working with people with disabilities - and the disability sector in India is rather proud to have the issue of disability raised on the census. But it seems that there’s more work still to be done as when I explained that I work for "Action For Autism" he didn't what autism was and hadn't heard of it.