I read this article in The Times yesterday. I thought it was a fairly accurate description of what I grew up seeing. Every year we would travel from our suburban paradise in England, to India for at least 2 weeks.

And I was thrown into a different world. One where the suffering of other human beings wasn't just obvious, it was clawing at your car window, sitting on the broken pavement outside your huge house, playing in an open sewer. It wasn't just on a television screen, I could smell it, hear it, see it - but no one ever did anything about it. It was just too overwhelming, too many to help. And that article is right - if you give money to one person, suddenly there are so many more - why did that one person deserve your charity and not the rest?

But somehow, I think seeing that every year, in contrast to my life at home in England, became a part of me. I didn't want to ignore it, but I had to. When the lady with a dying child in her arms cried out for a little money to feed her child, I was told to look straight ahead, not out of the windows. Occasionaly we would give money, especially to the ones with children, but something inside me knew it wasn't right. No human being should have to lead a life like that. I had done nothing special to deserve mine, just as I supposed they had done nothing special to deserve theirs. It is just a luck of the genes, the country, the times - it's random.

Yet the people who should be giving these people a decent standard of living, the government of India, is almost unbelievably corrupt - and it filters down through the whole society. You can bribe almost anyone to get what you want, and many people demand bribes just because they can - the police, civil cervants, the water companies. There is so much good work being done there, but I would not want to give a penny of my money to the Indian government, because I wouldn't trust it as far as I could throw it.

And so I think that is why I want to work in the public sector and with charities, and not just in some city job. I can't forget all the suffering I've seen and not try and do something about it, especially when I am in such a good position to do so. As I've got older, the amount I've become aware of has amplified, along with my knowledge of corrupt governments, and I just can't ignore it. I don't want to look straight ahead anymore, I want to reach out that car window and help give them a chance for a better life.

And so when people look at me, and see a Cambridge graduate and wonder why I'm not in HR or consulting or advertising or PR - I think that is why. While some of those careers do seem really interesting to me, all of what I've just described has really affected me, and something inside me needs to at least try.