"EXTREME POVERTY is UGLY" – claimed a business colleague I have known for the past 10 years now. I said – "so is EXTREME WEALTH". This is what the communist and the "impractical" socialists have been saying all along. But I am neither communist nor socialist – I am definitely a "practical" capitalist.

Why should extreme richness be ugly? The oxford dictionary defines the word UGLY – as something that is NOT BEAUTIFUL. That which does not appeal to ones aesthetic senses can be defined as UGLY. But applying the notions of aesthetics to economic conditions like POVERTY – might seem like mocking at someone who is in extreme pain – only an inhuman mind can conceive something like this. But the ugliness my colleague was pointing towards was definitely not in the aesthetic sense – he was pointing at it more in the sense of – something that you don't want to be close to, something that repels you. How many of us would feel completely at ease if someone who is extremely poor sits next to us? I have observed people at airports, in restaurants and in the traffic lights – the observation is common; there is a certain sense of repulsion people have for others who do not come from the same economic "band".