Uruguayan President - setting an example

India’s politicians and VIPs need to take a lesson of living from the President of Uruguay, Jose Mujica. BBC did a report on him and called him the world’s “poorest president”. But when you see his lifestyle, the reason for choosing to live life the way he does, you will realize, he is probably the richest president.

Mr.Mujica has chosen not to live in the Presidential palace but lives in his wife’s off road, small ramshackle house. His laundry dries out in the sun and water comes from a well in the backyard. The president and his wife work the land themselves, growing flowers. A vegetarian, the 77-year old president donates about 90% of his monthly salary, equivalent to $12,000 to charity.

When questioned about being poor, he says, “"I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more. This is a matter of freedom. If you don't have many possessions then you don't need to work all your life like a slave to sustain them, and therefore you have more time for yourself," he says.

If only our flamboyant industrialists and politicians could learn a few things from Mujica, then maybe our country might be in the state which it is in today.  This is something which our very own leader, Gandhiji practiced but we seem to have forgotten all that.