From Riches to Rags

"The man who dies rich dies disgraced." --ANDREW CARNEGIE

At least once a year, Bill and Melinda Gates like to take what they call a "learning tour" of the places that civilization has largely forgotten. On Dec. 6 in India, on the most recent of such visits, they left the five-star Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi, to which they had flown on their private jet the night before, and took a 20-minute drive to a slum colony in an area called Meera Bagh.

On the way there, through rickshaw traffic jams and past lumbering cows, a local doctor briefed them on the slum's 9,000 residents and five health-care workers. Melinda listened intently with her eyebrows raised, as she almost always does, while Bill interrupted to ask the kinds of questions you would expect from a capitalist billionaire. "Who owns the land?" (The doctor wasn't sure, but probably the government.) "How much do the health-care workers earn?" (Ten dollars a month.) "Is that a full-time job?" (No.)

Once they arrived, they strolled through the narrow alleys lined with staring children. Bill, in a black fleece pullover and khaki pants, stuck his hands in his pockets and squinted into the sunlight, not unlike a man walking down the fairway at Augusta. Several times they stopped to talk with families. In unit No. 774, they found Sushila and Suraj Naik, who live in the windowless space with their daughter Puja, 3, and a tiny new baby called Liza. The Naiks welcomed them, offering them the only seat in the unit--on the double bed that took up almost the entire room. The space was lit by a single bare lightbulb. Through an interpreter, the Naiks patiently answered all the Gateses' questions.

Sushila, dressed in a red sari, smiled broadly the whole time, showing improbably white teeth. Yes, her daughter Liza was born here in this room a month ago. Her husband is a carpenter. They pay $13 a month in rent. Melinda held Liza for a few minutes, and then she and Bill got up to go. "Very impressive," said Bill, using his default version of thank you. "Namaste [goodbye]," said Melinda, holding her palms together and bowing slightly.

After the Gateses returned to the hotel, I went back to Meera Bagh to talk to Sushila. She was giving her children a bath, but she stopped to play hostess to yet another foreign inquisitor. I sat on the bed, and she stood beside it, discreetly breast-feeding Liza while Puja, the toddler, hid under her sari.

I asked Sushila whether she knew the names of the people who had visited that morning. She said that she did not but that they were very nice. I told her the man in the khaki pants was the richest man in the world. Sushila smiled and said it didn't matter that he was the richest. All foreigners were rich compared with her, she said.