People told me I would either love or hate India - I left this beautiful country in a love-hate relationship. Maybe hate is too strong a word, and love-frustration is better... Either way, India changed us. Steph and I both now head tilt, triple head-tilt, and say 'namaste', 'thank you sir', 'why not', and sing 'how are you?'. Our memories are fond ones. We learned so much.
But at the end of it all India left us exhausted. South East Asia greeted us with a strong realization that we had been stressed out by the chaos. We were so relieved to be welcomed by openly honest, smiling people. I would say that we are now both respectful of India's incredibly unique people and disappointed by their problems almost to the point of frustration.
My first impression was amazement by the country that Gandhi considered his project for harmonious peace and happiness. I have never seen a place where religions live so separate and intertwined. We met so many Indian people who have an outgoing and passionate heart, that shines very strong.
Unfortunately the people that greet tourists are usually not the best ambassadors. They are desperate salesmen. I absolutely loved the few places in India where we were not hassled. My advice for staying on the tourist trail is to try to turn all the sales pitches into conversations about people’s real lives. It may take a lot of patience but at times this was the ONLY real way to learn about people. And I did learn a lesson from all this - that both talk and friendliness cost nothing to either person. If you are in a position to profit from rich foreigners, why not bombard these tourists with both? To be aggressive you only need to be more outgoing, which is a free and limitless way to make more money.
However I was very frustrated with corruption in India while I think Steph took issue more with segregation and the absurd inequality between men and women. Reading the ‘White Tiger’ did not help me form a positive comparison either. After a month in China I found it ridiculous in India for people to even compare these two countries on the rise.
As a person who gives a new host country a every benefit of the doubt, I’m very hesitant to draw conclusions even after a month and a half. I must say I found a country that is not investing in future nor learning from it’s mistakes. Infrastructure projects like electricity and waterworks need to be top of the agenda.
Unfortunately there seems to only be a short-term outlook on all levels. Sewage is solved by digging a ditch along the road. Trash lines the street in almost every village. Some localities simply ban plastic since the rest is eventually picked at by cows and stray dogs. Even in the capital Delhi, you have to pay to have your household trash picked up. These are just some examples from outdated and cumbersome regulations on land, water, and the environment. And with law and order for sale to the highest bidder, there seems to be no escape for Indians at the bottom of the food chain. The Indian government needs to start setting the example for a higher regard for life in the long term. How can a country move forward if there is no clean water to live, work grinds to a halt with power cuts, and people are living between polluted earth and air?
"The darkness will not be silent. There is no water in our taps, and what do you people in Delhi give us? You give us cell phones. Can a man drink a phone when he is thirsty?" - The White Tiger
And where does money go from the booming high-tech hubs of Bangalore, Hyderabad and Gurgaon? These places have allowed the country to enjoy double-digit economic growth by answering the world’s customer service calls, e-mail messages, processing tasks on the cheap. The problem is that only about a million workers are manning the call centers and tech companies — a drop in the bucket, in a country of over 1 billion people. Does the money not trickle down to the poor villages? Unfortunately no, the distant corners of India that have been largely cut off.
Yet it was the southern state of Kerela showed me that a simple life in the villages can be a very beautiful thing. There are a million smiles here to offset the cold stares in Rajasthan. Here you can easily forget busy Mumbai, polluted Delhi, and even the Goan beach state that tourists seem to have taken for themselves.
There is obviously a lot more to see in this former ‘Pearl in the Crown’ of the empire. I would certainly go back knowing one truth. That India is undeniably blessed with a beautiful land filled and friendly people beneath the gritty surface. It is just a challenge to get past the more shocking sights, sounds of loud traffic, pollution, pungent smells, and of course the more aggressive ambassadors along the way. Maybe the next time around we will be ready to dig a little deeper to find a purely love/headtilt relationship.
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