As I wrap up my time in India, I have wished for a bit of time to go back over my blog posts. I don’t think I’m going to have time… and I’m writing this during one of the last two workdays I have here because it’s quieter during the day when all of the Americas are asleep. It’s given me some time to reflect.
I’ve been asked a few times in the past couple of days if I would consider returning to India at some point in the future. Nothing official and nobody from work has suggested this, just a question from friends and family as I ponder my time here. I’ve thought about it long and hard, and last night my answer was very much “no”, but I find that it tends to change from day to day, and it isn’t all about being sick this week!
To some degree, I worry that my time in India will be presented through rose-colored glasses on this page. There is a lot here that I, as an outsider, have been sheltered from. Between a very nice hotel, and transportation to and from work, many of the everyday plights have been easy to ignore. The brief times I have taken walks or meandered through the city have been punctuated by a frustrating and crumbling infrastructure, piles (sometimes acres) of garbage piles, sidewalks that would make a mountain goat feel at home, and dangling electrical wires that really do threaten your life.
I don’t actually think this is electrical, but you get the idea… junction boxes and power transformers sit open, on the sidewalk, just like this
It’s not abnormal here to see people living on the streets. The power goes out so often (for a few minutes, longest around 15 minutes) that the hotel runs a generator constantly to ensure the elevators work. It is not abnormal to be harassed by beggars, shop keepers, and transportation drivers here because either your accent, or the color of your skin, indicates that they can benefit from you. Every few feet walls are spray-painted with signs that read “DO NOT URINE HERE”, and this is thoroughly ignored by the people living here because it is normal to simply take care of bodily necessities whenever they arise. Seeing naked or nearly-naked children on the street is a daily occurrence, though I never saw them before I was shocked by their appearance during my visit to Agra. Perhaps I wasn’t looking close enough, or perhaps it was just another thing I’ve been too sheltered to notice. In the past few days though, this has gone even a step further.
While previously I’d seen boys and men peeing on walls when the need struck them, yesterday for the first time I witnessed a boy squatting on the roadside and relieving himself right next to a family who was pumping water from a well used to wash clothing. India has one of the highest rates of public defecation in the world.
Before today, I had though this was limited to boys for religious reasons, but again I was proven wrong. We were just beginning our drive in when we had to pull around a line of traffic waiting while a car blocked the far right lane. A father was holding his young daughter by the armpits while she also relieved herself on the sidewalk of a busy highway. It was apparently urgent, but no different than normal here. A month ago I would have been shocked, today we drove by and I was more surprised by the fact that it was a girl than the fact that she was pooping on the sidewalk. We weren’t even in the middle of a rural area, but downtown. People were having to walk around them on the sidewalk.
Recently, a New York Times writer explained why he chose to have his family leave Delhi, and why he believes if you have the means it is a moral imperative that you leave India’s capitol if you are raising children. I can’t disagree with any of his assessments, and many of the experiences he outlines I am not shocked by having stayed here for nearly a month and a half now.
Link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/opinion/sunday/holding-your-breath-in-india.html
India has responded to the article, some outraged and some in support of the author. Mostly, Indians agreed that it is time for things to change. I think to some degree they already are.
This morning on the drive in, we also passed parents dropping their children off at school on the way in today. Most of the children were wearing uniforms for the various private and religious schools here. Proud parents ensured their children wore clean clothing (very bright white clothing sometimes) and attended to their education. It’s not abnormal for parents to take time for their children here, ensure they are cared for if sick, ensure they do their homework and cheer at their cricket matches. While on one sidewalk unspeakable things are happening, a block away two men who are working to take a long-standing trash pile and sweep it onto a piece of carpet. They then take the carpet, and push it into a garbage truck, and head on to the next pile.
A ride to school
Women find employment sweeping streets and cleaning up garbage and wrappers, and the people that you meet here are some of the friendliest you will ever talk to. My work is full of people who have learned English, educated themselves through college… and work to support their families (and extended families) and drive away the poverty that has most likely affected their life in a multitude of ways during their formative years. I’ve noticed a few foot injuries on the people I work with (missing toes, etc) that have long-since healed, and I sometimes wonder what happened. My driver for the work shuttle seems to have a persistent cough that he mostly ignores, and it would be easy to assume it is all the years of exposure to the pollution that he has had while driving. He loves American pop music, though, and will perk up when he hears certain songs (he drives even more like a madman when he’s rocking out!).
During our visit to a coworkers parent’s house, I got the impression that there is no greater achievement for a parent here than to enable their child to attend a college and come out with a degree that will ensure they are successful in life; in turn they will attempt to provide both for their parents and for their children to better their lives again. There is a phrase in English, “given half a chance”, where we talk about someone overcoming the odds. I almost used it here, but I think that might be overestimating in this instance. The people of Bangalore have mostly been given less than half a chance, in fact a very small percentage of a very slim chance, and somehow they find a way to thrive and move forward, to push and to do better, be better, live better, and for the most part… they are succeeding.
On the way to school
I wrote in my travel summary of Johannesburg that it felt very much like a first-world city with third-world people, that there was a pervasive concern for safety and well-being because the people themselves were not achieving what they could be and not being the people they should be. In contrast, I think that Bangalore (and by extension, all the people I have met in India) are a first-world people in a third-world country, and they deserve much better.
Yes, they are the same people who pee on walls, the same people who throw trash in the street, and the same people who harm each other in major cities. They are the same people who have had recent occurrences of violent, dreadful attacks on women and have an active sex trade that has no boundaries… but I get a distinct impression that this is changing, that the people of India are awakening and beginning to have a respect for themselves that they have long since earned, but have never taken to heart before.
I hope that conditions here do change, I think it is the perfect time, with the correct generation in place to achieve it (though perhaps not with their current Prime Minister, Modi). With public restrooms, perhaps people wouldn’t pee in the street. With the proper infrastructure in place, perhaps the people would be more willing to let the garbage man take away their trash than toss it into the streets. Public service campaigns against harming women and children, drunk driving, and those that encourage driving in a way that respects life have been very successful here.
Perhaps there is more change to come, perhaps the people who work so hard to bring success in everything that they do will begin to focus on righting their cities, their states, their country. Perhaps as a people they can become proud to hail from India, and more-readily share their amazing culture with the world.
So, returning to the question… would I come back to India. Right now I am not entirely sure. I’ve had a great time, seen great things. I’ve been touched by the people around me here and appreciated their willingness to give of themselves to ensure I had a great time while I was here. I’ve experienced and seen so much, both positive and negative, that to some degree I wonder what is left to do here, left to see in Bangalore. I may come back here one day, I may be invited back by work and spend more time with the people here… right now I’m undecided. There is so much bad here… so much that one should be concerned about… but there is so much good here, too. I can’t help but appreciate the people, the culture, the lives they have lived and the successes that they have had. I’m glad I don’t have to decide right now.
