The Kalmadi-scam, the Raja-scam, and amidst tons of other scams I visited India this December i.e. 2010. Every person that I met on my trip except my parents, asked me "So, how do you like it? Hasn't India changed? and I ask myself, are these people being sarcastic. If you think I dislike being in India or that I am too American, you are wrong. And I'll tell you why.
I was done with my exams in the second week of December and about three days later we boarded the American Airlines jet for London. Now, I hate flying international, because airplane trips over the Atlantic and Indian are just not my cup of tea and I get petrified. But in any case, we reached London and after an 8-hour layover, we boarded the Kingfisher Airbus for Bombay. The flight was pretty good and I was literally loving the view from the aircraft. I mean who wouldn't love the mountains of Europe and North India. But the closer we came to Bombay, the picture of real India became more and more shabby. Flying over Bombay, and I am going to be very frank, was absolutely pathetic. Its just the view of a city, in fact the financial capital of the world's fourth largest economy, that is choking with over-population, rampant poverty and endless slums. Its almost painful and saddening to see that the politicians are doing absolutely nothing to prevent this from growing and that their existence is known only through the largest and most corrupt of scams that they are involved in. Filthy politicians are shamelessly amassing wealth when the cities of the once beautiful Maharashtra are dying a now rapid death due to the utter carelessness of the people of world's so-called largest democracy. The day I landed, I attended the wedding of a cousin and the kind of extravagance I saw at the wedding shocked me. I mean people were loaded with jewelery and I think if the hindi movie 'Vastav' was to be remade the famous dialogue "Pachas (50) tolas" would have to be fabricated to "150 tolas." I mean, the kind of prosperity that people have experienced in booming India is beyond imagination, however, the economic inequality has grown to more alarming levels than ever before. Robbery, murders, rape and scams have become commonplace in the nation that was once the epitome of love and harmony and respect for others. After the wedding ended, the security became even more vigilant as incidents of robbers on motorcycles snatching away jewelery have also become very common. India has, and I regret this the most, undoubtedly become a city with two-worlds. Inside the wedding hall, affluence and prosperity are the new facts of life and noticeable to even the blind and right outside the wedding venue we see poverty and hunger among children and adults. This poverty is one of the harshest statements life can ever make and even for a person from a well to do family, the only advice I have is that spend wisely. I walked on the streets of Bombay, and the filth and dirt occupy more room than humans. Dirty roads, unhygienic living conditions, poverty, and almost no civic sense for cleanliness occupied my mind for the most part of my Bombay trip. When I met people at the reception, they asked me about how I like Bombay and the only answer I had was, Yeah! It has changed a lot. But whether that change is for the better or worse is anybody's guess. The city is dying at a very fast paced and the only thing that one can do to help it improve is by giving free education and advice. As for people living abroad, all you can do is hope, hope that the city gets better with time because right after the wedding, I left for Pune.
Pune's experience was not very different except for the fact that it was slightly better. I mean I did go home after 5 years and that was very thrilling but the courtesy and patience I learned in US did little to help me out. I must admit, that the 3 chickoo milkshakes that I had the very day I reached Pune did push aside all the negatives about India, but reality was not far away. When I ordered the bill, I was shocked to see a Rs.1000 plus bill. I still remember our meals at Vaishali. It used to cost us around Rs. 250 for our family of four and charging Rs.1000 for 8 people was a sure shock. I wonder, how prices for restaurant entrees are decided because there certainly should be some deciding factor, and some reason as to why prices are astronomically high. I got the answer the very next day. As I was leaving for a stroll, my mother asked me to buy some onions on my way back home. With Rs.33 in my pocket I was certain to have some money left for a small Dairymilk chocolate. As I approached the vegetable-seller, another shock, 1 kilogram of onions cost me Rs.63. I asked him to keep the onions in a bag while ran back home to get more money. With onions being exorbitantly high, I wonder how the low-income families manage since onions are a staple food and are required to prepare almost all home-cooked items. But these price hikes are not rare. On the contrary, this kind of soaring inflation is noticeable everywhere, whether you have a 'dabeli' at a 'laariwaala' or have expensive food at a posh restaurant. Even apparel and fuel have seen their prices sky-rocketing. My visit to the gas-station for refueling the car was equally shocking when my father paid Rs.4000 for gas. People call me a miser to my face, and I don't mind it because its frivolous and not true. I do save money because I feel silly spending obscene amounts of money on things that are not really worth it. But then, the fact that the society of India that I witnessed during this trip has seen such envious success and prosperity that people dont even think twice before spending such money.
But I dont want you readers to feel that the only topic of this epic was to bash India and Indians. I am an Indian myself and am proud to be one. One of the innumerable positives of this trip was the amazing marketing skills that sellers have. I had gone shopping with my brother and sisters and we ended up at a store selling jeans. The shopowner did look like a television actor, more so because of his stylish clothes but also because of the kind of language that he used. I mean he was praising me and my sister, who was also shopping, at every single opportunity that he got. My built is slim, very slim and I did try to convey this to my sisters when selecting my pair of jeans but they somehow were'nt convinced. But my friend, the shop-owner did talk my sisters into believing that I was slim and that the jeans that I had selected was infact a perfect fit. I could not help but marvel at his sales and marketing skills. I mean he literally could sell ice to an eskimo. Ya you can learn marketing at a college or institution but the kind of skills that the shop-owner displayed cannot be learned anywhere else because they come with experience. And one can only praise those kind of skills because I did end up buying a very expensive pair of jeans.
Well, all's well that ends well. The trip was a super success and I am glad that I visited India after 5 years because I really witnessed the change myself and it taught me a lot about the difference between the two worlds, US-the world of affluence and opportunities versus India- the land of poverty, adventure, excitement and ofcourse, the skill to succeed in the face of difficulties.
