Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It will be much better. I'm from Kerala - things may be slightly better here than say Bihar but not by a whole lot.
yes,me too from kerala. they will feel opposite if someone read this and visit here.
Salaam machu
A Dust Over India
61–70 of 325 posts
Re: A Dust Over India
#62Because India is close to the equator, the environment has a greater carrying capacity than the kinds of first-world, northern nations that the author is used to. Thus, for this reason alone, India is likely to have a different ratio of people to development, since less development is required to sustain one person's resource utilization. Contrast this to the US where much of the country is snow covered for 1/3 of th…
Because India is close to the equator, the environment has a greater carrying capacity than the kinds of first-world, northern nations that the author is used to.
Citation?
The same applies to shelter. In India, a hut made of newspaper is adequate shelter year round. Try that in the Northern US and you'll freeze.
If a newspaper is enough in India, why are so many people dying of being cold year after year? https://www.google.co.in/search?q=cold+wave+india+dead
The years that aren't very cold, there are heat waves that kill. https://www.google.co.in/search?q=heat+wave+india+dead
Yes India's government is corrupt, but not all that much more corrupt than the US government.
In India, if you walk into a govt office for anything, you will end up paying a bribe. Want a driving license? Bribe. Want a building plan approved? Bribe. Want to incorporate a company? Bribe. Maybe we can have HN'ers from different developed countries tell us if the situation is anything like this in their countries. From what I can see, corruption in developed countries is mostly big ticket, not every tom, dick and harry in the country trying to part you from your money every chance they get.
Contrast this to the genocide the US conducted against native Americans who were in the way.
Back when American natives were being killed, widows in India were being burnt alive by their own families in the name of tradition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)
Sure the garbage smells bad, but it's mostly just a matter of learning not to keep inhaling after you catch a whiff of something rank on the breeze.
WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN SAYING?
Re: A Dust Over India
#63I once took my client who was visiting from US to a city tour of New Delhi. It was routine India Gate, Red Fort, Jantar Mantar stuff. She seemed unimpressed. But we happened to pass through a slum area and her eyes just lit up. She was shocked and amazed, but happy that her trip was now complete. It was disgusting.
Re: A Dust Over India
#64Exaggerations abound. While I agree with aspects of poor governance and garbage accumulation and many other observations, I realized the author was out to represent a preconceived notion of a nation, when I read, "homeless people sleeping on the tarmac, the city is so crowded and disgusting that people decide they’d rather sleep on the airport runway." I will pick on that lie to state my point. If you have been to an…
I agree. May be he was confused and mistook people sleeping on the side ways of the bus route.
Another glaring bias in the observation sequence is that all negative experiences have been told in a detailed, pictorial manner. And all the good experiences, on Sanjay cooking the meal, another guy refusing 50 Rs and the taxi driver being tearfully happy at the 50% tip etc., have been cramped into single liners or a couple of paragraphs, where as all the other negative experiences are allotted ample real estate in the article.
Re: A Dust Over India
#65As they say: "travel to a place for a day, write a novel. Travel there for a month, write an essay. Travel there for a year, write nothing."
This post, while certainly an honest account, is rife with generalizations and does not acknowledge the author's own cultural biases in the slightest.
Re: A Dust Over India
#66The mistake the author made is that he lived in India for three weeks. Had he stayed for six months or a year, he'd have been able to figure out what makes India tick - India is the very embodiment of clever innovation to survive - it will ask you very tough questions and it will compel you to innovate, often rapidly, just in order to survive - not even succeed. This, in India, is known as "jugaad". He missed the "ju…
I'd argue that this "jugaad" happens everywhere when people are under extreme pressure and have no good expectations of getting anywhere following the rules.
Here in Brazil there are lots of young people that gets into drug dealing just because they don't have nothing better to do. The grow up in extreme poverty and society would very much like them to be dead or in prision, so they take their chances... sometimes its better to risk a bullet to the head to get rich and respected than to know that you'll be always poor and risk getting killed by police or drug dealers.
And of course, this is just an example. I don't know if this qualifies as "jugaad", but sounds a little similar.
Re: A Dust Over India
#67Because India is close to the equator, the environment has a greater carrying capacity than the kinds of first-world, northern nations that the author is used to. Thus, for this reason alone, India is likely to have a different ratio of people to development, since less development is required to sustain one person's resource utilization. Contrast this to the US where much of the country is snow covered for 1/3 of th…
"Yes India's government is corrupt, but not all that much more corrupt than the US government."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/world/asia/18iht-letter18....
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2091100,00.htm...
People are holding hunger strikes to stand up against the corruption. When was the last time that happened in the US?
You are rationalizing away all of the author's points, and just because there is an explanation for things doesn't make those things okay. Just because "In India, a hut made of newspaper is adequate shelter year round." Doesn't mean it's alright for people to live in a shelter of NEWSPAPER.
"Frankly, it's not all that bad. Sure the garbage smells bad, but it's mostly just a matter of learning not to keep inhaling after you catch a whiff of something rank on the breeze."
I'm sure that will fix all of the disease and sickness that comes with festering garbage lingering about in public streets.
"Sadly the US ends up putting a very large percentage of its poor population in prisons and has relocated many to horrific housing projects, where the violence and horrors are contained away from view."
Even if this is true (which I'd argue that it's not, but that is neither here nor there) how does that justify having the poor out in the open begging for a living?
"If you want to talk about rights for the poor, in India if someone isn't using land and you set up a tent on it and start living there, you can't be evicted. The shantytowns that the author found so disturbing are actually a side-effect of India's weak property rights laws, which themselves are a result of democratic pressure from the poor to continue living where their families have lived for generations. Contrast this to the genocide the US conducted against native Americans who were in the way."
Besides the blatant non-sequitor about genocide (It happened, yes, but what does that have to do with India?), giving someone the right to squat on land is hardly "rights for the poor". Congrats on not evicting people from shanty towns, excuse me if you aren't awarded the next Nobel Peace Prize.
Re: A Dust Over India
#68"[India's] not a pleasant place to be"
What a stupid and close-minded thing to say.
Re: A Dust Over India
#69People allow it to exist because they choose not to think about it, although perhaps "choose" is too strong a word. It takes initiative to escape your local worldview.
Great article, btw.
Re: A Dust Over India
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
That picture is definitely o lot busier than average but in my experience the majority of urban buses were unpleasantly hot and crowded in India, particularly during the rush hour. I avoided using them if at all possible, and I generally really enjoyed most of the other forms of transport on offer there, especially the more dirty and dangerous ones.
Try using the london underground in summer. It gets a lot hotter than 100 degrees. It gets dangerously crowded sometimes too. EDIT: Oh shit, it's you. You should know, heh.
I mean, the central point of the original comment was the stark contrast between rich and dirt-poor, who often sit side-by-side, and how we better hide these differences in Western nations.
I had just wanted to nitpick that the bus example is actually a very good one to highlight why "riding the bus" is not a bad indication of poverty, which I think we agree on!
None of this detracts from the fact that riding the subway during the summer is miserable for everyone, but isn't (in my mind, or in the parent's) quite the same as an Indian bus!