I don't know where the author is from, what I want remind him is - "Open your mind, you are blind". Your are seeing what you would like to see, it's your problem.
A Dust Over India
101–110 of 325 posts
Re: A Dust Over India
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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 al…
I agreed with most of your post except for this point: Doesn't mean it's alright for people to live in a shelter of NEWSPAPER. Why isn't it alright? Honestly, if it's adequate shelter, why isn't it alright? I'm trying to think of some reasons, and I figure it has to do with inability to withstand rain and wind, effects of rot and mold, lack of security, or who knows what. But then I keep going back to the word "adequ…
Maybe "alright" wasn't the correct phrasing.
I meant something more like: "Just because people can live in a shelter of newspaper, doesn't mean it's okay for that to be their only resort against the elements."
Re: A Dust Over India
#103Hey guys, I work for Postmasculine and just wanted to jump in quickly. First, thanks for sharing this Arun2009. I've been reading HN daily for the last 9 months and love it. Amazing to open up my computer today and see us as the number one link. I believe my reaction was something like this: http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/excit... Anyway, I mainly wanted to ask what people thought of the site…
It was my first visit to the site and I read a few articles - I've now added it to my feed reader. So thanks!
Re: A Dust Over India
#104being an indian and learning a lot about world, history and origins of modern society from the great gift of internet and spending entire 21 years of my life in a chaos like new delhi. i conform this article carry a lot of truth. after advent of capitalism india is just a place for corrupt and greedy entreprenuers , politicians and government employees who will go to any extent to be evil and take it all for themselves leaving rest of all the population to suffer. poor people not having anything to do fuck each other all day making such a rise in population and middle class or lower middle class people just prepare there whole lives to be slaves of some company or organisation.
single truth that i discovered being a middle class indian is that india needs a sexual revolution and more freedom for women. because you cannot get a productive and creative society when most of the people who run it doesn't get a good fuck all there lives!
Re: A Dust Over India
#105I watched the endless poverty scroll by like a demented video game. I had an overwhelming urge to stop at an ATM and withdraw 25,000 Rupees and start handing money out to people at random. "Nothing should be given free. Anything that is given free has no value. " - Padma Venkataraman In May of this year, I spent time in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The exchange rate during my travels was roughly 53 Rupees : 1 US Dollar.…
>> I "get" the concept of jugaad. My small solution was to not give Rupees away, but to tip well: anybody who seemed to be working on improving their economic situation. (Tipping is not normal practice for most Indians, but I figured it was better than handouts.) Absolutely. Be generous to your domestic help, drivers, security guards and other people who work hard to improve their lives. It will reinforce their belie…
> But it's absolutely not a sustainable solution to the core and underlying problem, and might even be perpetuating it.
It reinforces their reliance on the upper class/caste, a polite form of beggary. The core and underlying problem is not lack of belief in hard work, but systematic corruption and exploitation of the poor.
Re: A Dust Over India
#106Interesting. One note though: I wouldn't put Bill Gates and Lady Diana in the same league as Mother Theresa.
Re: A Dust Over India
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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 al…
I agreed with most of your post except for this point: Doesn't mean it's alright for people to live in a shelter of NEWSPAPER. Why isn't it alright? Honestly, if it's adequate shelter, why isn't it alright? I'm trying to think of some reasons, and I figure it has to do with inability to withstand rain and wind, effects of rot and mold, lack of security, or who knows what. But then I keep going back to the word "adequ…
You're assuming too much. It's not adequate shelter. You'd get sick living in a shack in an indian slum or in a hut in the amazon without modern medicine plus expensive and time consuming precautions--precautions a slum dweller can't take. Read up on public health in slums, particularly slums in the tropics.
"many missionaries throughout history easily decided to go native"
Err, no. Missionaries (as well as soldiers and merchants) used to have crazy high mortality in the tropics.
Re: A Dust Over India
#108As 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.
What nonsense - he's constantly referring to his own cultural biases, including finishing on exactly that.
Can you please point out to me where, exactly, he finishes on an acknowledgement of his own biases? His analysis is based on a 3-week excursion around various parts of the country, with little to no effort to understand any historical context for what he critiques.
How about even a cursory talk about the historical context? Colonialism, the politics of development, the political economy of tourism, anything for that matter.
Mark talks about how emotionally overwhelming travel is, he doesn't talk about how, if he had stayed there longer or even done some basic wikipedia research, perhaps he wouldn't jump to so many base conclusions. Instead, we are left with a poetic bog post laced with comments like this one:
"Indian culture itself is quite disorienting."
Or this little gem:
"There’s no single sentence for India. The place is a fucking mess."
This doesn't even make sense. How can there be no single sentence for India, and then GIVE A SINGLE SENTENCE FOR INDIA?
Yeah, it's a fucking mess for a well-off Internet blogger. It's a fucking mess because Mother Theresa can't save the Indians from themselves, "And it’s just as well, Mother Teresa couldn’t save this society from itself." Critical development studies has been fighting this kind of arrogance for a long time.
And to be fair, I respect this author's work a lot more than most lifestyle blogs. I just have a low tolerance for generalizations like this one.
Does that sound like nonsense to you?
Re: A Dust Over India
#109why the hell did OP post this old ass december 2011 article to HN?