India is a civilization that loves chaos. Chaos over Order. More on Chaos http://rajivmalhotradiscussions.blogspot.com/2012/02/chapter...
http://rajivmalhotradiscussions.blogspot.com/2012/03/order-c...
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-29/vinta...
A Dust Over India
281–290 of 325 posts
Re: A Dust Over India
#282It is hard to give a well rounded response to the post and yet keep it short. So I will not even try. A lot has been written about India, so people who want to know more will dig deep on their own, whereas many will be happy with poverty porn . One thing that I do want to mention is that India is a very high variance country. For almost any statement one makes, there will be a un-ignorable part of the country where t…
With so much variance I'm surprised you found the need to belittle this guy's singular experience. He told his story of India. It highlights both good and bad, but also in himself. This wasn't some rant against India. Get over yourself.
Eeeh, quote: "In a word, the place is disgusting. All of it. The entire country."
This is the most narrow minded I've read in a long time - and only shows not all people are ready to meet "foreign" cultures.
Re: A Dust Over India
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Is this a specific Indian behavior ? You can find sycophants in any part of the world. It is not that Indian culture is wired to sycophancy." The problem is when majority of the population demonstrates this behavior. And with personal experience, I found this to be very true as well. I'm not saying this is scientific observation, just my personal, which matches with the author's.
I agree with a number of points made in the article and the general comments about corruption in India. I disagree with the assertion that Indians are out to thug you for your money, and that is not the case with businessmen in America. Having recently bought a new car, I know full well how so-called, honest, American car dealers operate. Additionally, I am familiar with the "fair" and "transparent" lending practices…
"Having recently bought a new car, I know full well how so-called, honest, American car dealers operate."
You'll find that this is the case in most parts of the world. Please enlighten me if you find an honest one.
Re: A Dust Over India
#284I am an Indian and I find this piece quite authentic. However, the OP and most of the other foreigners who visit India, visit places or deal with people that are known to be hostile. I, as an Indian, will be utterly shocked if I visit a ghetto in downtown Detroit. Heck, there are more chances of getting mugged or shot in such ghetto. However, I will not visit such places as they are known to be hostile. India is a we…
I'm interested in the garbage thing: how much of it is actually non-decaying stuff (plastic and such)? And how essential is the availability of such stuff to the economy (like, does food need to be transported in plastic)? I suppose decaying garbage is also a problem (somehow it has to be moved out of the way), but it seems solvable compared to plastic and such?
Re: A Dust Over India
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regulatory Capture is, according to Wikipedia, a clear aspect of corruption, see "corruption" wiki template: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Corruption Not sure how else to remedy your confusion here.
Its not confusion. I'm more qualified to talk about 'regulatory capture' than I'm leading on, but its a real question: how is moving from industry to regulation, or the other way around, inherently corrupt? I disagree that having a system with poor incentives necessarily means it's 'corrupt'. Bribery is undoubtedly corruption. But when a state power regulator lowers restrictions on pollutants and greenpeace calls fou…
> I'm more qualified to talk about 'regulatory capture' than I'm leading on, but its a real question: how is moving from industry to regulation, or the other way around, inherently corrupt?
It ignores human nature. People don't rat out their friends. If you're the jerk at the party, you stop getting invited to the right parties.
Re: A Dust Over India
#286I am an Indian and I find this piece quite authentic. However, the OP and most of the other foreigners who visit India, visit places or deal with people that are known to be hostile. I, as an Indian, will be utterly shocked if I visit a ghetto in downtown Detroit. Heck, there are more chances of getting mugged or shot in such ghetto. However, I will not visit such places as they are known to be hostile. India is a we…
I'm interested in the garbage thing: how much of it is actually non-decaying stuff (plastic and such)? And how essential is the availability of such stuff to the economy (like, does food need to be transported in plastic)? I suppose decaying garbage is also a problem (somehow it has to be moved out of the way), but it seems solvable compared to plastic and such?
The problem is that, unlike other countries, garbage is not segregated by the civic authorities. Home owners aren't required to segregate their garbage, either. (Civic bodies of a few cities do segregate their garbage and dispose it properly). This prevents authorities from recycling platic/metal waste and decomposing decayable waste.
At home level, garbage is disposed by 3 ways -
a) Either it is collected from your door by municipality or a private contractor / sweeper
b) Home owners throw their garbage in a community garbage dump
c) Home owners dispose their garbage wherever they can.
The private contractors, who are supposed to take the collected garbage to the dumping grounds, usually don'd do it and dump it in open spaces (like this one -http://cj.ibnlive.in.com/slideshow7815.html). Worst part is that they aren't fined by authorities.
Municipal authorities mark certain grounds/wastelands away from populated areas as dumping grounds, dump the trash there and let it decay. (like this one - http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/08/0805_biggest_garbage...)
Also, Indians, in general, while traveling or commuting or walking, dispose paper wrappers, plastic plates, flowers, water bottles, chewing gums or any other garbage on road or in public places.
For example, it's a common site to see a family having ice creams or chips or peanuts or soft drinks in parks. But when they leave, they leave the waste as it is. Even when there is a garbage can in sight. (see this - http://rhetoric2reality.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/public-p...)
An example of trash thrown by train travelers - http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BA99LRmPyaA/TYsZstie7fI/AAAAAAAACC...
Heck, we can't even keep our places of worship clean. These are flowers, incense sticks and other offerings thrown in Ganga river after worshiping (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cO-PjFR2Kcw/TjgKYEIQiFI/AAAAAAAABG...). Ain't this ironical? Indians can pray and pollute a same object.
Coming to the decaying and non-decaying part - Most of it is decayable. However, the sheer volume of it does not allow nature to work. Hence it starts rotting and stinking. Also, stray animals (cows,dogs and pigs) dig through the trash mountain to find anything edible and in turn spread it more.
Having said that, things are improving. I have seen many young people (my friends included) carry the plastic trash or water bottles with them till they find a garbage can. Also, a few educated people are running cleaning campaigns in their cities (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Clean-Vadodara-Green-Vadodara-...). Also, shopping malls and large stores have started to charge for plastic carry bags. This has reduced plastic waste by bit.
Re: A Dust Over India
#287all the debate aside, lets face it India has way more social problems than most of the other countries in the world.
Re: A Dust Over India
#288It is hard to give a well rounded response to the post and yet keep it short. So I will not even try. A lot has been written about India, so people who want to know more will dig deep on their own, whereas many will be happy with poverty porn . One thing that I do want to mention is that India is a very high variance country. For almost any statement one makes, there will be a un-ignorable part of the country where t…
Unfortunately what your post seems to say, to me, is this; everywhere in India has one or more major problems, of different types.
So even if the problems vary across the country it strikes me that their widespread existence reflects an underlying problem
I don't know, I dislike judging other cultures from my own singular perspective. But I can't help shuddering at some of the things he describes, and wonder how are people in your country not more outraged by them.
(with all that said; I equally dislike the snobby-western-judgemental attitude of the author... it smacks of colonial superiority, "the poor brown people staring in awe at the god like white man" (that's really not far off of a quote..). chuck)
Re: A Dust Over India
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
With so much variance I'm surprised you found the need to belittle this guy's singular experience. He told his story of India. It highlights both good and bad, but also in himself. This wasn't some rant against India. Get over yourself.
Eeeh, quote: "In a word, the place is disgusting. All of it. The entire country." This is the most narrow minded I've read in a long time - and only shows not all people are ready to meet "foreign" cultures.
Does he actually have to spell out for you that he is one person who screams the blindingly obvious that he can only generalize on the basis of his experience? So when he says 'All of it. The entire country' that is an expression of his impression - the 'all' he saw. If you can't get that maybe you should leave off reading accounts where meticulous ( and unnecessary fo most of us ) qualification is absent.
Re: A Dust Over India
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Come on, that picture is more exception than the norm. The norm isn't too far from the exception. I spent 4 years in Chennai, and this was a common sight. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-4o_J8R8OVg/TIy3nfGUzdI/AAAAAAAAAo... Though I have never seen the bent buses in Bangalore yet in the 5 years I have been here. That is not to say public buses are pleasant here - you still deal with being densely packed with other commu…
You guys should come by the Mission district or China Town or Lower Haight ( here in San Francisco ) or take public transit (any of the BART stations - 16th, 24th, Civic Center or Glen Park). The foulest stench of excrement anywhere. Some blame the Hispanic population and some blame the Hmong and others blame the street urchins. But I never expected to smell anything so odious in a major metropolis in the U.S.
Well, you may be exaggerating, but I found my stay in SF similarly disorienting.
We were staying at 4th and Mission, surrounded by luxury stores and hotels. At night, though, it was like Dawn of the Dead, with street-zombies wandering around talking to themselves.
Sadly (to me), they were almost all black. In Toronto, the homeless have the decency to be fairly racially inclusive (with Native Americans somewhat over-represented).
Travel, huh. Different places are different.