Having spent a couple of years in the US of A, I suppose I can say that I have grown somewhat accustomed to a high speed internet line, continuous power, etc, etc. But having said that, a graduate student lifestyle, or rather, a frugal, careful graduate student lifestyle is barely a few notches from what one would describe as 'poverty' in this country. But then again, I do believe that it is to a huge extent, merely a matter of perception: this country does something strange to you.. it turns you into a recluse. Backhome, waking up to the doodhwalla, the paperwalla, and the garbage collector doing the rounds was normal. hearing your neighbour yell at her delinquent kid for not doing his homework was also normal, as was listening to them turn the volume up on yet another Sonu Nigam hosted singing talent show. These are the sounds of India, and after a while, they are no longer intrusive, but merely an ever-present backdrop which you are only aware of by its absence. These are the sounds of home.
Cut to the West. Empty streets, silence and more silence. The only sounds are the noisy cheers of some frat boys on Saturday. Rich Americans, where possible have chosen to live in walled, secluded places where the cares of the world do not reach them. This country, where there are supposed to be no barriers, has chosen to erect impassible walls and create a new social class system.. or perhaps they have taken the oldest class system in the world and merely given it new shape.
For what it is worth, if you are wealthy and have the right skin colour, and presumably the right associations, you too, can live in their country clubs and wake up to the sounds of birds chirping. The inner cities are slowly cycling into ruin, fuelled by guns and drugs. The urban disenfranchised have nowehere to go, for they have been discarded as a bum job. They will never wake up to birdsongs, or walk on neatly manicured lawns. The leaders of the world have promised people freedom, and this is what it looks like. Scratch the surface of wealth and prosperity and you will feel seething veins of anger running deep.
But the eventual fate of this country does not concern this author. I am an passerby, an interested observer, at the most. My own beautiful India has suddenly woken up from several decades of socialist somnolence and wants a share of the pie. The middle class has decided that it is time to be upper class, and the upper class has decided that it is time to stop merely visiting the West; the West should now be brought here. So, we have CrossRoads, an exclusive shopping malll in Bombay which rather inadvisedly decided to only allow people with cellphones or credit cards to enter. This was in 2001, remember, a time when both items were not common amongst the 'riffraff'. The resulting outrage was interesting to watch.
And these days we have gated communities in our own cities, where the rich can sit back and soak in India, sans the stink coming from the nearby slums. To be at the centre of a potentially violent social transformation is quite edifying: resources are being diverted to these palaces which municipalties can ill afford to squander. But who's listening to reason? We all want in, and we want in now! Add to this the dilution of the meritocracy by the rather stupid decision of the Central Government to introduce large scale reservations at all levels of work and study; and we have a rather potent combination.
This was a rather long winded article which I started writing because I read this article:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2156352,00.html#article_conti%3E%20nue
Cut to the West. Empty streets, silence and more silence. The only sounds are the noisy cheers of some frat boys on Saturday. Rich Americans, where possible have chosen to live in walled, secluded places where the cares of the world do not reach them. This country, where there are supposed to be no barriers, has chosen to erect impassible walls and create a new social class system.. or perhaps they have taken the oldest class system in the world and merely given it new shape.
For what it is worth, if you are wealthy and have the right skin colour, and presumably the right associations, you too, can live in their country clubs and wake up to the sounds of birds chirping. The inner cities are slowly cycling into ruin, fuelled by guns and drugs. The urban disenfranchised have nowehere to go, for they have been discarded as a bum job. They will never wake up to birdsongs, or walk on neatly manicured lawns. The leaders of the world have promised people freedom, and this is what it looks like. Scratch the surface of wealth and prosperity and you will feel seething veins of anger running deep.
But the eventual fate of this country does not concern this author. I am an passerby, an interested observer, at the most. My own beautiful India has suddenly woken up from several decades of socialist somnolence and wants a share of the pie. The middle class has decided that it is time to be upper class, and the upper class has decided that it is time to stop merely visiting the West; the West should now be brought here. So, we have CrossRoads, an exclusive shopping malll in Bombay which rather inadvisedly decided to only allow people with cellphones or credit cards to enter. This was in 2001, remember, a time when both items were not common amongst the 'riffraff'. The resulting outrage was interesting to watch.
And these days we have gated communities in our own cities, where the rich can sit back and soak in India, sans the stink coming from the nearby slums. To be at the centre of a potentially violent social transformation is quite edifying: resources are being diverted to these palaces which municipalties can ill afford to squander. But who's listening to reason? We all want in, and we want in now! Add to this the dilution of the meritocracy by the rather stupid decision of the Central Government to introduce large scale reservations at all levels of work and study; and we have a rather potent combination.
This was a rather long winded article which I started writing because I read this article:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2156352,00.html#article_conti%3E%20nue
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