The contradictions of India

I’ve been in India now for just about three weeks and have been struggling with how to describe it, except as enormous - with 1.2 billion people. The most accurate thing I can say is that for any generalization I want to make, the opposite can also be proven. A few truisms -- many things do not make sense, a lot of patience is required, getting things done is complicated, and the food is excellent. My apologies in advance for not being able to summarize my experiences better and rambling on and on.

I spent the first two weeks traveling to several of the major cities in northern India in two states – Rajistan, the land of princes, and Uttar Pardesh, home of the Taj Mahal. In Rajistan, the cities are all former princely states. We visited Udaipur and Jaipur. They have beautiful castles and forts, and princes who still reside there, albeit without any authority. The princes reigned through the British rule in 1947. Rather than dismantle the feudal system, the British ruled by reaching mutually beneficial agreements with those in power. The land which use to belong to the princes has theoretically been divided up since the British partition, but by some accounts it wasn’t done completely equitably.

Then we went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Pictures do not do it justice, so you’ll all just have to take my word for it and come to India to check it out. Twenty-thousand people worked on building it for 22 years. The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum built by the Mughul ruler, Shah Jahan for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, his “Jewel of the Palace”. Since 80% of India's population has arranged marriages, they love telling its a love story. It's interesting also, that despite the fact that the Taj was built by the Mughal, Muslim invaders, that the Hindu's embrace it as their own national treasure. It's part of the complicated "get along, but don't always get along" relationship and interdepence between the different religions in the country.

We continued on what was supposed to be a smooth trip from Agra to Khajuraho, but I’ll talk more about transportation later on. Khajuraho is home to a sect of Hindu’s who are famed for developing the Kama Sutra. Many of the Hindu temples in the country have explicit sculptures carved on the outside in order to allow the worshippers to free their minds of earthly pleasures before they went to pray. I'll just say that the temples leave little for the people to imagine once they go inside. If there is an opposite to a synagogue – this is it.

We finished up in Veranasi – the holy city. If you are Hindu, you want to be cremated and have your ashes thrown into the Ganges River at Veranasi. It is one of India’s oldest cities and a place where many Indians make pilgrimages. We went to see the sunset pray at the Ganges. It was so out there that you’d think it was just being done for the tourists, but the majority of people who were watching were Indians. They go through several rituals with fire and smoke and chanting every night and then put the fire out and put floating candles on the river to put the river to sleep. In the morning, people go to the steps by the river’s edge and take a bath in this water. I had a hard time fully appreciating the ritual beauty because I couldn’t really get past the bacteria count, but for the truly spiritual Hindu’s, their aspiration is to be able to take the plunge. (I wanted a hazmat suit.)

In addition to the site seeing, learning about India from the people we met and driving through the countryside was eye-opening. Every day was an assault on my senses, exhausting, exaserbating and wonderful. The sarees are like a rainbow walking down the street, even when you were in the poorest areas the streets are bright. The aromas of spices in the open air market, mixing with the cow dung patties which were being dried for fuel (although hopefully not mixing in the physical sense). The cheerful Bollywood music and the blaring horns. The crowded, bustling streets and the layer of dirt which coats you every night no matter what you did that day. Finally, the spicy, spicy food -- Yum!

Aside from the common thread of everyday sensor overload, I sometimes felt like I woke up in a different place – ok, I was waking up in a different place almost every day – but I mean that the things I saw and talked about didn't seem like they could be one country.

When I read about India in the newspaper at home, it was either about economic growth or poverty -or the traditional spiritual yoggies avoiding materialism (I still haven't really seen any of the later, but I'm still searching). Only 20% of India’s population lives in the city – and there’s really no suburb – the other 80% live in villages. If you think about the economic growth India has achieved and realize that 80% of the population has more or less not yet participated in the effort or achievement, and that an increasing number of them will continue to become educated and participate in the future, the potential is tremendous, but the challenges are also immense.

I have gained an appreciation for infrastructure that we take for granted in a western country – transportation, clean water, education, and electricity, garbage collection, etc. To me the country has the feel of a start up company – where everything seems urgent, but you have to prioritize and put resources in the few important things which will enable long term growth -- but here the scale is tremendous and the things which don't get resources can literally affect whether a person lives. For all of its problems though, I heard people talk about the efforts in one or all of those things mentioned above.

I traveled between six different cities – if you count Delhi. We flew between several of the cities, but then drove from Jaipur to Agra and Agra to Khajuraho. The drives were an experience. Most of the highways were only two lanes, with no divider and only sometimes with a painted line. The speed limit on the highway was about 60-70 km/hr for cars and slower for trucks, motorcycles and scooters. There were also bicycles, people walking on the side and lots of animals – especially cows. (The picture is from the window of our car as we passed.)

Cows are sacred – so they are only used for milk and not eaten. People milk their cows in the morning and then let them out to graze until they come home at night to be milked again. The result is that there are literally cows wondering in fields, on highways and in the city streets. If you hit a cow on the road, you’re liable to pay the owner, the police are called – and it’s not good for your karma or your car if you kill a sacred animal, so traffic generally slows down when there are cows around. For anyone else crossing the street can be a life threatening experience -- not that being in the car is so much safer. (I've also seen camels, horses and elephants on the roads, but usually have have riders.)

There was one point where we drove for 3.5 hours after dark on a one-lane, bi-directional highway with no street lights. Right of way seems to go to the bigger vehicle. We were in a car, so we pulled over for trucks and buses, and motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and walking people got out of our way. Most animals respond to the horn, which is used incessantly – and encouraged by “Please Use Horn” painted on the back of trucks. Remember there are different speed limits for different types of vehicles so even on the two lane roads there is a constant need to pass. On the one-lane, bi-directional road it was insane. The cars regularly come so close to each other that at least 50% of cars are sold without a passenger side, side-view mirror – and most of the others keep it folded in. One of my co-travellers kept unfolding the mirror and the driver would put it back in whenever we stopped. Surprisingly there is no road rage and not too many accidents.

The good news was that at several points we were on roads that were being widened to 4 or 6 lane highways – with dividers or at least painted lanes between the two directions. When we asked our driver if they would allow cows on the new highways, he said, “of course”, but in the more developed areas, they seem to keep the cows off the road. Whenever we were on one of these soon to be completed highways, it was a cause for excitement and pride by our drivers and guides.

Driving through the country side, it was mostly driving through farmland, but it didn’t look like Arkansas or Oklahoma. Most of the land seems to be small, animal plowed, plots separated by stone fences and we were told, owned by individual families. There was no mechanical irrigation at all. In a few cases we saw wells which had buckets of water being pulled up by animal labor, but in general it seemed like any watering that was done was done manually with hand held – or more likely “head-balanced” pots of water. It was an impressive to see, but I kept thinking that a little technology could go a long way to improve the lives of these people. (I was subsequently told that up north and in the south that there was more irrigation.)

Even with the primative farming technology, India has also become a food exporter in the last decade or so. I was told the country produces enough food for all its citizens, but that not all the citizens can afford to buy it. The government buys some of the surplus and sells it at a loss through a food stamps/welfare type program. Its another example of having to prioritize how resources are used, but its very hard to see people living in tent cities and looking under nourished, and know that the food is available, but too costly or not able to be transported.

At the same time, I’ve been discouraged by every guide and Indian local from giving money to anyone begging in the street. First of all, it’s illegal to give a beggar money. Second, especially in the cities, its been described to me as “organized crime”. The people begging basically have pimps that they beg for and owe a large portion of their earnings. I'm told, if you watch carefully, you’ll see different people using the same undernourished baby as a prop – and that the baby is deliberately not fed enough. One guide told how a tourist handed a 500R note (app. $12) to a man on crutches, whose legs were wrapped in bandages. The guide opened the door to take the money back and the man dropped the crutches and ran away. We’ve also been told that the government has offered housing and job training to get these people off the street but to no avail. Scams aside, 30% of the people – mostly in the countryside - live in poverty, with poverty described as unable to afford to eat 2200 calories a day. That’s more than the population of the US.

Electricity is used very sparingly. I think the country simply cannot produce enough. I don’t know how expensive it is, or if there are controlled limits that buildings can have. Often when driving through villages at night we’d see dark houses or one light on in the entire house. And even in the cities, the electricity flickers more or less every day. When I think about my apartment in NY and how often I leave my computer or AC on or forget to turn out the lights when I leave my apartment – or use lights during the day, because I prefer it. I haven’t found any statistics about it yet, but I am sure a large percentage of the people living in the country live with out any refrigeration. Only 30% of the population has "sanitation" (toilets), which is incredible to imagine. The temperture tops 40 C and next to nobody has AC. Its hard to imagine the growth of energy demand that will happen as the country develops further.

Education is one of the largest areas of progress, but there is still a long way to go. Whenever we met someone along the way and asked about there education, it seemed like the younger they were the more years of education they had. I think that the basic, public education in most areas is 8 years now, but may depend on which state someone lived it. Fifteen years ago, it was about 5 and these people's father's only had three years of school. However, although it’s improving, everyone also said the only way to learn English and get a good job was to go to a private school. My favorite driver (the one from Agra) was teaching himself English – and was pretty good – but at 22, he thought it was too late for him to go university and get a good job. He was hoping to save enough money for his daughter to go to a private school.

One last thought which I know is a complete digression from what I've already written. I've been thinking about the comparison between China and India and their respective development of infrastructure and the difference caused by big-state-owned communist infrastructure verse democratically influenced prioritization. Does the decision to address or not address overpopulation affect their long-term development? India has a legal structure which may provide better intellectual property protection, but both face corruption as their economies grow. Is there a difference in the level to which you can prioritize transportation/all infrastructure over eradicating poverty in a dictatorship verse an open economy with different lobbying groups. At some point, do the challenges of privatizing state owned businesses, the challenge of introducing capitalism, and the potential for corruption slow development relative to a country which has democracy and capitalism, but lacks basic infrastructure. How will these factors influence their pace of development -- and what impact will it have as they become the world economic giants.

I'm now in the midst of my three week volunteer program in Delhi and loving being in the city. I hope you are doing well and am looking forward to hearing from you all.