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A Dust Over India

• mattront 14y ago
  When making judgements like this, it is good to remember that your experience of a place depends not only on that place, but even more so on your own state of mind. When you see confusion all around you, you should honestly ask yourself how much of it is coming from your side.
  • Arun2009 14y ago
    > you should honestly ask yourself how much of it is coming from your side. That may be true. But I still think that candid, unapologetic appraisals of what's wrong with developing countries may be just what the doctor ordered for things to change. I myself am an Indian and while I'm yet to see someone covered in his or her own feces in India, I'd agree with the general sentiment of that article: it's an honest, heart-felt piece. I'd like to change the state of affairs in my country, but the task is so f*cking huge that you don't know where to start or even whether you can do anything at all. If perhaps more Indians start feeling that things are NOT acceptable here, maybe we might see the beginnings of change, just like how it was with India's own independence struggle.
    • vr000m 14y ago
      India probably needs more startups; startups that are solving Indian problems, employing Indians and if relevant expanding the solution to places outside. Despite the corruption and incompetence of the government, I believe that the government also finds itself in the same conundrum--"where to start, or what to fix first, or in what order".
      • btilly 14y ago
        And inevitably decides to fix the fact that those in power do not feel themselves to be rich enough.
    • supersan 14y ago
      This may sound like a cliche but the it's what you do for your country that matters more. I too was faced the same dilemma a few years back and on a whim I joined a small volunteer organization that teaches street children. Being a one trick pony I decided to teach them computers. In just 2 months those kids, who did not know the English alphabet learned to use MS-Paint doing stuff like Undo/Redo/Copy/Paste, etc. Seeing those kids learn was one of the happiest feelings of my life. I later heard that one of the girls got admission in a govt. school because of what she learnt in that org. Anyway, the reason I say this is because I read an article a few months back (will link it if I can find it) about how in Western societies there is a very strong emphasis on giving back to the country. Even people who are doing well generally volunteer on weekends for community service, etc. They have a very strong feeling of patriotism and an in built societal structure that makes them want to give back. Now I have never lived outside of India so I cannot say if the above is true or not but having lived in India all my life I have never seen anyone, any relative, friend, etc do any sort of community service ever (unless of course there is religious angle). So all in all we have a lot of people complaining but very few doing anything. I think every person who has completed college has the ability to make a difference but because the problem seems to be so "huge" nobody wants to do anything about it or is maybe waiting for others to lead them the way. The thing is you don't have to change everything, you only have to realize that anything you do no matter how big or small still makes a difference.
• supersan 14y ago
  I don't know how much truth there is in this from the foreigner's point of view, but a lot of us believe (me and a lot of my friends included) that a vast majority of tourists who come to India want to witness this very same upon coming here. It also fits one of the many reasons why the density of foreigners is maximum in areas like Pahar Ganj and Old delhi (the dirtiest parts of Delhi IMO). So when some "gora" (typically white people) complains that Delhi is so dirty the biggest wtf going on in my head is.. then why the hell are you staying near Pahar ganj or traveling by a cycle rickshaw in 42 deg near Nai Sadak. The place near the Airport is cleaner than New York ( at least after the common wealth games) but nobody wants to see that. Who wants to come here all the way to see some old glass building in neat and clean surroundings. What's unique about that right?
  • JonnieCache 14y ago
    I think it is valid to judge a society on how it treats its least fortunate. You are certainly unlikely to learn much about a country from its suburbs and its CBDs, they are (relatively speaking) alike the world over in my experience.
    • coastside_geek 14y ago
      Well, then why complain about it? When tourists come to US they may go to Disneyland, the Statue of Liberty etc. Most tourists don't take pictures of American ghettos, prisons etc. Why is it that when you guys go to other countries you constantly focus on why that country is somehow different in a bad way? India: too filthy and chaotic. China: no freedom. Middle East: too oppressive. I could go on. I've noticed that Europeans have a more nuanced approach to the world compared to Americans. They seem to appreciate differences instead of being smug in their superiority.
      • AaronI 14y ago
        I haven't met any fellow USians that _constantly_ do this. Then again, I guess that's the problem with making wide generalizations about an entire group of people.
• suprgeek 14y ago
  This is a fairly honest unflinching piece. A visit to India can induce severe "Cognitive Dissonance" in the unprepared. There is obscene display of super affluence right next to shocking Poverty. I see this every single day - A beggar & her naked child begging at the window of an Audi R8. The salesman in a high-end TV shop taking the bus to work. The Marriot main-gate where super high priced cars drive out to be greeted by a forest of beggars. Mumbai City simultaneously houses the most expensive residence in the world [1] and the largest slum in the world [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilia_%28building%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilia_%28building%29 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi and so on and so on... The leaders and the bureaucrats of the Govt. of India deserve to be shot in a public square for their sheer corruption and incompetence. They rob the country blind; feather their own nests and manage thru coercion to get elected (or posted to plum postings) over and over again.
  • JonnieCache 14y ago
    >The salesman in a high-end TV shop taking the bus to work. This one kinda sticks out of the list. That would happen in many metropolitan centers worldwide, its simply more convenient.
    • memset 14y ago
      This is basically what it is like commuting by bus in India: http://www.preetindersodhi.com/pictures/the-indian-bus/ http://www.preetindersodhi.com/pictures/the-indian-bus/ Imagine being crammed in during a 100-degree+ summer just to get to and from work every day. Oof. I live in NYC; we have a very tame definition of "taking the bus" as compared to India.
      • JonnieCache 14y ago
        Guess I was thinking more from a standpoint of the social status of taking public transport versus having your own car. But you're right, those considerations are irrelevant next to the aforementioned heat and overcrowding.
      • 14y ago
• sandGorgon 14y ago
  There was little else to do after nightfall in India but get drunk. hmm... OK http://www.buzzintown.com/delhi/events/category--nightlife/id--1419.html http://www.buzzintown.com/delhi/events/category--nightlife/i... http://delhi.burrp.com/events/Film+and+Theatre#3 http://delhi.burrp.com/events/Film+and+Theatre#3 an Indian will lie to your face ... they’ll hand you fake business cards and offer to sell you something that they don’t actually have, so that you’ll voluntarily empty your wallet to them on your own accord. As opposed to DecorMyEyes.. sure A couple Indians stopped him on the street, and with perfect English convinced him they worked for a travel agency. No shit. It's not like any Indian travel sites are listed on Nasdaq as MMYT right ? Everyone of the problems has happened to me in various parts of South East Asia. India is not unique with these issues. With all due respect, I think the author had a "Gautama" experience. An experience of extreme helplessness when confronted with extreme poverty at a national scale. I completely empathize with him, but lets not get too hysterical with helplessness here. It's hard to herd a billion people along... but we're trying.
  • briandear 14y ago
    It's hard to be sympathetic when walking through Paharganj in Delhi and have hundreds of con artists just outright lying and trying to scam well meaning tourists. I won't go back to India because of it. It's one thing to pay a guy to take pictures of you at Taj, it's another to have someone be helpful then demand a tip for it. China has a billion people too, but life there is far less horrid, dirty and bureaucratic. While the Chinese government is pretty deplorable, something is going right there, compared to India. Another problem with India is the mind-numbing Colonial-era bureaucracy -- to start a small business in India it takes months of paperwork just to get a business license. You have to get papers signed, resigned, rubber stamped by ten different offices and then pay crazy expensive bribes to everyone along the way. The problem is the government. It's an obsession with administivia at the expense of entrepreneurs.
    • sandGorgon 14y ago
      The comparison with china is, IMHO, pretty much apples to oranges. You are comparing industrialized portions of China with India's countryside (notwithstanding the forced removal of Beijing's slums for the Olympics http://olympics.scmp.com/Article.aspx?id=1419&section=insight http://olympics.scmp.com/Article.aspx?id=1419&section=in...). If you need to find fault with the slow pace of reforms, I give you democracy and cite US Health Reforms as an excuse - imagine if you had one billion rather than 300 million to work with. As India's MoS-Small Scale Industries' Sachin Pilot once put it - "inclusive development vs growth". Hoping that people will not cheat you at Bangkok's KhaoSan road is a bit too optimistic. Existence of ThornTree and Tripadvisor with their "Tourist Trap" sections is indeed because this is a human, not a regional phenomena. I'm sad that you wont go back to India because of it - I really wish you had not stayed at Paharganj, but instead stayed somewhere inside Delhi. I wish you had skipped Taj Mahal altogether and instead taken a walk to Hauz Khas Village, bang in the middle of New Delhi - which completely epitomises India's bohemian kitsch, shopping, food, music along with monuments that predate the Taj Mahal by atleast 300 years. Maybe you could have dropped in to have a cup of coffee at one of the cafe's there that operate on an honor system rather than a bill. Your tourist trap experience, colored the rest of your viewpoints and I'm truly sad at that.
• nullspace 14y ago
  Sorry about the long post. The post by the author stirred up a strong emotion from me. The author is right. It's an extremely honest account of the state of chaos that is India. There has been a culture of dishonesty that has grown over the last few decades, because that is the only way many people can afford to live middle-class lifestyles. If you take an auto-rickshaw or a taxi, the only thing that goes through the drivers head is, whether he can scam you for more money, and if so how. It's quite sad, because on one hand dishonesty is the norm, but on the other that's the only way he can feed his family, send his kids to school, take care of his ailing parents and drink away his miseries at night. The middle class ignore this because they know it's all a game with winners and losers (even if by pure chance). They would be better off trying to achieve a comfortable standard of living, than to try and reform India. But these people are often really honest, and as courteous as the average busy employee in nyc. Then you see the rich folks who live in walled gardens (literally and figuratively). They have comfortable lives and are protected from the stark realities by security guards whose sole job is to prevent beggars from entering places where they live. The police here do not have resources to work on most of the civil problems that happen here. On the plus side, they are less corrupt than what they were before, maybe because of the fear of irrelevancy. The politicians care more about the gold in their coffers, than to try and find ways to reform society. The authors' account, it seems, came from a person who expected India to be a basket of spirituality, but was then struck in the groin by reality. It's all well and good. That is the real India, unfortunately. Not the Ashrams or the Taj hotels or the private resorts. The situation is changing. The spending power of the middle class is increasing, along with the awareness that they are the ones who can and should start the change. The population needs to be decreased or the population densities should be more evenly spread. People living below the poverty line need to find some way to sustain themselves, and elevate themselves to a situation where they can think about tackling societal challenges. These are hard problems, and need capable minds to solve.
• powertower 14y ago
  I think I understand now why India has historically been the place that produced enlightenment, at a greater rate than other countries have.... Out of necessity. It's hard to live in an environment like that without witnessing the game of life (the suffering), and hopefully, existing out of it. And I don't mean the suffering of the poor, but also of the rich, the middle class, and everyone else there, that's a piece on the gameboard.
  • ankit28595 14y ago
    I would like to point out that the extreme poverty that India is known for today is pretty much a legacy of the British Raj. The 'enlightenment' you are talking about came much before that, when India was a much more peaceful and prosperous area. So the 'Out of necessity' argument you made is pointless.
    • tokenadult 14y ago
      I would like to point out that the extreme poverty that India is known for today is pretty much a legacy of the British Raj. Today (2012) is sixty-five years since the independence of India from British rule (1947). As an American, I have to agree with the general proposition that British colonial rule is not the best form of government, but as an observer of the great variety of former British colonies in the world that are now independent countries, I invite readers here to think about why some of those countries (including some that became independent more recently than India) are now prosperous and free. Perhaps there are details about life in India and policies of the independent government of India that kept India comparatively poor and backward even after India won independence. It's a backward-looking set of excuses to say "British rule was bad for us," as it may indeed have been, without also being curious about "How have other countries thrived since winning independence from Britain?" As far as the bad influence of colonialism goes, I think in general French or Spanish colonial rule have been even worse for most countries than British colonial rule. And it appears that one way harm was mediated to many places of the world by colonial rule is that socialism (especially hard-left socialism like Marxism) was transmitted to colonies by Western colonial officials, and then many countries pursued ineffective policies for national development for decades after independence, because they were stuck in socialist ideology for too long.
• photon137 14y ago
  The 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 "jugaad" all around him - people, in their struggle for survival, do all sorts of things. Lying is jugaad, dishonesty is jugaad, the Cobra is jugaad, the marijuana in tourist places is jugaad, the beggar's strategic location is jugaad, the dump-heap is jugaad (not all jugaads are meant to make society better as a whole). But maybe that's too naive. The most unfortunate in India are amongst the most fatalistic - they give up trying - after all, they never won the birth lottery by being born in Europe or the US, or even in a rich home in India - so why hope for social justice? Laws are meant to be broken in India, justice is meant not to be served (India is a study in legal arbitrage - it always has been). Life is meant to be tough in India, values are meant to eschewed. But even with all this, "jugaad" survives and serves its own brand of justice. The mistake most foreigners make in India is that they continue to believe in their ability to right the wrongs and make a change. A feeling of utter helplessness is very alien to them. It's coming to terms with that helplessness and digging out pockets of jugaad from that black mass of helplessness is what makes India tick.
  • baseh 14y ago
    Great comment. You have hit the nail on the head. One has to immerse oneself into the ocean of sweat, dirt and garbage to see the real india and what makes it tick. It is like swimming in an ocean of raw-sewage with a 1000 foot, 1000-headed serpent. >> The most unfortunate in India are amongst the most fatalistic - they give up trying. : This is again so true. Experienced first-hand with some of my relatives. You might be initially surprised at their mindset and the self-reasoning, but then you will realize its part of their coming to terms with life. If you consider the rain-forests of Amazon as an evolving experiment by nature, I consider the human-forests of India as an evolving experiment by nature as well.
    • darien 14y ago
      It has been explained to me that it is common for many indians to justify another person’s plight by believing that a condition of suffering is that person’s ‘karmic destiny.’ Therefore it would be ‘bad karma’ to help such a person.
• VMG 14y ago
  Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MOYIexE5qhAJ:postmasculine.com/a-dust-over-india+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MOYIexE...
• ashwinm 14y ago
  You haven't seen india fully,not even 10%. You cant blindly say the whole india is a shit hole. come to south india.It will be much better.
  • Arun2009 14y ago
    > It will be much better. I'm from Kerala - things may be slightly better here than say Bihar but not by a whole lot.
    • ashwinm 14y ago
      yes,me too from kerala. they will feel opposite if someone read this and visit here.
      • coolg54321 14y ago
        Salaam machu
        • deleted 14y ago
          [deleted]
    • ankit28595 14y ago
      Actually, there is strong feeling in at least in North India, that Kerala is where whole India should be. I am from Haryana and though Haryana is much more developed economically than Kerala, all my friends agree that Kerala is much better. And when comparing to Bihar, the state is way ahead. At least the statistics show that. Kerala has the cleanest railway stations, the best sex ratio, the most literate population, second least malnutrition (after Punjab).
      • nagarch 14y ago
        I have my friends who sits beside me.. he feels that lot of communal problems..
• vardhanw 14y ago
  Discussion on r/india http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/nmnzf/how_accurately_does_this_blog_post_describe_india/ http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/nmnzf/how_accurately_...
• abhisec 14y ago
  This is a well written article. I am an Indian based in US and biased but the fact is India is a young democracy. It has only been 20 years since economy was liberalized and middle class got jobs. The middle class grew and is at a point where we will see meaningful difference in social life. Once the tummy is full and people see that their basic necessity food is met, they start thinking about other things, like cleanliness, civil society and other comforts which they should have. India is a powerhouse of energy, we have entrepreneurs in every nook and corner and people have learnt how to survive and excel. We educate our kids and that is the biggest power a country can have, education eradicates all ills. If you look at states like Gujarat in India you will be surprised to find them cleaner and better maintained than any western city. Their are women who run dairy businesses which bring millions in revenue in Gujarat. What defeats India is its political class and miracles can be head if you have a government which can act. It will happen soon and the young entrepreneurs and startups in India will change the country. I love India.
• deleted 14y ago
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• grandalf 14y ago
  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. 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 the year and without planning and infrastructure to enable it, there would be very little food available during the winter. In the US the infrastructure is a requirement for even moderate population growth. 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. The result of this is that there are more poor people who do not rely as much on large scale planning and infrastructure for their basic survival. Yes India's government is corrupt, but not all that much more corrupt than the US government. 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. Basic infrastructure (roads, sewers) is lacking in India, but those are not easy projects to bootstrap. Bangalore has a massive sewer construction project going on now. 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. If you are concerned about India's political infrastructure, notice that India's rulers are forming alliances with the US to help thwart Pakistan's nuclear ambitions. Note that once the US has a stake in one ruling party it tends to do much to prop up and empower that party, even if there are horrible human rights consequences. When I go to India I notice the energy. People sit happily beneath a dirty tarp in a roadside food stand, enjoying Manchurian Gobi... sometimes 4 or 5 people sharing one bowl of the delicious spicy food. Smiles everywhere. These are extremely poor people. Also I notice the tiny businesses, some retail locations are only a few square feet in size but sell a variety of goods and are staffed by a single motivated shopkeeper who works 18+ hour days. India is full of hard working people and ingenuity. I found the author's generalizations about dishonesty, etc., quite offensive. Consider how much effort is undertaken in the US to hide poverty from view. 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. Consider how much effort is undertaken in the US to present the appearance of legit, non-corrupt institutions. Yet fraud abounds at all levels of government. The stuff Wikileaks exposed about the US is nothing more than fraud, dishonesty, and corruption.
• maddalab 14y ago
  Exaggerations 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 any of the smaller metros in India, you generally get thru immigration at Mumbai before taking a flight from the domestic terminal. Getting to the domestic terminal from the international terminal is cumbersome. You are escorted in a bus operated by the Airport Authority of India, accompanied by security personel. The aspect of the ride that is of interest is the route taken by the bus. The bus operated within the premises of the airport often running along side the tarmac and taxi way thru numerous and repeated security check-points while it meanders to or from the domestic terminal. This gives you the best view of the runways at ground level in slow speed often around 15 kmph and includes a section of the ride around the cargo terminals. Most international airlines operate to and out of Mumbai during the night often after 12 AM. I have taken this ride on at least 3 occasions and have not seen a single individual sleeping on the tarmac on even one occasion. What the author might be referring to could be the people you find in a semi sleep state around the terminal, more so near the cargo terminals. These are employees in the cargo section often on a break. The employees are usually uniformed and any one can observe the security batches hanging around their necks. You would then have to assume that the intent of the author is intentional mis-representation and sensationalism. Take everything written with a large serving of salt.
  • tmbsundar 14y ago
    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.
    • 14y ago
• shawnee_ 14y ago
  I 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. So I can definitely understand how tempting it can be to "do the math" and rationalize that giving X Rupees to random person will "help". But it's absolutely not a sustainable solution to the core and underlying problem, and might even be perpetuating it. 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.) This video can be hard to watch, but it's an interesting film about an organization called Rising Star Outreach ( http://www.risingstaroutreach.org http://www.risingstaroutreach.org ) that is working on helping of the "worst" of India's beggars, those who afflicted with Hansen's Disease (AKA Leprosy) http://byutv.org/watch/d0f942b2-6b4f-4923-9f88-7ad8fde4a01c http://byutv.org/watch/d0f942b2-6b4f-4923-9f88-7ad8fde4a01c Some interesting tidbits from the video: - "70 percent of the world's leprosy is in India." - "People with leprosy are treated as untouchables ... Every month, people from the leprosy colony travel to the city to beg. Once they have enough money to buy food and clothing for the month, they go back to the colony." - "Begging reduces people to their lowest level. The worse you look, the better you're going to be successful at begging." But the video has a somewhat happy ending: it is demonstrating a work in progress, and general proof that giving people a way to sustain themselves economically via microloans really does work. As far as the general population goes, India is an amazing country: resourceful, intelligent. But its biggest challenge will be its ability to cope with population growth.
  • jagira 14y ago
    >> 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 belief in hard work.
• jagira 14y ago
  I 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 weird place and to survive you need to live as Indians live. Some insights - a) Yes, we have highest number of beggars. But most of them are cheats. Most of them will walk away if you offer them a job instead of money or food. Also, a lot of them work for beggar mafias. b) They say that all of those 33 crore Hindu Gods, Buddha and Allah have left India ages ago. Religions are more customary than spiritual and Indians follow 'em just for the sake of customs. It's a common sight to see a young guy driving by a temple reciting a few shlokas while driving and offer a customary mini version of prayer. People who come to India on a spiritual tour make me laugh. If you think that you can attain enlightenment or get more spiritual by travelling thousands of miles and spending a couple of weeks at a 500$/night resort near Haridwar, then you need some serious help. c) Tourists buy "Indian" stuff that no Indian buys. The clutches or carpets or the wooden elephants are made specially for foreign tourists and are freakingly overpriced. The best way to buy Indian stuff, would be to go to regular markets with a local friend. d) Garbage is a big problem. Its in our nature to litter. Take an Indian to US or Australia and he will not spit or litter. While the same person might even pee on a street back in India. The only option is to live/stay in relatively cleaner localities. e) Drivers, hotel staff, guides, store keepers and public servants are dishonest because they are virtually unaccountable to anyone and the legal system ain't efficient enough to nab the dishonest. A "x" star restaurant can continue to function despite serving cockroaches or hair strands in their dishes. Apparently, identifying the trait of dishonesty is easier if you know the local lingo/culture. People know a lot of about American culture because of Hollywood and American sitcoms. I am not an expert in American culture, but I can identify whether a person is playing me. I can not do that in any other country (say Italy). Same logic applies to foreigners who visit India. You either need to know a few things about Indian culture beforehand or you need to spend some more time here.
  • crag 14y ago
    "I, as an Indian, will be utterly shocked if I visit a ghetto in downtown Detroit." Compared to what the OP described, a "ghetto" in old Detroit would be a paradise. Also, just to point out, don't talk trash about a town unless you've been there. Detroit is finally bringing itself out of the pit. Lots of new energy running around. It's on the rise. Maybe you should visit?
• nazgulnarsil 14y ago
  This is why I have trouble relating to my friends' problems. Oh someone at work got a bigger raise than you? Excuse me while I laugh in your face. I'm not too good at parties. I don't know how to compartmentalize. It also bugs me that talking about this seems like a status move when it generates negative things in my life.
  • guard-of-terra 14y ago
    A human is made for happiness the same way a bird is made for flight. If people don't feel happy because they are underappreciated or their social life is lacking, I don't think that should be mocked.
• ankit28595 14y ago
  Reading this article reminds me a story from "The Great Indian Novel" by Shashi Tharoor that explains the present state of Indians - "A man, ... a symbol, shall we say, of people of India -- is pursued by a tiger. He runs fast, but panting heart tells him he cannot run much longer. He sees a tree. Relief! He accelerates and gets to it in one last despairing stride. He climbs the tree. The tiger snarls below him, but he feels that he has at last escaped its snapping jaws. But no -- what's this? The branch on which he is sitting is weak, and bends dangerously. This is not all; wood-mice are gnawing away at it; before long they will eat through it and it will snap and fall. The branch sags down over a wall. Aha! Escape? Perhaps our hero can swim? But the well is dry, and there are snakes writhing and hissing on its bed. What is our hero to do? As the branch bends lower, he perceives a solitary blade of glass growing on the wall of the well.On the top of the blade of grass gleams a drop of honey. What action does our Puranic man, our quintessential Indian, take in this situation? He bends with the branch, and licks up the honey. " No matter how desperate the situation, Indians will always find a way to adjust, to live with it. So despite all the filth, over crowding, corruption, inefficiency, Indians have learnt how to live and enjoy.
  • therandomguy 14y ago
    "No matter how desperate the situation, Indians will always find a way to adjust, to live with it". Exactly. And this is NOT a good thing. Instead a putting up with all this they should be fighting back. That would be a good thing.
  • madrona 14y ago
    Sounds like a recipe for accruing the cultural or governmental equivalent of technical debt.
• nsns 14y ago
  I have spent years in India, and it's one of my favorite places on Earth. One thing I quickly discovered is how much Western visitors like to (ab)use their experiences to misconstrue a sense of superiority. Such a sense would immediately disappear, IMO, should they make an effort to overcome their own ignorance of the place. The piece reads almost like a self-conscious parody of this usual Western tirade against India.
• visava 14y ago
  http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/kmu/kmu03.htm http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/kmu/kmu03.htm
• braindead_in 14y ago
  I 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.
  • prawn 14y ago
    We marvel in that which is different? (Had never heard of Jantar Mantar before - only been to a few southern parts of India - thanks. Will put it on my To Do list!)
• jeisenberg 14y ago
  As 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.
  • vacri 14y ago
    What nonsense - he's constantly referring to his own cultural biases, including finishing on exactly that.
    • jeisenberg 14y ago
      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?
      • vacri 14y ago
        The reference to shutting out the congitive dissonance with his sunglasses and ipod is a tacit statement recognising that he is not of this place. If you don't see that in his writing, there's a lot in that essay you will have missed. A much clearer example of reporting on his own biases is when he reports on the email from his mother. How can there be no single sentence for India, and then GIVE A SINGLE SENTENCE FOR INDIA? Oh, for fuck's sake. You're choosing to be offended. He didn't give a single sentence, he wrote a four thousand word essay on it. An essay in which he covers a lot of variations in the parts of the culture he saw. Really, you're choosing to be offended. Why should he report on the colonialism of India in an essay about his personal experiences; why is the essay bereft of value because of that? And despite your claims that he doesn't talk about the political economy of tourism, he does do that in the essay. He talks of the spiritual tourism, and his experiences and opinions of it. Yeah, it's a fucking mess for a well-off Internet blogger. And traveller to 40 countries, so a fair bit more experienced in other cultures than most. You're committing exactly the same sins of omission as you're accusing him of making, in order to reframe your argument so that it benefits you.
• pwpwp 14y ago
  "[India's] not a pleasant place to be" What a stupid and close-minded thing to say.
  • modarts 14y ago
    Well..it isn't; which is the main reasons I moved from there in the first place.
• sneak 14y ago
  People 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.
• badclient 14y ago
  This is an uber linkbait article from a pickup instructor turned internet marketer. Nicely executed.
  • frasertimo 14y ago
    Employee of the site here. Just want to point out a few things. 1. The submitter of the article to HN has no affiliation with Postmasculine as far as I know, nor did we request them to post it here. We're very grateful for them doing so however! 2. While the author of the site was involved in the pickup industry for a while, he chose to no longer identify with that scene over two years ago, and specifically moved his content away from its perspective, even going so far as to systemically deconstruct the flaws and failures of Pickup theory and the community it created. So we don't feel that 'pickup' really represents what the site has to say about dating. Although we definitely do talk about meeting women. A lot. :) 3. While we're dedicated internet marketing students, we're far from experts on the subject. We're putting a lot of time and effort into improving the site's marketing, but our number one focus will always be on providing high quality content that is as no BS and realistic as possible. Hopefully anyone who came from HN and spends further time reading the site will agree. I realize your comment wasn't a criticism, but just thought I'd try and give a bit more context to the situation. Thanks for assuming we were so professional!
    • badclient 14y ago
      Fair points, mostly. I would say that it is a new trend for pick-up instructors to distance themselves from the pick-up industry mostly for marketing purposes. I think it's mostly semantics and at the end of the day, you're just fearing the phrase "pickup industries" focuses too much on the negative and not enough about the positives. On the otherhand, as someone who's spent fair bit of time observing pickup companies, I will say that your marketing page seems very reasonable and not full of false promises common on most PU sites.
      • frasertimo 14y ago
        Definitely agree that it was and still is a trend. I won't claim we were the first to distance ourselves, but I think we were the best! Our POV on what defines 'pickup' advice versus regular dating advice is that 'pickup' is the decision to objectify your sex life in order to improve it. We don't believe that this is a healthy or effective mindset, hence we don't define our material as 'pickup'. Honestly, I think if you read some more of the site, for example http://postmasculine.com/why-its-so-hard http://postmasculine.com/why-its-so-hard or especially http://postmasculine.com/pickup-artist http://postmasculine.com/pickup-artist (warning: long) you'd come to the conclusion that we're a far shot from what most people associate pickup with. But it's up to you whether you want to spend the time :)
• kang 14y ago
  Rich. No other adjectives can convincingly describe the plethora that is India. It is an experience that will kill you, and leave you discovering life – discovering you. Take your senses on a ride with its varied geographies that will raise you - with the tranquility to numb your thoughts - above the highest Himalayas and send you dipping to the complex of seas - angry some and transparent the others – not before it coats a layer of earth with the never ending plains on your humility and etches the burns of beauty on its deserts delving into the east so green as though you have travelled through the womb of nature. And all that changes the way your body smells, your senses perceive, your brain thinks. The sheer variety of a cocktail of experiences that is shoved towards you – from the dead stone caves of the Deccan to the fragrances of spice bazaars fighting among themselves, from the historical makeup of its traditions to the coexistence of its diversity layered with the shine of modernity all glued together by the religious cores of its life, from chaotic noises of it populated cities to places pure virgin, unexplored, from the finest of luxuries that the world has to offer to the free meals of a temple, from the complexity of languages to the simplicity of the hearts of its people – jostles your entire being. You learn that taste of food is not by its ingredients but by the hand that cooks it, that vivacity of culture is not in the art but in the artist that practices it, that the law of the land in not by civilization but by the embedded civilization, that modernity is not evolved from the old but that new is just a function of time and that time has varying speeds & that it can even stand still or fly by - that relationships do not necessarily need people to know each other. You may spend all your money but might not be able even cover India’s peripheries or you may travel all of India for almost no money. You may be astonished by the dynamics of families; be warned - strangers may seem too eager to help. You may follow the trails of most ancient of religions or you may stroll through shiny city culture. India doesn’t need a preparation. Indian accepts you as you are. Sometimes India will scare you. Sometimes India will confuse you. Sometimes it will demand patience and sometimes it will test your sense-of-humor. Other times, all of it would get so overwhelming that you would want it all to just stop. And yet there will be times when you will let the experience flow through you. Most people come to India in search of peace, some inner philosophy or finding religion. You will be escorted to the most tranquilizing places on this planet, to the most psychedelic aura that the nature has to offer and to the most comprehensive of eastern philosophies. But that will not quench you. And then, in the busiest of the moments, amongst the crowded of places, you may discover ‘it’. Leaving India, it may not be certain that you will have your answers but it can be assured that you will be at peace – with yourself. Incredible. Absolutely unforgettable.
• northernswagger 14y ago
  I spent 3 weeks in India in February and have a totally different viewpoint. Amazing people, true hope at the prosperous future and an incredible will. All about seeing the glass half empty or half full
• ravivyas 14y ago
  I have not read the article yet but I am saddened by the fact that the discussion , yet again,has become a US vs Them discussion. Getting mugged in Detroit does not justify any behavior here in India. Just because the US has poor people does not mean we can too. The problem with Indians is we will say "I am proud to be a Indian" one moment and litter the next. We believe we are perfect thus do not work to achieve more. Yes as Individuals we would have done a lot for the country but we as a people need to be more patriotic and literally uplift the nation.
• frasertimo 14y ago
  Hey 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/excited5.gif http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/excit... Anyway, I mainly wanted to ask what people thought of the site apart from that article. Did you read anything else and did you like it or dislike it? If so, what articles did you read? Thanks!
  • rahoulb 14y ago
    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!
  • modarts 14y ago
    Pretty good site, and the content is refreshingly devoid of the PUA type garbage you'll read on askmen
    • frasertimo 14y ago
      Thanks. One of our unofficial goals is to not be an Askmen ripoff with better writing. I enjoy reading Askmen articles once in a while, especially when I need something very specific and practical like how to tie a bow tie, or when I want to waste some time on a 'top 10 hottest chicks in surrealist Angolian horror films' list or something equally mindless. But we're aiming to go a little deeper than that :) Any more feedback, negative or positive is much appreciated.
  • chunkbot 14y ago
    I really enjoyed the article. I was already familiar with Mark Manson and the "pickup" scene, so imagine my surprise when I saw the http://postmasculine.com http://postmasculine.com link on the front page of Hacker News. I highly recommend the book Models by Mark Manson [1] if you're a man at all interested in being more attractive to women. [1] - http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1463750358 http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1463750358
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• cs702 14y ago
  This brings to mind New York City's horse-manure health crisis in the late 1800's (even though that crisis wasn't directly comparable to this one). Back then, according to the New York Times, there were up to 200,000 horses living in the city, each one generating between up to 30 pounds of manure a day, for a total of up to 6 million pounds of fresh horseshit every day. It just piled up, attracting huge numbers of flies and posing a serious challenge to the city's Sanitation Department. The whole city reeked of it.[1] [1] http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/when-horses-posed-a-public-health-hazard/ http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/when-horses-pos...
  • cstross 14y ago
    It's also worth noting the correlation between the reduction in urban horses and the reduction in human cases of tuberculosis. TB killed up to 25% of the urban poor in the late 19th century; infective vectors included infected milk (from bovine infection reservoirs), poor living conditions that enforced proximity to TB sufferers, and proximity to TB-infected livestock -- of which horses would have been the main reservoir in urban areas.
• erikpukinskis 14y ago
  People should be aware that this: He said Indians will rarely, if ever, resort to violence. As a foreigner, you never have to worry about being robbed, or having a knife pulled on you, or getting beaten up by a gang of thugs and having your kidney carved out of you. And this is true. Is not true. It would possibly be true if he changed it to read "As a foreign man.." A female friend of mine just returned from six weeks in India a few weeks ago. I'm fairly certain that if Sanjay had met her, travelling alone as OP was, he would've told a very different story. He would've said, as my friend heard from Indians over and over, "Leave. Now. Get on a plane and go back to the U.S. You are not safe here." She was lucky, and only suffered gropings, attempted kidnapping, and attempted break-ins to her hotel room. But violence against foreign women is on the rise in India. The U.S. Bureau of Consolate Affairs cautions women not to travel to India alone[1]. And "alone" in this case means "in a party without men". Of course, none of this would be visible to you as a foreign man... you just get treated completely differently. But it's dangerous to spread the idea that women can just go to India and "not have to worry" about violence. [1] http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1139.html http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1139.html
  • swamy_g 14y ago
    I just heard from a friend that her friend also stayed in India for 6 weeks and suffered exactly the same. Is that person you're talking about from Berkeley any chance? Could be a weird co-incidence.
• sateesh 14y ago
  The problem he outlines about India are real and are serious ones. But the article is a shallow one and the author makes grand sweeps of imagination to make some crass generalizations. Consider a few of these: Indian culture itself is quite disorienting. The people can be incredibly warm and hospitable, or cold and rude depending on the context and how they know you. The conclusion I eventually came to is that if they already know you, or if they’re somehow benefiting from you, then they can be incredibly warm and open people. But if they don’t know you, or if they’re trying to get something out of you, then they are a prickly, conniving bunch. 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. But what Sanjay told me about Indian people is bizarre but true. He said Indians will rarely, if ever, resort to violence. As a foreigner, you never have to worry about being robbed, or having a knife pulled on you, or getting beaten up by a gang of thugs and having your kidney carved out of you. And this is true. Except that it isn't. Cases of foreign tourists being robbed,threatened at knife point, mugged aren't rare. As a tourist one has to exercise caution in India as much one would do in any other country as a tourist. BUT, Sanjay said, an Indian will lie to your face. He’ll say anything to get what he wants from you. And most of them don’t see it as immoral or wrong. So on the one hand, they won’t stick a gun in your face to take your wallet. But they’ll hand you fake business cards and offer to sell you something that they don’t actually have, so that you’ll voluntarily empty your wallet to them on your own accord. Won't any conman from any part of the world operate the same way ? The author is stereotyping just because his Indian friend told it to be so.
  • therandomguy 14y ago
    "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.
    • jhatax 14y ago
      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 of the bankers. How can you discount the eBay hood-winking, the mortgage crisis, medicare/Medicaid scams, identity theft, browser-cookie based tracking, etc. that all originated in the very United States of America that you consider so virtuous? Is profit not the motivation behind all of these immoral activities? Please, get off your holier than thou perch and see the world for what it is: Everyone that owns a business is out to make a profit. Even the small business man inside of you that is looking for the best deal regardless of the impact it has on the business you are under-cutting. Once you see this reality, you will also realize that there has always been, and will always be, a tug of war between a consumer and a producer/supplier/business-owner. Except of course if you are dealing with a not-for-profit.
• srean 14y ago
  It 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 the statement is not true. To get a truer picture of India, always keep that in mind. A part of the variance is not only spatial but also temporal. Depending on the time you choose to travel, your impression of Mumbai's city train system can be poles apart. In the post it was claimed that author felt safe in India. That automatically gave the author's gender away, especially given the names of the places he visited. India's capital and most of the north and western states (Gujarat excluded) are highly unsafe if you are a girl and alone. Even the locals will not venture out in the evening unaccompanied by the opposite sex. Sexual violence and molestation is a daily affair. It is even ethnically targeted. If you are a girl from the north-east, India's capital is not a friendly place. On the other hand visit Chennai, Mumbai, Pune (by no means an exhaustive list) nobody will give it a second thought if an unattended girl has to travel in the wee hours of the night, even if wearing a mini fortune in jewelery. Every so often in 7 years a north/west/central region of it will erupt in politically motivated inter-religion violence and riots of the worst kind. There would be thousands dead, injured, burned and raped (yeah, I am not making this up), but no one will get punished. On the other hand states like Kerala, West Bengal havent had such violence ever since the creation of independent India. But measure them along the axis of economic growth, the latter will come up in very unflattering colors. In certain regions of India, you will find bribes to be business as usual. In the south, (barring Karnataka) that is certainly not the norm. Sometimes the differences are so great that sometimes when you hear the stories from the other side you cannot help but wonder, "is it the same country !" Some cities are poster-children of bad traffic, some are pretty decent compared to Indian average. In some cities the form of the garbage disposal is that you throw it on the street, whereas in others you will have regular system that collects it off the dumpsters and empties it on the landfills. Furthermore it is not correlated with the perceived wealth of a city or town. Some of the poorer ones are cleaner and more organized. Most of India is male-dominated and patriarchal whereas the north-eastern states are matriarchal. In many states it is still customary for the girl's family to pay huge amounts in dowry, and a matter of peer pride for the boy's family, whereas in many parts, (kerala, west bengal) dowry is frowned upon. It is not completely absent but when such a transaction does take place, it is sneaked in different ways and peer pressure works against it. In the northern and western states girl child foeticide is rampant, not so in the other states. Lastly: Corruption is practiced differently in India and US. In US there is this revolving door between corporations and the govt that legitimizes corruption, whereas in India it is closer to cash under the table. Not claiming that one is better or worse than the other, just making an observation about how it is practiced.
• cvrajeesh 14y ago
  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.
• boltenderus 14y ago
  being 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!
• raphinou 14y ago
  Interesting. One note though: I wouldn't put Bill Gates and Lady Diana in the same league as Mother Theresa.
• MyNewAccount99 14y ago
  why the hell did OP post this old ass december 2011 article to HN?
• pattisapu 14y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book)
• therandomguy 14y ago
  I grew up in one of the biggest cities in India. If I was as good with words, this is exactly what I would write. Or maybe I wouldn't. The problem in discussing these issues with most Indians is that they quickly become defensive. Instead of acknowledging the facts (which is the fist step to finding a solution), the typical response you would receive is, "even in US there is poverty/crime/corruption... you are being hypocritical and should fuck off". I'm sure we will see a lot of it in this thread.
  • vacri 14y ago
    Pretty much any nation with a modicum of pride in their populace will have people getting defensive if a foreigner criticises their nation. I can't think of many first-world nations where I haven't seen symptoms of this.
    • therandomguy 14y ago
      Yup. Ignorance and arrogance masked as pride.
  • alina24 14y ago
    You would lump the entire country being a "fucking mess"?
• tlogan 14y ago
  Yes - the most horrendous thing about India is take-your-breath-away poverty. Kid are dying of hunger poverty. That is the only thing which I really really don't like about India. It just seems wrong - very very wrong. Especially because it seems like there is enough money around to help these people. All other things are ok and you can see in other countries - traffic is terrible, corruption, trash, ethnic violence, etc.
• ChrisNorstrom 14y ago
  Oh Jesus Christ... Not another one of these posts. Guys, why do you write posts like this knowing the end result? Someone brings to light an obvious flaw in someone else's country, people from that country feel like it's a direct attack on them and come up with bullshit excuses, the bullshit annoys people and the whole conversation spirals into denials, "I'm not in denial"s, "what about your _____"s, and "that's not the same as ______"s being thrown back and forth. Person A: Your country is shitty! Person B: You don't understand us! Person A: You're in denial. Person B: What about your country? Person A: At least we don't _______! Person B: That's not the same as _______! This is the worst way to criticize someone's country/behavoir/business. It's all logic, no emotion, and humans do NOT respond well to it. When criticizing some else's country always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS include an equal list of good and bad otherwise it feels like an attack on that person's homeland. The whole point of criticizing someone is to help them see their flaws (which they've normalized to and are oblivious to) and get better, but they can't get better when they aren't listening to you, and they aren't going to listen to you if they feel you are attacking them, they will attack back.
  • moron 14y ago
    This isn't a criticism of India. People are reacting that way because they read a few paragraphs and came here to comment because what they read wasn't nice. It's much more balanced than it's being given credit for, because it has the audacity to be honest about things like the fact that a lot of people in India are dirty. Let alone whether there actually are a lot of dirty people, people here are more interested in expressing their indignance. But as I say, it is more balanced than it appears. For example, the story about being hustled at the rug shop -- the author later notes that his mother did indeed get the rug. For example, the story about flipping out at the cab driver over a few dollars. There is no love here for the idiot Westerners traveling to India to experience "spiritual enlightenment". But commenters don't want to respect his honesty. Just trot out the same old tired accusations of ignorance and cultural arrogance. Oh well.
  • lenkite 14y ago
    I think you are doing the Indian readership of HN a mild dis-service here. Most here acknowledge the issues raised by the Author. We do feel hurt by his conclusion, summed up as: "The whole country sucks", but well..things are what they are. As several readers have already stated, institutionalized corruption is the bane of India today and no visible improvement is possible unless we tackle and eliminate this first. But the political class and bureaucracy would never allow this to happen. Our "Lokpal" bill - the anti-corruption bill that that was fought for by a popular activist with a hunger strike has now been in-definitely postponed by the current coalition government. Due to a series of elementary media-mismanagement blunders, the activist team lost the massive support they initially had and the political class were quick and clever to capitalize on these mistakes, perform character assassination, and sucessfully shoot down the Lokpal bill along with it. Most people I know are highly upset at this - many have even lost hope and given up change as a lost cause in India. We had the whole of India massively mobilized and firmly behind an anti-corruption drive for some months before the activist team got a 'god' complex and attempted to re-direct this support into their personal, pet agendas - one guy on his Kashmir stance, another on his anti-alcoholic drive, another attempting to re-direct funds into his pet charity, etc. They broke one fundamental rule of politics: never give your political opponents juicy targets to shoot ammunition at. In politics, if you are going against the norm, you are going to be heavily scrutinized. You need to be lily-white if you want a chance to change things with people power. The Indian middle class were dismayed at several of these relevations and though people could swallow some of them, it become too much to eventually swallow and the movement lost enough steam that the politicians and bureaucracy have now put this bill indefinitely on the backburner - possibly never to see the light again. The LokPal bill was something originally raised in the 1960's btw. I no longer believe that it is possible to affect any meaningful and lasting change in Indian society without revolution - which would lead to its own separate set of problems. Sure, you can donate a few years to charity and helping NGO's will will do some trickle of good - a few scattered moments of goodness in the vast, apathetic darkness and that's about the limit.
• geekin 14y ago
  Let me summarize the problems of India in my very limited capacity. 1. India is a very very old civilization. Hence, there are way too many ideologies, religions, castes etc in the way of a focused progressive thinking. 2. India ceased to be offensive long back - history is very clear about what usually happens with a non-offensive civilization - they get captured, robbed, systematically destroyed. It took 600 years to rob India from Moghuls to the British. In this very long process of invasions and slavery, something very critical to human survival broke down completely. We Indians do not care of our own well-being. We are happy with getting away with minimal suffering. We just do not care. 3. As India spent most of the modern time in slavery, India became fatalist - none of our actions are relevant - finally the destiny/wish of God/karma takes over. So, we do not care about our actions. There is no causality. 4. Post independence from the British, India fell into the hands of a very corrupt political system. Please understand this, to survive in power the Governments in India need poor people. How can you govern and control 1.2 billion people? - by keeping them in abject poverty. This is a very simple mechanism (read Orwell's 1984) proven and tested the world over. 5. India has a class of enterpreneurial people. They make money for themselves and help their own. India has no sense of public distribution of wealth or enterpreneurship. An Indian will NOT help a man living in his own street if the other guy is from a different caste/religion/etc. 6. Poverty is the worst form of violence - but India has no plans to eradicate poverty. Politics is usually the tool for the rougue to make quick money and loads of it and as I mentioned earlier, poverty is necessary for the political class to survive. I have 100 other points - perhaps I will write a blog about it and share with you people. This article talks about something that hurts me a lot on personal level - trust me, every Indian has tried atleast once to change things around him. Most have failed. Even Gandhi failed miserably - he never got the India he dreamed of.
• mayanksinghal 14y ago
  As an Indian who has lived in North India for the entire 23 years of his existence, I can say that every single word that the author has reported is true, except one. It is not safe to roam about in wee hours not even for men. Except may be in Mumbai and a few more cities. I would advice any other visits against it. Oh and people who have praised the word 'jugaad', in most cases it is a illegal-immoral solution. I hate it when people glorify the act. It is a reality and it is present everywhere in India - but I hope that we grow out of it. You can divide the country into three parts: (A) The Powerful (who are always rich) (B) The not-so-rich and not-so-powerful (C) The poor and powerless. People of class (A) are leaders, businessmen and politicians who are also lawmakers. Class (B) is the middle to high income families who think political dialogue is a stinking business to be a part of. Class (C) is the overwhelming majority who vote and get paid for it - either directly or through improper political practices from caste/region/religion based arguments. We have a huge population with few resources. We don't have enough fuel to dump our waste, not even enough ground to dump them on. We have very high unemployment and low literacy. Even the education system that we have is largely of very low quality. Cross Border Terrorism that is so not a daily part of western life is now too boring to be covered on Indian television. North India is so accustomed to it that people have even stopped demanding action - we don't think our government can take any. We also face Naxalism [1], a reality that a lot of us don't understand as it is largely based in Southern/Eastern India. We regularly see large scale corruption ($1B+), as frequently as once every year. The culprits come back to power in a few years (An example: [2]). And people vote for them, because there is no better choice. This is unlike say USA when similar things would have been ends of political career for people involved. BUT, please stop commenting on India as a comparison to the US and the rest of the western world. We get it, you have cleaner cities, healthier people, lesser discrimination and no unhappiness. We know it well, we live by it every day. These commentaries just seem unnecessary. We are innately handicapped in the race of development. We have started off late [3]. We have started off behind [4]. It is also very arrogant to impose your morality to the ancestors of others [5] as even if they may agree to what you say, they cannot comment on the situation in the previous era as they are unaware of the context themselves. It is very rude to use it as an argument against the present. And let's make it clear. India is no more spiritual than any other country on earth. We just have a lot more temples and monasteries than most places. And they are also old and diverse. These exact things that attracts most westerners to India - the ancientness and the abundance, are also very closely related to what westerners hate about India. You cannot have orthodox, untainted and non-commercialized establishments without the perils of unorganized, corrupt and ill-managed institutes. Remove both, and you have a country that is working just as vigorously towards modern (and very western) ideologies and standards of living. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fodder_Scam [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Independence [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj#Economic_impact [5] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4214998 [Sec: Sati]
• natep 14y ago
  I double checked, and according to Wikipedia, he's right. The homicide rate is 3.2/100,000/year for the most recent year with data, compared to 5.0 for US. Although many countries do have lower rates, India is nowhere near the more violent South American and African countries, which are the worst. There's so much more in this article to process, I don't think I'll post a reaction until I've had time to mull it over (at which point, this post will be dead, oh well). It did strike me that my cousin has been in India for the last few weeks, and hasn't mentioned the poverty once in her travel blog. I think I'll send this to her and see if she has anything to say. Also, am I the only one that finds it weird that a piece with this level of nuance is on a site otherwise dedicated to dating advice for straight, cis men? The kind of advice that divides behaviors into 'needy' and 'not needy' and claims that your behavior will determine what kind of woman you end up with?
• avstraliitski 14y ago
  "My mind’s eye could just see The Buddha face-palming". Haha! Such a great turn of phrase! Honestly, everything in this article makes sense. I've also had these same experiences. Not sure I'd write about it though - particularly since India is such a nebulous topic, hippies come in all flavors, and whatnot .. but an enjoyable read. Next up: China.
• stevewilhelm 14y ago
  If you found this interesting, you might want to read "The White Tiger: A Novel" by Aravind Adiga.
• j45 14y ago
  India doesn't just have the best and worst of humanity in it. India puts a real mirror to you on what you think you know. We live in a bubble. Trying to change our world with startups is quite different than trying to change the conditions 1 billion people live in. The spectrum of good and bad in first world societies isn't as side as third world country. It's maybe why the good isn't good enough in our lives. Anything we experience in a foreign land as being shockingly bad, or good, can show how out of touch we are with humanity, and our own humanity. This begs a deeper issue. Everyone likes looking outward, trying to understand the world, not themselves. We don't like righting with how little we actually know, or, more importantly do. This article in many ways mirrors my experience of India. It's real. Sorry the education from TV makes it a bit shocking. That's what happens when we take someone's word on how good things are in another part of the world. There's a reason people want to leave and get out. Are Americans and Canadians desperate to leave? This 0-star India is the majority's India. Not the 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 star India we can buy and hide in while visiting pretending to take in the foreign eat pray love exoticness of it all. They say you can tell the true state of a country by the numbers + health of their poorest. Similar experiences exist in other countries too. The money at the top does not find it's way down. The rich build themselves skyscrapers to live in so they don't have to deal with anything beyond their 4 walls. When the majority is not enjoying the advanced civilization, is it advanced, or civilized? These are two good questions and ones worth not shying away from. They only provide us with more understanding of ourselves, and with dots connected, more determination to go make your startup fly. If we can't buy our self-worth and esteem from commodities, brands, and experiences, how can we judge anyone who's in such a harsh place of life not to improve their own life? Herein lies the quagmire of duality. India suffers. From the shadow of it's dark past of brutal oppression of the masses by Indians themselves -- the masses were forbidden from education, learning trades, defending themselves from invaders and left to a life of subservience and suffering. This has carried through far too many generations, over 600 years. Still I hope is humanity can find some way to correct itself by the harshness of the original 1% in India. If you go there, or anywhere, find your one corner of someone else's universe to make a dent in, whether it's a school for orphaned girls in India, or helping a homeless person in our own towns that everyone else sees as invisible and shower animals with more care. The hunger in someone's eyes is no different than mine when I have to drop what I'm doing and find some food. When we give up on humanity towards others, we give up on our own too a little, and feed the monster ourselves. The moment we dare to take a minute to make strangers into real people, we become more human.
• lcusack 14y ago
  I'm searching for the tl;dr?
  • prawn 14y ago
    "India has some problems." To be honest, if you care to read more than that, you might get more insight from reading some of the longer HN comments instead (from those who live in India, but recognise these problems).
• PaulHoule 14y ago
  awesome article some of my best friends come from India. it's an interesting place.
• akandiah 14y ago
  The problem that India faces are summed up quite nicely in towards the end: Obviously, I’m no Mother Teresa. And it’s just as well, Mother Teresa couldn’t save this society from itself. Sometimes human systems become so large that they hurt people, not by design, but by inertia. And it’s beyond any of our ability to grasp, let alone control.
• coastside_geek 14y ago
  Interesting responses. I urge fellow Indians to check out theuglyindian.com. A bunch of guys (some are friends of friends) have got together to make an impact. These little grass roots efforts are working. Lets participate and clean things up.
• _debug_ 14y ago
  As an Indian, I'd like to put in a word about spirituality and "seeking" : getting trapped by the spiritual tourism hawkers is the worst way to go about it. Please do not just land up and ask, "So where is the latest and greatest ashram?". You'll probably get scammed, or worse, physically or mentally abused. Do not underestimate the charisma and level of brainwashing techniques that fake gurus are capable of. Even level-headed people can be made to "give up this wretched materiality" (i.e., write away their property to the ashram) after a few sessions of strange chemicals in your food, and some effective brainwashing / hypnotic sessions. Before coming to India, please have an exact idea of the particular person / people (guru, gurus, enlightened people, etc;) you are going to meet, what you seek from them, etc; Please spend time researching the person you want to meet on the Internet, YouTube, etc; Please try to have Indian friends, or just register with someone who will check up on you regularly (ideally a local, or at least by phone) who can help as an emergency contact in case of any disaster (malaria, hypnotised by the scammer-guru, etc;). It is a sad fact that this country has some gems of philosophers, but is equally filled with scammers and worse. Lastly, a personal opinion : just read Jiddu Krishnamurthi and think for yourself, you don't need a harrowing India trip! :-)
  • aangjie 14y ago
    I would also recommend a quick read of http://www.amazon.com/Karma-Cola-Marketing-Mystic-East/dp/0679754334/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341848365&sr=8-1&keywords=karma+cola http://www.amazon.com/Karma-Cola-Marketing-Mystic-East/dp/06.... It'll give you a perhaps old, but still relevant list of signs to watch out for.
• gshakir 14y ago
  This article is too close to home. I am in Chennai now (South India) and I see the sights mentioned in the article every day. Heck!, I got people sleeping on the streets right outside my parent's house doorstep. In the last 10 years or so, with new airports, 4 lane highways, new shopping malls and numerous kinds of cars, all these has made ZERO impact on poverty!.
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• jimgardener 14y ago
  As someone who lived in south India for about 40 years, I can tell you that spiritual tourism is a good source of money.There are too many godmen and godwomen (some of them hugs people and some more sophisticated ones speak in the U.N... You will not find true Gurus here.True Gurus don't sell their wares in shops). What you mentioned about dirty garbage strewn over the streets is true in most Indian cities and towns.If you wake up early enough,you will find women sweeping the area around their houses.They will not give a second thought before dumping that swill on the street.The same people will complain loudly about the local authourities not doing enough to reduce the garbage problem. Travel to Kochi by road.It is one of the fast developing cities in Kerala.Coming from Trissur side,the first thing you will notice is the huge dumps(about 3-4 mtrs high) of garbage on both sides. The people living in that area are definite candidates for cancer.I wouldn't wonder if another Plague epidemic happens in the near future.
• bhntr3 14y ago
  This is a very accurate portrayal of the hard parts of traveling as a backpacker in India. I'm not sure it's a totally accurate portrayal of India itself. I spent six months backpacking around India. A lot of what he said in the article resonated with me, especially eventually losing it about a few dollars with a taxi driver, hands shaking with anger over $4. The thing the author doesn't mention is that being a traveler affects what you see and who you meet. There are places you go as a backpacker: Agra, Rajasthan, Bodhgaya, Goa, Bangalore and so on. And there are people there looking for you, expecting you, or at least someone like you. If you only speak to people who approach you, then you will meet a lot of dishonest people. Things tend to look pretty rough from the banana pancake store. This is true in any poor country that gets a lot of wealthy tourists. Most of what he said was true in East Africa too. It's really true of anywhere you can get that damn banana pancake. So, I don't disagree. It was spot on. But it's also possible that the 100% accurate description of what a backpacker sees in India is not an accurate description of India itself. Also, I'm not advocating "getting off the beaten path" or trying to critique the "authenticity" of his "Indian experience". I hate that shit. But there is a bit of an Uncertainty Principle to backpacking. In my experience, you can't both travel a country cheaply and observe it objectively at the same time.
• schiptsov 14y ago
  look at this post carefully - this is an example of the mix of a limited intelligence, fixed perspective along with narcissism and ambitions. Call it The (very) Common Man.
• donpark 14y ago
  Ironic that a follower of Buddha's path saw and felt exactly what Buddha saw and felt thousands of years ago yet failed to recognize it. More ironic is how Buddha's lifeboat for the poor and hungry turned out to be intellectual's tool for enlightenment.
• spiredigital 14y ago
  I spent three weeks in India last year teaching in a slum school, and this is the most candid and accurate description of the country I've read yet. Well done. I think some people are afraid to really be honest at the risk of being politically incorrect, and I appreciate the author's honesty. I had the same reaction the OP did when I saw so many living side-by-side with the impoverished - especially children - and being so callused. But the reality is that poverty is everywhere in India, and because it's a way of live, people simply adjust. But it doesn't make it any less sad. It's sad to see full-grown, gaunt men struggling to pedal their rickshaw in flip-flops over washboard roads for pennies. But it's devastating seeing small children who are really, truly famished. We would buy food for hungry children whenever we could, and often they would stare at us blankly at first. They'd accept the food, but would have no reaction. I figured they simply didn't appreciate it or couldn't muster a reaction. But then I started watching them after we left. And after they realized they weren't being had - and we really were giving them food with no strings attached - they were transformed. I looked back at one begging child to see him absolutely gleeful, grinning from ear to ear. Another child who I gave some candy and bit of money ran after our departing rickshaw - while holding his 1 year old sister - waving, smiling and dancing with joy. It almost most made me cry. But I didn't cry, not until the night before we left. After three weeks in India, I was ready to to leave. But at the same time, I felt almost guilty that I was able to return to such a country of prosperity and wealth while the children I'd taught would simply stay behind. And while my wife and I had worked our ass off for 2 weeks to improve the school, the curriculum and the educational prospects for the kids, ultimately our effort wasn't going to move the needle, and few if any would ever leave the slums. They had almost no shot at making a life for themselves. With all these emotions stirring in my mind, my wife held me as I cried. If you're living in the U.S. or any Western country, you are incredibly blessed / lucky. Don't take it for granted. If you haven't been to India, it's a trip that will forever change your perspective. Before leaving for India, I simply lived in a home. But I returned with the knowledge that I live in a luxurious castle.
• gingerjoos 14y ago
  By being a foreigner and by travelling to touristy places the author is immediately in the high risk category. There are a lot of people trying to fleece tourists, especially foreigners. This colors some of his prespective, for eg. >But with only a couple hundred dollars lost, I got away fairly unscathed..
• shellehs 14y ago
  after read this article, I wish I'd better never go to India from now then.
• jessedhillon 14y ago
  Why is this being upvoted and still on the front page? In addition to being totally irrelevant to the site guidelines: the guy goes to India, visits all the tourist hotspots, and eats at Pizza Hut. While traveling. In India. Without accepting or denying any of the observations he makes, and at the risk of sounding like I "lack perspective," I humbly offer that if you travel halfway around the world and still eat at an American chain restaurant, your judgment of foreign culture is irrelevant.
  • JabavuAdams 14y ago
    > I humbly offer that if you travel halfway around the world and still eat at an American chain restaurant, your judgment of foreign culture is irrelevant. Nonsense. For all we know, he ate there once. Homesickness is a common experience for travellers in a very different culture.
    • jessedhillon 14y ago
      The idea that Mr. Manson's heart is brought back home by a visit to Pizza Hut is even more damning to his credibility! But seriously, he sounds like another lazy, judgmental tourist.
      • JabavuAdams 14y ago
        What would convince you that this is not true? I remember going to McDonalds when I was traveling in Spain and feeling homesick and annoyed that everyone was on siesta. I guess I'm just a bad tourist?
        • jessedhillon 14y ago
          Tourism != traveling Tourists should keep their judgments to themselves. Traveling is about immersing yourself in the local culture, tourism is about observing it from a safe distance -- i.e. touring. Making deep conclusions about the people of another culture while traveling around in hotels, eating at Pizza Hut (okay, just once!) and hopping around between tourist attractions and ashrams designed specifically to attract white people is like me trying to figure out if you would beat your wife, just by looking at your face. There is no correlation.
• neel8986 14y ago
  I am from India..Things that have been described is absolutely true. But do you know one thing. The actual situation is worse. The beggars author is talking about actually represts only indian middle class!!.. yes they fall in the top 50% in economic ladder. If you want to see real poverty go to kalahandi or vidharba region Do you know in last 10 years 200,000 farmers committed suicide just out of poverty. Just imagine 200,000 people (larger than the population of many European capital) committing suicide just out of hunger..That too is the official number. Some suspect it is around 500,000..It is a human genocide of worst form..So many people committing suicide just due to poverty And you know what..Giving those 25,000 is not going to help. Charity by Mother Teresa or Diana or Bill gates is not going to solve this poverty of continental level..They may satisfy your ego..Maybe you can win a nobel prize but it is not going to solve any problem. If you really want to help those guys just do one thing..Support outsourcing from your heart..support any policy that helps transferring millions of jobs from west to India..In this world only one country is solving poverty of indian scale and that is china and you know how they are solving it..So next time you hear that a company is transferring its entire manufacturing jobs to China or india just support that..it is at least going to save thousands of poor people from this abject poverty
• PGenes 14y ago
  It's suddenly dawned on me that South Africa, where I live, is not the most unequal country in the world. Just the most unequal country that keeps decent statistics.
• ujjvala 14y ago
  India is a civilization that loves chaos. Chaos over Order. More on Chaos http://rajivmalhotradiscussions.blogspot.com/2012/02/chapter-4-summary-order-and-chaos.html http://rajivmalhotradiscussions.blogspot.com/2012/02/chapter... http://rajivmalhotradiscussions.blogspot.com/2012/03/order-chaos-example.html http://rajivmalhotradiscussions.blogspot.com/2012/03/order-c... http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-29/vintage-wisdom/30341831_1_devas-universe-vedas http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-29/vinta...
• shreyas056 14y ago
  all the debate aside, lets face it India has way more social problems than most of the other countries in the world.
• lalitm 14y ago
  Looks like a lots of people from West (US and Europe) and many Indian's who were once in West have lots of Issues with India, primarily because of Out-Sourcing. Westerners, because they are loosing a lot of jobs to the ones in India, plus the "dusty" economy of West! Indians, because they were forced out of their beloved Work-Land, i.e the West, to move back to India. Grow-up hackers...
• known 14y ago
  Many in north-east feel they are not Indians. http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-china-shelters-ulfa-leader-as-reply-to-dalai-lamas-base-in-india/20111101.htm http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-china-she...
• npcomplexity1 14y ago
  Slightly different perspective on poverty, happiness and cultural diversity in India through the lens of music. http://www.youtube.com/show/soundtrippin?s=1 http://www.youtube.com/show/soundtrippin?s=1
• mutex023 14y ago
  Really good article. In India you don't 'live' you 'survive' every day. Hehe. (I'm an Indian btw)
• known 14y ago
  For a westerner, the easiest way to understand is Caste = Corruption. For e.g. 1. If you kill somebody, you should be **hanged**, if you're NOT from my caste. 2. If you kill somebody, you did it in **self-defense**, if you're from my caste.
• denzil_correa 14y ago
  Is it just me or does any other Indian find the Pizza Hut - "You've made an excellent choice" funny? I've never understood it to be honest.
• phoenix_reboot 14y ago
  Though the said article is directed at westerners looking for a slice of India, being an Indian in India, I must say this is hard hitting and good. India is land of many facets but the fact is the morbid ones rule the day. And hope is not even on the horizon for the vast majority. Coming to the point, I forwarded this to a friend of mine and here is an excerpt what he (Kishore) had to say on the sad state of affairs --------------------------------------------------------- To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how to reply, I am strangely neutral. I am ambivalent towards hating it or liking it. There was a time when I would agree wholeheartedly or feel stung to the quick and would retaliate with a diatribe of my own. These days I just feel numbed. There is a small protest from within that would have made better sense had I been able to write about it. Of course, it would look churlish and like nitpicking if I were to rip apart that article and look for all the nuances and deliver all the rebuttals. But in the end, I have to wonder, whom does this article target? Is it the Indians who already see and know what is around them and yet tend to live in a Shining India without any kind of proactive thinking? Is it for those NRIs who seem to be filled with patriotic fervour bordering on the lunatic, who berate this country at every breath but would defend it to the same stale, spent breath? Is it for generating a wink-wink with fellow expats from the US who have had similar experiences in India and have a good laugh as they recognize some of the experiences from their own firsthand travails? Or is it a warning to the other prospective visitors who have to be warned of the dire straits this country is in and how nauseating it is, and that the ardent glow in their eyes better be extinguished before they leave their shores rather than face a rude awakening here? I am confused. Somewhere inside a voice tells me that I am opposing it in any case, with my questions above. That is not true, though. I am comfortably numb, finally. Do you see the futility of reading this and either feeling any sense of anger or empathy in this? What happens once we read this? Are we somehow inspired to change it all? Or, are we turned into holy warriors defending our honour and the glory that we never seem to have had - that is just round the corner for some reason. From the beginning, we have always had targets that were so far in the history of our glory days as to remain fossilized thoughts or so far into the future that we may never attain it ever. Look at the clamour for Shangai-ing our cities. Or the stupid defense of our past glory with regard to the Vedas, Hinduism, Guptas, Mauryas, pre-Islamic indian history. We somehow refuse to see the present - it is always the lost past or the unattainable future for us. Even the more erudite among us, or the well read, lament these things. In the last six decades all we have done is add more spices to the narrative. It is sad, but above all it is pathetic. When an outsider points out our foibles, either we are on the extremely defensive almost to seem offensive or we curl our torsos into fetal position in order to take the beating rather than stand up to it and decide to make a change.
• rehack 14y ago
  Its the attitude. And its not because of 'jugaad' as quite a few other comments make here. Its because of another attitude called 'chalta hai' attitude. Which simply means 'even this is Okay'. The reason for this attitude, I think, is because of being one of the oldest civilizations. Which is a fact, and often it used as a ego-massage and as a strong point in several discussions. The point to note is that this building was built thousands of years ago, and is in a natural state of decay. On the other hand, a country like US being a country of migrants was forced to start everything on a relatively clean state. So sort of a natural call to action - to build their lives. If one takes anecdotal examples of families one may know of, one will see that the best ones in the families move on to a different place. The laggards are left behind. One idea, comes to me as I write this, is what if we just ask people from two nearby villages, to just move their huts and belongings to the other village, and vice versa. Will it bring about any change in the attitude?