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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 afflu

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.
  - free 14y ago
    Come on, that picture is more exception than the norm. I travelled by bus for years when I was in school and college. There are definitely people hanging near the doors but nowhere as close as to what you mentioned in the picture.
    - GeneralWaste 14y ago
      That picture is definitely o lot busier than average but in my experience the majority of urban buses were unpleasantly hot and crowded in India, particularly during the rush hour. I avoided using them if at all possible, and I generally really enjoyed most of the other forms of transport on offer there, especially the more dirty and dangerous ones.
      - JonnieCache 14y ago
        Try using the london underground in summer. It gets a lot hotter than 100 degrees. It gets dangerously crowded sometimes too. EDIT: Oh shit, it's you. You should know, heh.
        memset 14y ago
        I mean, the central point of the original comment was the stark contrast between rich and dirt-poor, who often sit side-by-side, and how we better hide these differences in Western nations. I had just wanted to nitpick that the bus example is actually a very good one to highlight why "riding the bus" is not a bad indication of poverty, which I think we agree on! None of this detracts from the fact that riding the subway during the summer is miserable for everyone, but isn't (in my mind, or in the parent's) quite the same as an Indian bus!
    - irahul 14y ago
      > Come on, that picture is more exception than the norm. The norm isn't too far from the exception. I spent 4 years in Chennai, and this was a common sight. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-4o_J8R8OVg/TIy3nfGUzdI/AAAAAAAAAoI/uDoUKJA0zOc/s1600/chennai-local-bus.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-4o_J8R8OVg/TIy3nfGUzdI/AAAAAAAAAo... Though I have never seen the bent buses in Bangalore yet in the 5 years I have been here. That is not to say public buses are pleasant here - you still deal with being densely packed with other commuters of varying degree of hygiene.
  - aksbhat 14y ago
    Its not that bad, I took public bus to school as a thirteen year old. It was as crowded as an MTA bus. Except there is no Air Conditioning, otherwise it is not that bad. Trains however tend to be much worse, since the doors never close.
  - coastside_geek 14y ago
    When I was growing up in Chennai I would lean out the bus doors (with one hand) primarily to impress the young hotties walking along the side of the road.
Arun2009 14y ago
> The leaders and the bureaucrats of the Govt. of India deserve to be shot in a public square for their sheer corruption and incompetence. The Indian public deserves an equal or greater share of the blame. Government is the people's responsibility in a democracy. If governance sucks, the citizens are not doing their job.
- csomar 14y ago
  You are living in a developed country, right? You got many years of language, writing, speaking, thinking and maybe higher education. You don't know what illiteracy means (when you can't read/write; and don't understand anything about democracy or the banking system). Your average person in a developing and poor country is not Arun2009. It's a fairly ignorant person who doesn't know either his rights or his duties.
  - awakeasleep 14y ago
    Yesterday an article made it to our frontage about what 'bubbles' we live in. By bubbles the author meant assumptions that shape how we see and interpret everything. I think literacy & education is one of the biggest bubbles. I had to spend a lot of time thinking about it, and talking to people with experience in the subject before the vast idea of what it means to be illiterate started to dawn on me. For example, teaching a class on how to use computers to people at the library. They all want to know how to 'look for a job' online. Show 'em how to use the mouse, what icons represent the internet, how to get email, and see they're having trouble. Slowly begin to understand they're only memorizing shapes and patterns of letters, and don't really know how to read or write. We're all so hyper literate, I can say that about everyone here. We're practically a different species than people who don't know how to wirelessly communicate through space and time. It's impossible to hold poor people in india who basically only have spoken word communication, and oral tradition historical context, to our standards.
- jbp 14y ago
  Easier said than done. You know it is more complicated than that. India is a namesake democracy, same families get elected all the time. With about 30% illiteracy rate, people don't even know they have a choice, thousands of years of oppression of majority of the population, ... so on.
ravivyas 14y ago
If you shot every corrupt person in the country , their would not be many men left. We have become a nation of people who would rather pay someone a little money than wait for our turn in a queue. Corruption is a two handed process , one hand gives and the other takes. Both should be stopped.
captain_mars 14y ago
> A beggar & her naked child ... Actually, a lot of the time, the child is not hers. It's rented from the child's real mother, so that the beggar can earn more money. But I'm sure you already knew that.

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.
- free 14y ago
  Come on, that picture is more exception than the norm. I travelled by bus for years when I was in school and college. There are definitely people hanging near the doors but nowhere as close as to what you mentioned in the picture.
  - GeneralWaste 14y ago
    That picture is definitely o lot busier than average but in my experience the majority of urban buses were unpleasantly hot and crowded in India, particularly during the rush hour. I avoided using them if at all possible, and I generally really enjoyed most of the other forms of transport on offer there, especially the more dirty and dangerous ones.
    - JonnieCache 14y ago
      Try using the london underground in summer. It gets a lot hotter than 100 degrees. It gets dangerously crowded sometimes too. EDIT: Oh shit, it's you. You should know, heh.
      - memset 14y ago
        I mean, the central point of the original comment was the stark contrast between rich and dirt-poor, who often sit side-by-side, and how we better hide these differences in Western nations. I had just wanted to nitpick that the bus example is actually a very good one to highlight why "riding the bus" is not a bad indication of poverty, which I think we agree on! None of this detracts from the fact that riding the subway during the summer is miserable for everyone, but isn't (in my mind, or in the parent's) quite the same as an Indian bus!
  - irahul 14y ago
    > Come on, that picture is more exception than the norm. The norm isn't too far from the exception. I spent 4 years in Chennai, and this was a common sight. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-4o_J8R8OVg/TIy3nfGUzdI/AAAAAAAAAoI/uDoUKJA0zOc/s1600/chennai-local-bus.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-4o_J8R8OVg/TIy3nfGUzdI/AAAAAAAAAo... Though I have never seen the bent buses in Bangalore yet in the 5 years I have been here. That is not to say public buses are pleasant here - you still deal with being densely packed with other commuters of varying degree of hygiene.
- aksbhat 14y ago
  Its not that bad, I took public bus to school as a thirteen year old. It was as crowded as an MTA bus. Except there is no Air Conditioning, otherwise it is not that bad. Trains however tend to be much worse, since the doors never close.
- coastside_geek 14y ago
  When I was growing up in Chennai I would lean out the bus doors (with one hand) primarily to impress the young hotties walking along the side of the road.

Arun2009 14y ago

> The leaders and the bureaucrats of the Govt. of India deserve to be shot in a public square for their sheer corruption and incompetence. The Indian public deserves an equal or greater share of the blame. Government is the people's responsibility in a democracy. If governance sucks, the citizens are not doing their job.

csomar 14y ago
You are living in a developed country, right? You got many years of language, writing, speaking, thinking and maybe higher education. You don't know what illiteracy means (when you can't read/write; and don't understand anything about democracy or the banking system). Your average person in a developing and poor country is not Arun2009. It's a fairly ignorant person who doesn't know either his rights or his duties.
- awakeasleep 14y ago
  Yesterday an article made it to our frontage about what 'bubbles' we live in. By bubbles the author meant assumptions that shape how we see and interpret everything. I think literacy & education is one of the biggest bubbles. I had to spend a lot of time thinking about it, and talking to people with experience in the subject before the vast idea of what it means to be illiterate started to dawn on me. For example, teaching a class on how to use computers to people at the library. They all want to know how to 'look for a job' online. Show 'em how to use the mouse, what icons represent the internet, how to get email, and see they're having trouble. Slowly begin to understand they're only memorizing shapes and patterns of letters, and don't really know how to read or write. We're all so hyper literate, I can say that about everyone here. We're practically a different species than people who don't know how to wirelessly communicate through space and time. It's impossible to hold poor people in india who basically only have spoken word communication, and oral tradition historical context, to our standards.
jbp 14y ago
Easier said than done. You know it is more complicated than that. India is a namesake democracy, same families get elected all the time. With about 30% illiteracy rate, people don't even know they have a choice, thousands of years of oppression of majority of the population, ... so on.

ravivyas 14y ago

If you shot every corrupt person in the country , their would not be many men left. We have become a nation of people who would rather pay someone a little money than wait for our turn in a queue. Corruption is a two handed process , one hand gives and the other takes. Both should be stopped.

captain_mars 14y ago

> A beggar & her naked child ... Actually, a lot of the time, the child is not hers. It's rented from the child's real mother, so that the beggar can earn more money. But I'm sure you already knew that.