6 ms·

As a US-raised Indian I'm not familiar with the macro details. But I've been living in India for the past few years working for a startup, so let me identify so

As a US-raised Indian I'm not familiar with the macro details. But I've been living in India for the past few years working for a startup, so let me identify some low-hanging fruit. 1) Incredibly, shockingly poor hygiene. Dirty black rags being used repeatedly to dry plates at restaurants. Idlys being cooked on plastic sheets inside hot streamers. Infernoes of uncollected trash burning on streets. Rats and cockroaches everywhere including your toothbrush at night. 2) Utterly horrifying road conditions. Potholes large enough to cause motorcycle crashes every 100 feet. A culture of not giving the other motorist more than 6 inches on any side. Driving on the wrong side of the road, including on highways. It's incredibly stressful to think about your odds when you leave the house. 3) A political system that no-one is optimistic about. Stories are rampant of politicians buying votes by giving free household appliances away to the poor, and then doing nothing in office to help them. 4) An education system that isn't remotely good enough. Miserable professors, antiquated curriculums that churn out the IT coolies we're so famous for. 5) Congestion so bad you hardly ever leave a 5-mile radius. People tend to hang out based on which neighborhood they live in, because a trip to a friend's place more than 5 miles away can turn into an hour-long slog on terrifying roads. 6) A culture of being cheap. If you're only willing to tip your waiter 10 rupees, it may help out your savings rate, but it certainly won't help the waiter buy his kid a computer someday. Same goes for our beloved household servants, who get paid $150 per month at best, $40 at worst to clean our floors. But to voice a conflict that everyone who lives here talks about, I'm not a pessimist about India by any means, because it's amazing how much the people of this country have achieved through individual hard work in the face of so many poor institutions.

yalogin 13y ago
All of them very true. One of the biggest problems is corruption is rooted in the culture. Every person believes every other person can be bought. And its true as well. The people making laws are corrupt to their bone but if the people in charge of enforcing are corrupt as well that leads to hopelessness.
chailatte 13y ago
I am a huge pessimist about India. here's why. 1.) Everyone in the thread is ignoring a huge point raised by the author: this is the last biggest bubble we will ever witness in our lifetime (and possibly for many lifetimes) due to a.) unpeg of gold standard b.) shift from farm to factory work c.) shift from one income to two income household d.) machine/software advances and many other factors has produced the greatest economic growth we have ever seen in history. However, due to a.) unsustainable financial gambling b.) wealth growth only in top 1%, mostly through rentier effects c.) robots, automation and artificial intelligence resulting in jobs destruction d.) population slowdown, shift to older demographics the second dip in global economic depression is happening. and will induce so much deflation soon that 99% of the world population will be very very poor. for 3-4 generations. 2.) due to the lack of hygiene/lack of transportation/too many people/bad weather/trash everywhere/homeless everywhere/fecal matters on the streets/too many doctors prescribing antibiotics, resulting in super-resistant viruses, there will be a huge epidemic sooner or later that might wipe out millions of people, and nobody will be able to do anything about it because the crash in the economy. 3.) Growth in IT outsourcing is no more. Foreign investments are down big. There are better countries for companies to invest in that have better infrastructure and speaks better english.
- cscurmudgeon 13y ago
  There are better countries for companies to invest in that have better infrastructure and speaks better english. You might want to reword that. :) More seriously, I am optimistic because 1) the older generation will die off and 2) almost 50% of the grad students in any top US university are from India. (This includes programs in AI and Robotics. Count me in that too.)
  - chailatte 13y ago
    I don't claim to speak good english :) 1.) the young generation is still corrupt and apathetic and spineless 2.) assuming your number is correct (which I doubt), 90% of those students who overpaid for a masters are staying in the US
    - 13y ago
bokonist 13y ago
I'm not a pessimist about India by any means, because it's amazing how much the people of this country have achieved through individual hard work in the face of so many poor institutions Well, the Indian people are ultimately responsible for the institutions of India. So why don't the institutions get fixed? Potholes, uncollected trash, rats - these are not particularly hard problems. Plenty of societies have figured it out. Why have these problems persisted for so long in India?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- capex 13y ago
  Because these are not the problems, just the symptoms. The problem is a deep class divide between the haves and have-nots. Those who climb out of poverty never look back. Those who are already rich feed on people staying poor, uneducated and miserable. That's the vote bank easiest to manipulate. I am not from India, but neighbouring Pakistan. We just had our national elections and the only hope, Imran Khan's PTI lost. Nearly everyone I know in Pakistan has voted for PTI, but through a combination of election rigging and a mass of poverty-stricken people being coerced into voting for the wrong guy resulted in the status quo being maintained.
  - bokonist 13y ago
    The problem is a deep class divide between the haves and have-nots. Britain of 1850 had a deep class divide, but they managed to keep the trash off streets. The rich do not have an interest in sewage running into the rivers or slums that are breeding supergerms. The upper class in England and America drove all the public health measures (such as sewers, clean drinking water, vaccination campaigns, etc.) in the 1800's that made cities livable. What is different about India? Why is this not happening?
    - capex 13y ago
      Well I bet the Indian cities would've been better if there wasn't Europe and US to live in. Most people who can't stand the filth and the misery of others, just leave. To an extent, this is also about the poor man's education, specially about values. Out of planet, people and profit, just profit matters for most. Of course this also leads to corruption. I feel this stems from a general feeling of injustice in the country, where people feel they've been wronged in general, and now doing the wrong thing is the only right thing to do. If a solution to this problem of values is to be sought, it would lie in the long haul route of educating people. A different type of education where values and morals are asserted more than skills and achievements. Why the upper class is displaying a complete apathy towards these mass problems is a belief that things are not going to change, no matter what. The class divide plays a role here, a distinct detachment of feelings about the average poor man and their living conditions.
spiderPig 13y ago
Very well articulated. I'm a kid who came over to the US for higher studies. All these problems are deep-rooted in our culture. The culture doesn't encourage innovation and curiosity is shunned in most of the schools. Kids get into this rat race of scoring high grades without even realizing it. (I'm going to go off on a tangential rant here onward): Sadly, it looks like most of us are proud of it. And the ones who come over to the US are bringing this culture over with them. I was a TA in a top 10 university for a Compilers course and the number of these purportedly 'smart' kids that you could observe the Dunning-Kruger effect on was laughable. Most of them were frankly deluded into thinking they were these amazing engineers. Their primary goal was to get a job at Microsoft/Google/Amazon. None of them had the curiosity to find out how a compiler actually worked. They just did the bare-minimum necessary to get a good grade. And not surprisingly almost all the students I busted for cheating were Indians. My plea to the kids coming over to the US at the risk of sounding unpopular: You're culture has failed you. Our culture doesn't encourage scientific thought and reeks ignorance. Please leave that behind with you. Understand, observe and get inspired by the great scientific culture the Americans have built here. Let's not ruin that.
- f1vespeed 13y ago
  >> Understand, observe and get inspired by the great scientific culture the Americans have built here. Let's not ruin that. Say that in India, and some guys will fly into a rage and say: 1) All the great scientists in America came from other countries, so many are Indians 2) We had levitating Mars-visiting Rushis before Neil Armstrong ever "supposedly" landed on the moon. 3) The Europeans lived in filth while we had an advanced civilization in the middle ages. Therefore we are inherently better. Of course you WOULD fly into a rage if you could never leave and establish yourself in a more "luxurious" country that "isn't your own". Until then, for the sake of your own sanity, you have to believe there's nothing wrong with your country and that you weren't failed.
- err_badprocrast 13y ago
  > The culture doesn't encourage innovation and curiosity is shunned in most of the schools. Kids get into this rat race of scoring high grades without even realizing it. I'm not trying to take anything from what you're saying, but my experience is that applies just as well to US school (high school, at least.)
kamaal 13y ago
>> because it's amazing how much the people of this country have achieved through individual hard work in the face of so many poor institutions. Well we don't have any other options. We need to work, or we will be wiped out. You have no clue, what a person can do- or how hard he can work when he is faced with a such a situation in life. I've personally been there, and I can tell you throughout my teens I've had situations where it was doing good in the next exams or going back to poverty. When you go through that, you don't complain of lack of sleep or rest, you don't complain you just have a pair or clothes, or that your home is just a room where the whole family sleep packed and you get one small little corner where you need to your studies under a dim bulb to compete with a million people. You just realize you have no other option, you work, work and work until success becomes inevitable- indifferent to the circumstances. That is something like a small glimpse of what I and some of friends went through to get where we are today. Not sure if teens in US go through the same thing. But sometimes when I hear about the pain US citizens talk of when IT outsourcing is mentioned, those are not easy chances we are getting. For many of us, those have come after going through toughest situations you can probably can't even imagine.
harichinnan 13y ago
Missing the trees for the forest. The "hard-working" Indians come from well off families, who can afford private school education for kids. Very few actually move from desperately poor to middle class. I take exception to IT coolies desc. Back when I was in India, my first it coolie salary was more than both my parents combined salaries. At some point before moving to school, I was making more money than the president of India , being an it coolie. It's not how much inr transalated to dollars I was making that mattered. The salaries, low compared to here would bu you a lot of things that you can never afford in us. Like a maid to clean your house, a chauffeur for your car and the like. What is expensive is, real estate in cities because of absense of city planning and anything imported, like cars, gasoline, electronics etc.

yalogin 13y ago

All of them very true. One of the biggest problems is corruption is rooted in the culture. Every person believes every other person can be bought. And its true as well. The people making laws are corrupt to their bone but if the people in charge of enforcing are corrupt as well that leads to hopelessness.

chailatte 13y ago

I am a huge pessimist about India. here's why. 1.) Everyone in the thread is ignoring a huge point raised by the author: this is the last biggest bubble we will ever witness in our lifetime (and possibly for many lifetimes) due to a.) unpeg of gold standard b.) shift from farm to factory work c.) shift from one income to two income household d.) machine/software advances and many other factors has produced the greatest economic growth we have ever seen in history. However, due to a.) unsustainable financial gambling b.) wealth growth only in top 1%, mostly through rentier effects c.) robots, automation and artificial intelligence resulting in jobs destruction d.) population slowdown, shift to older demographics the second dip in global economic depression is happening. and will induce so much deflation soon that 99% of the world population will be very very poor. for 3-4 generations. 2.) due to the lack of hygiene/lack of transportation/too many people/bad weather/trash everywhere/homeless everywhere/fecal matters on the streets/too many doctors prescribing antibiotics, resulting in super-resistant viruses, there will be a huge epidemic sooner or later that might wipe out millions of people, and nobody will be able to do anything about it because the crash in the economy. 3.) Growth in IT outsourcing is no more. Foreign investments are down big. There are better countries for companies to invest in that have better infrastructure and speaks better english.

cscurmudgeon 13y ago
There are better countries for companies to invest in that have better infrastructure and speaks better english. You might want to reword that. :) More seriously, I am optimistic because 1) the older generation will die off and 2) almost 50% of the grad students in any top US university are from India. (This includes programs in AI and Robotics. Count me in that too.)
- chailatte 13y ago
  I don't claim to speak good english :) 1.) the young generation is still corrupt and apathetic and spineless 2.) assuming your number is correct (which I doubt), 90% of those students who overpaid for a masters are staying in the US
  - 13y ago

bokonist 13y ago

I'm not a pessimist about India by any means, because it's amazing how much the people of this country have achieved through individual hard work in the face of so many poor institutions Well, the Indian people are ultimately responsible for the institutions of India. So why don't the institutions get fixed? Potholes, uncollected trash, rats - these are not particularly hard problems. Plenty of societies have figured it out. Why have these problems persisted for so long in India?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
capex 13y ago
Because these are not the problems, just the symptoms. The problem is a deep class divide between the haves and have-nots. Those who climb out of poverty never look back. Those who are already rich feed on people staying poor, uneducated and miserable. That's the vote bank easiest to manipulate. I am not from India, but neighbouring Pakistan. We just had our national elections and the only hope, Imran Khan's PTI lost. Nearly everyone I know in Pakistan has voted for PTI, but through a combination of election rigging and a mass of poverty-stricken people being coerced into voting for the wrong guy resulted in the status quo being maintained.
- bokonist 13y ago
  The problem is a deep class divide between the haves and have-nots. Britain of 1850 had a deep class divide, but they managed to keep the trash off streets. The rich do not have an interest in sewage running into the rivers or slums that are breeding supergerms. The upper class in England and America drove all the public health measures (such as sewers, clean drinking water, vaccination campaigns, etc.) in the 1800's that made cities livable. What is different about India? Why is this not happening?
  - capex 13y ago
    Well I bet the Indian cities would've been better if there wasn't Europe and US to live in. Most people who can't stand the filth and the misery of others, just leave. To an extent, this is also about the poor man's education, specially about values. Out of planet, people and profit, just profit matters for most. Of course this also leads to corruption. I feel this stems from a general feeling of injustice in the country, where people feel they've been wronged in general, and now doing the wrong thing is the only right thing to do. If a solution to this problem of values is to be sought, it would lie in the long haul route of educating people. A different type of education where values and morals are asserted more than skills and achievements. Why the upper class is displaying a complete apathy towards these mass problems is a belief that things are not going to change, no matter what. The class divide plays a role here, a distinct detachment of feelings about the average poor man and their living conditions.

spiderPig 13y ago

Very well articulated. I'm a kid who came over to the US for higher studies. All these problems are deep-rooted in our culture. The culture doesn't encourage innovation and curiosity is shunned in most of the schools. Kids get into this rat race of scoring high grades without even realizing it. (I'm going to go off on a tangential rant here onward): Sadly, it looks like most of us are proud of it. And the ones who come over to the US are bringing this culture over with them. I was a TA in a top 10 university for a Compilers course and the number of these purportedly 'smart' kids that you could observe the Dunning-Kruger effect on was laughable. Most of them were frankly deluded into thinking they were these amazing engineers. Their primary goal was to get a job at Microsoft/Google/Amazon. None of them had the curiosity to find out how a compiler actually worked. They just did the bare-minimum necessary to get a good grade. And not surprisingly almost all the students I busted for cheating were Indians. My plea to the kids coming over to the US at the risk of sounding unpopular: You're culture has failed you. Our culture doesn't encourage scientific thought and reeks ignorance. Please leave that behind with you. Understand, observe and get inspired by the great scientific culture the Americans have built here. Let's not ruin that.

f1vespeed 13y ago
>> Understand, observe and get inspired by the great scientific culture the Americans have built here. Let's not ruin that. Say that in India, and some guys will fly into a rage and say: 1) All the great scientists in America came from other countries, so many are Indians 2) We had levitating Mars-visiting Rushis before Neil Armstrong ever "supposedly" landed on the moon. 3) The Europeans lived in filth while we had an advanced civilization in the middle ages. Therefore we are inherently better. Of course you WOULD fly into a rage if you could never leave and establish yourself in a more "luxurious" country that "isn't your own". Until then, for the sake of your own sanity, you have to believe there's nothing wrong with your country and that you weren't failed.
err_badprocrast 13y ago
> The culture doesn't encourage innovation and curiosity is shunned in most of the schools. Kids get into this rat race of scoring high grades without even realizing it. I'm not trying to take anything from what you're saying, but my experience is that applies just as well to US school (high school, at least.)

kamaal 13y ago

>> because it's amazing how much the people of this country have achieved through individual hard work in the face of so many poor institutions. Well we don't have any other options. We need to work, or we will be wiped out. You have no clue, what a person can do- or how hard he can work when he is faced with a such a situation in life. I've personally been there, and I can tell you throughout my teens I've had situations where it was doing good in the next exams or going back to poverty. When you go through that, you don't complain of lack of sleep or rest, you don't complain you just have a pair or clothes, or that your home is just a room where the whole family sleep packed and you get one small little corner where you need to your studies under a dim bulb to compete with a million people. You just realize you have no other option, you work, work and work until success becomes inevitable- indifferent to the circumstances. That is something like a small glimpse of what I and some of friends went through to get where we are today. Not sure if teens in US go through the same thing. But sometimes when I hear about the pain US citizens talk of when IT outsourcing is mentioned, those are not easy chances we are getting. For many of us, those have come after going through toughest situations you can probably can't even imagine.

harichinnan 13y ago

Missing the trees for the forest. The "hard-working" Indians come from well off families, who can afford private school education for kids. Very few actually move from desperately poor to middle class. I take exception to IT coolies desc. Back when I was in India, my first it coolie salary was more than both my parents combined salaries. At some point before moving to school, I was making more money than the president of India , being an it coolie. It's not how much inr transalated to dollars I was making that mattered. The salaries, low compared to here would bu you a lot of things that you can never afford in us. Like a maid to clean your house, a chauffeur for your car and the like. What is expensive is, real estate in cities because of absense of city planning and anything imported, like cars, gasoline, electronics etc.