India

It has taken a while, but I finally wanted to say a few things about India now that I have been gone for a few weeks.

First of all, what you would probably expect is true. India is usually dirty, smelly, ugly, hot, crowded and often very aggravating. When you are hot and dusty and getting ripped off by an auto-wallah you can easily hate the place, and swear that you will never return. However, at the end of nine weeks there is kind of felt like home. In fact, sitting at a touristy bar in Chiang Mai, eating the BBQ that we craved for so long, Nisha and I spent an hour commiserating about how much we missed India and how we should have spent more time there.

The thing I miss most about India is the energy. Everything in India is going at 100 miles per hour, 24 hours a day. It reminds me of how you think of the US in the first half of the 20th century. The power of the masses in incredible. If there is money to be made, someone is busy trying to make it. If there is vacant land, someone is building something on it. A middle class is developing, and many people are getting their first cell phones, modern appliances, cars and refrigerators. A country and a people who have been considered second rate and easily oppressed are finally rising to their rightful place in the world, and relishing in the new found respect that they now command.

In the mist of this is a culture which has not completely reconciled its present and future with its past. The fingerprints of the ancient religion are everywhere. Your driver may be driving a brand new car and chatting on his brand new cell phone, but there is probably still a Ganesh idol glued to the dashboard. English is the language of India's former oppressors, but in a lot of ways has become the language which binds the country together, and is the tongue that will lead to its future prosperity. Even when cheap DVD players are all the rage in Delhi, they still might be carried on a bullock cart to their destination.

There are still challenges to be overcome. First of all, how to manage the relations between the Hindu majority and the 13% of the country which is Muslim will continue to be a challenge. I have no idea how they will spread the prosperity of the white collar workers in Bangalore, who have no problem renting a Keralan houseboat for the weekend with a big screen TV and a cooler of beer, with the peasant rice farmers that they cruise so casually by. The thing that I find most important is do deal with is the national inferiority complex. Often people seem content with a substandard product or experience when it is created in India. At some point people need to expect that Indians can make as good a car, program a computer as efficiently or make a shower floor that drains just as well as everyone else in the world.

From seeing what I have seen, I do believe that they will be successful. I think a momentum that has been started cannot be stopped. The force of 1.2 billion people in a global economy is too great not to make progress.

The other thing I miss is the adventure. Even the most touristy area of India is not half as developed as the average place in Thailand. Once you get off the Delhi-Agra-Jaipur circuit, plus the Euro havens of Goa and Leh, you really are immersed in India. It is not that there are not the occasional western person around, but no place in India can exist just to entertain the westerners passing through. India is just too big and the number of tourists is just too small. It is probably similar to being a tourist in the US. A city like New York may have a fair number of tourists, but the city does not exist for them alone.

In addition, although the popularity of the English language may make you suspect differently, India is a culture that has not been westernized as much as most would think. Bollywood music is still pretty much all there is in India, their own movies are all anyone really watches and the only sport is Cricket. Their religion is unique to the subcontinent and is so different from the monotheistic faiths that we are used to. It even goes down to little things. Indians do not smile for pictures and do not think that reading over someones shoulder in the Internet cafe is the slightest bit rude.

In all this movement and chaos, I did start to really feel at home. They had a Hindi channel in the Renaissance Ko Samui and Nisha and I spent 2 hours watching Bollywood dancing during an awards show. It just seemed so much more normal and entertaining then the Thai stuff that they usually have on TV. The friendliness of the normal people, not the touts or the beggars or the auto-wallahs, is really what you miss however. The amount that Indians will sacrifice to make you feel welcome and at home is more then anyone else in the world. That, and their excitement for the future, is what I will take with me from our time there. I thank them, and their amazing country, for the great time that it was.