final night
we’re back in bangalore, which isn’t nearly as exciting as before. it’s not nearly as colorful as jaipur, and there is more traffic than in delhi.
i’m more or less over my stomach troubles (which we pinpointed to some fish that Bob, Liza and I ate and Brittany skipped, leading the three of us to some rough days), but we are ready to come home for some bland American food.
at the same time, leaving a wonderful land of amazing customer service, clean and spacious rooms with beautiful views, and expensive wines and champagnes, and returning to the world of rude Americans, dirty fraternity life and cheap beer is a little tough.
more and more I become confused why the people and places of American and India are so backwards. Indians work hard day and night, are friendly and welcoming to others, care for the family, respect all religions, believe in a harmony of environment, and modernize without losing their thriving culture. Americans are by and large lazy and large, rude and suspicious of others, care for themselves above others, hate all religions but theirs, promote causes because it makes them feel better, and try to export their culture on the rest of the world.
yet America is beautiful, our streets are clean, our houses are large, our tap water is pristine (…and still people drink bottled), our schools are advanced, our malls are gigantic, our cars can transport livestock, our workweek is light, our job safety nets are expansive, our paychecks are huge…
it probably has a lot to do, among other things, with population size. with a billion and change people, India can’t keep up. so pollution rises, traffic rules can’t be obeyed, there is no social security, and as we recently saw, the government can do little to protect its citizens from an increasingly hostile part of the world.
trying to get to a dinner last night, I was confused why there was so much traffic at 9pm. Apoorva told me it was Rush hour, which still didn’t make much sense to me. she explained, of course, that it was from all the people going to work at the call center, since they have to adjust for our daylight hours. it suddenly dawned on me that we have changed their entire culture, forcing people to work graveyard shifts just for our benefit. and yet, the best job in bangalore is still working these call centers, so that we can dial in and get “Joe” or “Mike” to help us with whatever electronic gadget we were too lazy to read the simple instructions for.
when things in nature are at such unequal levels as they are here, an equilibrium is always reached, with one side giving way and the other gaining. I fear for just how much way we are going to have to give in order to reach this balance, and I think my generation and my country is, as is typical, severely unprepared, unaware, and uncaring.
