dray
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Let me post some comment from that blog itself to counter him!!
When i read your "reflections" on your visit to India, it is not a sense of anger that shifts unsettlingly in my stomach, it is however, a sense of sadness. With all the literary flair of a fifth grader, you have embarked on a one and a half page account of a country that has over two thousand different dialects and a culture that is often studied for years at a stretch.
Your attempt at a formal and critical tone is brought to its feeble knees with its smattering of monosyllabic adjectives and lowly witticisms, only amplified by your utter ignorance, or shall we refer to it as neglect rather, with regards to what exactly is sought after by those who have traveled there and found it to be a world in its own.
However, i am not here to attempt to list the countless facets of India, for i am not qualified nor am i experienced enough to provide such conjecture. All i can see when i read your "reflections" is someone who has traveled to a country, and not really absorbed anything. You've visited 50 countries; if your take on them is as concise as this, well then, i really have very little to say, did you stay in your hotel the whole time?
Your views are not only factually incorrect, they lack backing (verbal) and are misleading. Everything about your tone suggests to me someone who hasn't the education nor the intellect to be able to summarize a country with over five thousand years of history. Not only do you make yourself look like a high school dropout your article doesn't even have anything to do with the real aim of traveling. Wait, why am i typing all this out, i laughed when your read your last sentence: its not even a sentence grammatically.
People like you give me confidence...alas.
R C
February 28, 2010 10:51 PM
I am moved by this post and thus I went through the pains of registration and actually using my real name
Yes, I am a very proud Indian and extremely biased - even though I have spent last 8 years in US/UK.
At the time of independence, Britishers asked Gandhi when they were leaving - Do you think India will survive for even a day without Brits?
60 years on, we have gone from financially/militarily/socially/politically bankrupt nation to the one with modest numbers to talk about in all verticals against all odds.
US/UK had roughly 3 centuries of continuous progress without any major occupation / someone draining their resources and now, they have reached a point where traffic/infrastructure/corruption/government services are in control and in order. At the same time, they have become bankrupt in cultural values. They care more about peace/local church community/cleanliness in neighborhood than in their houses + maintaining their family relationships.
Give India more time and it will be better - and, I am pretty sure this will happen in my lifetime.
I am not ignoring that 40% of population lives under poverty line and population is out of control or infrastructure needs to be massively improved - but all of them are extremely massive opportunities in themselves.
I look forward to India's bright future !!! and if you want a healthy debate - google my name and you will find me.
Rajat Garg
March 14, 2010 02:40 PM
It feels like you have traveled the streets of the metros and quickly found the need to vomit an article.
This article is the product of superficial impressions, lack of understanding of the problems in a developing nation, high-handed, and a lack of respect for what India has achieved in 60 years. So what if you have traveled, does not make you wiser (especially, if one judges the writer just from this article). I am not sure why people who will not and dont want to help in process of development find a need to comment on whats happening.
Why not Kerala? Its one of the most corrupted states where progress has been slow for the past 20 years (as compared to Bangalore or Chennai) and is suppressed due to a strong communist influence. And what was the caste comment about? Does you know that close to 60-70 % of Delhi's garbage-collectors and toilet-cleaners are brahmins (the so-called upper castes)? Ethiopia and India??? I dont even have a response to that.
Some of the habits you have pointed out are true, a lot of Indians have not been able to afford education, what is your excuse for a lack of perception? Which country has not suffered from the lack of education? All countries did go through a development phase, and thats whats happening in India. I believe you are from the US? Well, do we need to see what the US did to people of color even thirty years ago, or do we need to see what the super-christians' opinion of other religions are, even in this age and time? And because of that, does the spectacular example that US sets as a country of open-ness and broadmindedness diminish? These (the negative aspects) are just different facets to a country, what makes an impression on you really depends on how yo want to see it. And for the most part, I think its my primal duty to shut up and mind my own business if I am not helping. You want to travel in India, so be a traveler- why poke your nose into things that dont concern you and you mostly dont understand.
If you really want to know India or want someone to educate you about it or even debate about why you are just plain wrong-- write to me. "Loving advice from a friend" ???!! what was that about?
pathri
March 16, 2010 06:14 AM
Let me admit: I liked your post! And I am an Indian, living in India!
But none of of this is news to anyone in India. So maybe it was targeted for people who have never been here.
However, as someone who has traveled to almost 20 countries in as many years, I can also say this: You give me a country, and I can write a similar 'reflection' about it, Austin, Texas, United States, included! What you have written is not wrong, but you go looking for filth, you will find it almost anywhere. Even in Antartica! All you need to do is narrow your vision sufficiently!
Secondly, the filth you saw was probably the least worrying. It can be seen and smelt, and hence can be tackled. What about the filth in society? What about Poverty? (Errr... I am sure that word would be known to you!). What about child abuse? Drugs? Guns and organized crime? Criminalization of Politics? That is the filth I worry about. I think your focus on the good and bad is very superficial; else you would not have made the silly mistake of comparing Ethiopia and India. One country lives on world aid, the other supplies the world with Engineers and Doctors.
Let me ask you this: During your entire trip to India, how many places did you feel 'unsafe'? I have had that feeling in some of the most 'developed' countries and cities in the world. To me, that is the filth that one needs to worry about and 'reflect' upon.
But of all things, I fully agree with one sentence of yours: The people who are well off don't care, and people who are not, don't know any better. That, is the sadest part of it, and I belong to the guilty class. Something to mull over for me.
Keep writing!
Cheers!
Shripad
March 18, 2010 02:23 AM
Did you know that There exists a website for making Train Reservations? It is http://irctc.co.in.There looking up Station codes does not take 30 minutes.
Also there is a Tatkal scheme that for a fee, allows you to book tickets 72 hours before departure. So yes, the situation at the railway terminal may be as you have described but there are ways to circumvent it and do it the right way.
chet2010
March 29, 2010 03:41 PM
I am amazed at the sheer shallowness of the writer in this post. I wonder if you were looking for cleanliness, gardens, infrastructure and landscapes why didn’t you go to Switzerland. Are you that naive that landed up in INDIA? How did you not know this before you travelled to India? My American cousin who is 5 years old will possibly write the same thing as you did, about India because they understand only what they see, smell and hear just like you. It amazes me how most of you westerners live in a bubble, and whenever you see anything beyond what you have seen in life your bubble bursts. Even though you claim to have traveled in about 50 counties, I feel, besides probably seeing the architecture, gardens and getting drunk at random bars, you truly have not learned anything. And neither has it helped you to become any better and what you have probably been your whole life. It angers me to see how shallow and closed minded you are.
I stay in United States of America. I have traveled to as many as 10 countries, and never have I been enthralled by their cleanliness and infrastructure. I learn about their culture, their way of living, the beauty in their country. And beauty doesn’t come from clean roads. I have been in USA for 8 months and I have already seen people point guns at each other, I have seen dirt, I have seen low characters, I have seen inhibition, I have rudeness, I have inhospitality, I have seen arrogance, I have seen corruption, I have seen racism, I have seen shallowness, I have seen a bunch of irrelevant rules and a lot more. And, I have been scared to walk in streets of New York, Philadelphia and other places alone in the afternoon. What makes a country are its people’s character, religion, history, depth, knowledge, kindness, hospitality, culture, feelings and people and not how clean a country is?
The post by Padi Srini hit right at the spot, how will your country deal with 1 billion people? You are live in the best comforts of life and yet how many of you graduate high school. You are bunch of disrespectful losers, and all you do is point fingers at other developing economies. 60% of your population is immigrants and where would your country be if it wasn’t for immigrants? What has USA achieved on its own – just arrogance? We are a developing country and we have developed immensely in the last 30 years, what has happened to your country? In USA people have cars and no money to buy gas; I have seen people taking buses for days because they cannot afford trains. You guys are becoming so poor that Wal-Mart is growing by each hour, you live on Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart exists because of us. You guys cannot afford anything made in your own country that is why you were worst hit by recession. India is one of the few counties who is almost self-sufficient, and that is why recession barely hit us. We are a democratic country made up of extremely emotional people we would take a bullet for people we love, we love with our hearts, we hate with our hearts, we commit with are hearts and we learn with our hearts. You are right your post is not only rude, pointless and stupid but it’s solely supports my description of a perfect American!
Sharma5594
March 03, 2011 03:25 PM
Comments are pretty harsh, but true. Its like holding up the mirror to an ogre or the child telling the emperor has no clothes!!
But being Indian i'm still optimistic as has shown by apple that people have the ability to change and modify things to make them better. The degradation today is a result of disengagement of the people from the political process, and the politicians themselves disengaged from the identity of India and are preoccupied with grabbing what they can when they have a chance...
Hopefully this post holds up the mirror to the collective conscious of Indians for them to realize and change things for the better, and it would happen later than never!!
Crimsonarcher
July 30, 2012 12:30 AM
http://open.salon.com/blog/sean_paul_kelley/2009/03/26/reflections_on_india#comment_3028184
"Everything about your tone suggests to me someone who hasn't the education nor the intellect to be able to summarize a country with over five thousand years of history. Not only do you make yourself look like a high school dropout your article doesn't even have anything to do with the real aim of traveling. Wait, why am i typing all this out, i laughed when your read your last sentence: its not even a sentence grammatically.
People like you give me confidence...alas." Kudos RC........... This man indeed is a high school dropout making living out of his command of writing raw English, the only language he knows .might be jealous of well to do Indians living next door in States, and his inability to find a decent job other than of a gas station attendants , most of these people see only filth in India, Like Danny Boyle , ...... but there are lot of people out there who are inspired by India...here a another guy who says India is his favorite destination out of 120 countries he visited ..........The Wandering Earl "Welcome to India" Tour 2012 - Wandering Earl
Hemanth Kumar
July 31, 2012 01:47 AM
http://open.salon.com/blog/sean_paul_kelley/2009/03/26/reflections_on_india#comment_3029267
Well a good article overall, but have my own reservations on the issues you had raised. Also some points way off the mark.
Regarding the filth and pollution, agree with you 100%, its like we believe that we have a God given right to make every part of the place dirty, except our own sweet home.
Again regarding roads, not sure where you had travelled, but most of the national highways are pretty good, thanks to the Golden Quadrilateral scheme. I still remember travelling to my Grandma's place way back in the 70's-80's from my home town, hardly a distance of 150 km, used to take 3 hrs, in a smelly, rickety, bus, spewing fumes. Now thanks to the GQ scheme, you get to make the travel in not more than 1.5 hrs. Again while the national highways are good, the interior roads are awful, and the less said about the city roads the better.
"To get a SIM card for one's phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service"
Err where exactly, I been in around 6 cities in the last 12 yrs, and all I had to do was fill up a form, and the connection would c0me soon. Yes the customer service is still pathetic, but you have a good number of private mobile networks, and getting a mobile connection is least of the problems.
" Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India"
It has been close to 5-6 years since I actually stood in a queue to book my railway tickets, there is something called IRCTC.com, where you can book your tickets online. Yes the Tatkal is a pain, but then its a demand supply equation, Indian Railways is not able to keep up with the increasing demand. And that is another topic altogether. But booking rail tickets is not an ordeal that it was, last 5-6 years I generally do it online.
"I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don't think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem"
Gross generalization, I could also conclude that America is a land of junk food eating, gun loving rednecks, who think nothing of shooting people just for fun. There are a whole lot of people, groups, organizations all trying to do their bit for the country. And that to me is what keeps the nation going. Trust me, if the people here were really so indifferent, we would have gone under long time ago.
Ratnakar Sadasyula
August 09, 2012 11:07 AM
This thread is a trip report, I didn't make if that's not clear to you by now, have your doctor test you for trisomy 21
