Reflections on India

It's been 2 weeks since I've come back to Canada and I'm still not sure if that's sufficient time to digest two and a half months of life in India. It is a place that borders on the surreal, and which in many ways defies description.

It is a land with huge potential in its natural beauty, cultural richness, and sheer human resources, but which currently lacks the organization and the high proportion of educated citizens to fully capitalize on that potential. It is without a doubt a monumental task, and by no means do I wish to suggest otherwise. But considering all the chatter on India versus China, I had expected to see faster progress and more urgency in their development efforts. I am in no way an expert on China of course, but it seems to me that there is an urgent drive towards development in China that is not matched in India, where the need is equally large.

What makes the place surreal is not its poverty, of course. (That is unfortunately common in much of the world.) What makes India surreal for me was that it in many ways simply made no sense to me.

Case in point: How do cows wander freely on the streets in a country with so many hungry people? I know they're sacred to hindus, but in most other places, poverty and hunger would have long overridden "sacred". In any case, there are large numbers of Christians and Muslims in India for whom the cow is not sacred, but somehow these walking hunks of meat just wander the streets.

Other conundrums I had:

• Why can't people just learn to signal instead of honking at everyone all the time?
• Wouldn't it be more efficient for everyone to just bite the bullet, pay higher taxes and fix the power shortages instead of all the middle/upper class and businesses each having their own generators?
• Why have metal detectors at museums, cultural sites, etc. if the guard is just going to wave everyone through as it beeps incessantly?
• Why employ 3 people to stamp, rip, and take my ticket at a museum, but no one to clean the streets? (If maximum employment is what you're looking for, wouldn't you still want to get the most value out of these employees?)
• If cows are sacred, shouldn't they be well taken care of in some cow sanctuary instead of left to wander the streets eating garbage?
  
• And the list goes on....

By the end of the trip we learned to shrug it off. "You don't ask, it's just the Indian way."

India to me is a land of great beauty and cultural richness, but a land that in many ways escapes my understanding.

I am extremely glad that we visited and experienced as much as we did. Our time in Bangalore was a good introduction to the middle class life in India. And while our 3 week trip across the country was at times hectic and overwhelming, we saw some awe inspiring sights and shared some great laughs along the way.

My top 10 experiences in India (in no particular order):

1. Wandering through the wonderful ruins in Hampi
2. Watching the sunset on a deserted Agonda beach in Goa
   
3. Seeing the Taj Mahal at sunrise (yes, it is every bit as impressive as one imagines)
4. Drifting down the backwaters in Kerala on a rice barge with my honey
5. Hiking through the Periyar Wildlife Sactuary
6. Sleeping out on the sand dunes and watching the stars in Jaisalmer
7. Seeing the Golden Temple shining in all its glory at night
8. Wandering through beautiful Amber fort in Jaipur
9. Laughing our way through a crazy bollywood film (Kal Kisne Dekha) in Mumbai
10. Marveling at the intricately carved Ranakpur Jain temple

Last but not least, I loved that our friends Luke and Anusha joined us on our trip thorugh India. Our crew of mixed veggies had a great time!

Finally, would I go back? Yes, but next time I'll have less cultural sights, more wildlife sanctuaries (need to find me a tiger still!), and the himalayas!