Reflection ON India

Reflections on India By Sean Paul Kelley
Sean Paul Kelley is a travel writer, former radio host, and before that an asset manager for a Wall Street investment bank that is still (barely) alive. He recently left a fantastic job in Singapore working for Solar Winds, a software company based out of Austin to travel around the world for a year (or two). He founded The Agonist, in 2002, which is still considered the top international affairs, culture and news destination for progressives. He is also the Global Correspondent for The Young Turks, on satellite radio and Air America.


If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who’s being honest with you and wants nothing from you.

These criticisms apply to all of India except Kerala and the places I didn’t visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India, except as I mentioned before, Kerala.

Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then hey, who am I to tell them differently. Take what you like and leave the rest. In the end it doesn’t really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don’t seem to care and the lower classes just don’t know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent. But here goes, nonetheless.

India is a mess. It’s that simple, but it’s also quite complicated. I’ll start with what I think are India’s four major problems–the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation–and then move to some of the ancillary ones.
First, pollution. In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians. I don’t know how cultural the filth is, but it’s really beyond anything I have ever encountered. At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump.

Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common on the streets. In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight.

Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality. Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be how dangerous the air is for one’s health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads.

The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum–the capital of Kerala–and Calicut. I don’t know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India’s productivity, if it already hasn’t. The pollution will hobble India’s growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small ‘c’ sense.)
More after the jump..
The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India. Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. With out regular electricity, productivity, again, falls.

The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand, much less Western Europe or America. And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit.

There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old, if not older.

Everyone in India, or who travels in India raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It’s awful. Now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent. But in the last five years the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses.

At least fifty million people use the trains a day in India. 50 million people! Not surprising that waitlists of 500 or more people are common now.

The rails are affordable and comprehensive but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit.

Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US I guess.
The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts that’ve been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption.

It take triplicates to register into a hotel. 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.

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.

The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don’t have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job.

Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead.
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. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way.

Mumbai, India’s financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam, or Indonesia–and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan!
One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, backwardness, in a country that hasn’t produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing.

The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It’s a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I’m far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime.
Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that. But remember, I’ve been there. I’ve done it. And I’ve seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia, have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does.

And the bottom line is, I don’t think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative.
If you read carefully you will find Kelly is toatlly wrong at some places, mere exageration but I do agree with him in many places.It is an eye opener to all of us and our government .
vande Matharam.
Bobby

STORY OF PARSINI MUTHAPPAN
THE LOCAL POWER FUL GOD
U HAVE TO EXPERIENCE TO BELIEVE:

Sree Muthappan is the most popular local god in the Kannur District of north Kerala state, south India. Muthappan is also the theyyam performed in the famous Parassinikkadavu temple 20 km north of Kannur town. Sree Muthappan is believed to be the personification of two divine figures - Thiruvappana and Vellatom.Though Sree Muthappan represents a single god, it represents two godly figures, Vishnu (with fish shaped crown) and Shiva (a crecsent shaped crown). Story of Parassinikkadavu Muthappan The Naduvazhi (landlord) Ayyankara Illath Vazhunnavar was unhappy as he had no child. His wife Padikutty Antharjanam was a devotee of Lord Shiva. She offered several things as sacrifice to the God Shiva. One day in her dream she saw the Lord. The very next day while she was returning after a bath from a near by river saw a pretty child lying in a flower bed. She took the child home and brought him up as her own son. The boy used to visit the jungle near by their house (mana)for hunting with his bow and arrows. He would take food with the poor and with the backward communities. As these acts were against the Namboothiri way of life, his parents earnestly requested him to stop this practice. But the boy turned a deaf ear to their warnings. Ayyankara Vazhunavar became very disappointed. One day the boy went to his parents and shown his parents his divine form (visvaroopam) with bow and arrow and fiery eyes. His parents understood that the boy was not an ordinary child but a God. They prostrated in front of him and 'He' blessed them. The God started journey from Ayyankara. The natural beauty of the Kunnathoor stopped him from his journey. He was attracted by the toddy of palm trees. Chandhan (name of a toddy tapper who was illiterate and uncivilized knew of his toddy being stolen from his palm trees every day. So he thought of guarding his palm trees. While he was keeping guard at night, an old man was found stealing toddy from his palms. He got very angry and tried to shoot the old man using his bow and arrow. While he was about to aim an arrow at him, he fell unconscious. Chandan's wife who came there seeking for her husband saw him lying unconscious. She cried broken heartedly. When she looked up she saw an old man at the top of the palm tree, she called "MUTHAPPA " (as if addressed to a grandfather, Muthappan means grand father in Malayalam language). She earnestly prayed to God to save her husband. Before long chandhan regained consciousness. She offered boiled grams, slices of coconut, burnt fish and toddy to the Muthappan (Even today in Sree Muthappan temples the divotees are being offered boiled grams and slices of coconut). She sought benediction from him. Muthappa choose Kunnathoor as his residence at the request of Chandhan, this is the famous Kunnathoor padi. After spending some years at Kunnathoor Sree Muhtappa decided to get more favorable place as his residence so that he could fulfill his aim of reincarnation. He shot an arrow up ward from Kunnathoor. The shaft reached at Parassini where the famous Parassini Temple resides now. The arrow which was emitting glow from the Theertha (sacred water ) near the temple was received with evotion and placed on the altar of the temple. Since then lord Muthappan is considered as residing at Parassinikkadavu. There are two bronze carved dogs at the entrance of the temple to symbolise the trustworthiness of bodyguards of God. When the prasad is ready it is first served to a dog that is always ready inside the temple. The importance of dogs to Sree Muthappan A few years back temple authorities decided to reduce the number of dogs inside the temple, they took some dogs and puppies away. Surprisingly from that very day, the performer of the Sree Muthappan Theyyam was unable to perform (it is said that the sprit of Sree Muthappan enters his body and the performer becomes God till the theyyam performance is finished). Since the dogs was taken away from the temple, Sree Muthappan does not enter the theyyam performer's body. Knowing this, the Dogs were bought back to the temple. From that day onwards theyyam performance was as usual. How to reach here? Nearest railway station : Kannur, about 20 km Nearest airport : Karipur International Airport, Kozhikode about 110 km from Kannur. A person from abroad can reach Parassanikadavu by landing at Mangalore or Karipur airport and then by road or rail. From Manglore travel about 150 km through NH 17 towards south via Dharmashala to Parassanikadavu which is 4 km away from Dharmashala, similarly from karipur travel about 110 km towards north through NH 17 via Dharmshala to Parasinikadavu. Frequent bus service are available throughout the day from municipal bus stand Kannur. Also can take a taxi

I am happy For D

Aaaaarrrggghhhhh!!

I cant believe that things are actually moving in my life! For a change they are... People who have read my blog would know that I usually crib about how things are boring or stagnant or how terribly I need a life! Well actually I am starting to get a life.. Things are rolling on. Both in family and personal life (hush hush!!)

So toast to my life!! hope it lasts at least till the intermission!! :)
posted by Das at 8:07 AM on Jun 30, 2010

I am happy for her finally she is getting what she wanted,good luck to her ,hope and pray she will stop cribbing.God bless u Mac.