Incredible India

I subbed at an elementary school over in La Crosse today, so on my way home I stopped for a little stroll around a park along the Mississippi River.  I couldn't help but be struck by how different it was than my surroundings last week.  Here's a brief compare and contrast:

People:
Pettibone Park: In half an hour, I saw three frisbee golfers and two walkers.  Five people in half an hour.
India: Where do I begin?  As I told our driver after one particularly busy stop, it's hard to find a quiet spot in India.  There are people everywhere.  Some made us feel like rock stars (in a good way), asking to take pictures with us.  Seriously.  We must be on so many people's Facebook pages right now.  Others made us feel like rock stars in a bad way, as in "you're rich so give me some money."  That was the worst part of the trip for me, that everyone assumed we were wealthy and got mad when we left the same tips we'd leave in America.  But then we saw MTV's Punk'd on TV one morning, and Justin Bieber blew up a yacht to punk Taylor Swift and had someone drive a car through a restaurant window to punk Sean Kingston . . . so yeah, I can see where Indians get the idea that Americans have money to blow.  Thanks, entertainment industry.  Add in monkeys, dogs, and lots of meandering cows . . . it's a busy place.

I just covered my eyes and prayed a lot . . .

Traffic:
Pettibone Park: I walked past one parked car.  One truck drove past me.
India: Holy crap, I thought for sure someone was gonna die.  I was praying it wouldn't be me, but I didn't really want to see someone else killed either.  The traffic in India is insane.  I thought I'd seen it all in Ghana, but India was even more chaotic.  Giant trucks and buses, little cars, tuk-tuks (auto rickshaws), motor bikes, bicycles, and people pushing carts -- the streets are full all day every day.  And lane lines?  Mere suggestions.  People use their horns not out of annoyance but as a "hey, I'm coming at you" courtesy blare.  And then they pretty much just pull out in front of anyone and hope they stop and let you in.  From what I could tell, the biggest vehicle usually won: cars yielded to buses, tuk tuks to cars, and bikes were pretty much the biggest loser every time.  I sat in the back seat, grimacing and praying, fearing we'd get nailed by a bus or we'd run over someone on a bike.  It was seriously scary.  When Raj, our driver, dropped us off at the airport, I thanked him for not letting us die and handed him a fat tip.  You couldn't pay me to get behind the wheel in India . . . certain death!

Environment:
Pettibone Park: Fresh, clean air with the sweet smell of fallen leaves, the mighty Mississippi rolling by, and lots of big, tall trees.  And quiet.  Blissful quiet.
India: The triple crown of smells: sewage, car exhaust, and smoke.  The air quality is shockingly bad.  I kept commenting to Kevin that people had to die earlier in India because of it.  I just looked it up and found American male life expectancy is ten years longer than Indian males.  For women, it's twelve years.  I had to cover my face sometimes, but what can you expect when 1.2 billion people are crammed into a country that's only 1/3 the size of the U.S.?  (And we've only got 312 million or so people living here.)  Too many cars, nowhere to put garbage or human waste, and lots of people who depend on fires for warmth and cooking make for polluted air and earth.  We were also there during a festival called Diwali, a celebration featuring fireworks and firecrackers . . . at one point we made a fake war correspondent video on the balcony of our hotel with the constant popping and booming in the background.  It sounded like we were under attack!  Add in the never-ending sound of car horns as mentioned above . . . it was a loud, loud week.  And if you've ever seen the Mississippi and thought it was polluted, you don't want to see the water Indians were bathing and washing clothes in.

Seriously stunning . . .

Raj kept repeating the phrase "Incredible India," which I gathered was the country's tourism campaign.  Despite the bad stuff, it really is an amazing country with so much to see.  We marveled at the architecture of their monuments and historic sites.  We just don't have the history in America that India does . . . I mean, many of their monuments are older than our country.  The Taj Mahal?  Built in 1653.  America wasn't even America yet.  The fact that their builders and artisans were that advanced that early on is really impressive. 

Women in India walk an average of 3.7 miles, morning & night, for water.

But man, it makes me glad I was born here.  Much like my trips to Africa, visiting India reminded me that I won the geographic lottery.  The things I take for granted every day -- water when I turn on the faucet, waste that gets flushed into a sewer system, food I can cook on a stove, traffic rules that are enforced, work that isn't demeaning -- aren't so easy to come by in India. 

It was nice to visit but it was even nicer to come home.