India - after one week

Well, today we have been here a week and have completed our first work week as well. I cannot believe all that has happened in just one week and on the other hand, in some strange way, it feels like we have been here a month.

India is a tough country. Initially, it seems like the poorest and dirtiest place on earth where everybody is just out to scam you or get you. Indeed, India has staggering poverty and Mumbai is so incredibly polluted and I am sick of people constantly trying to scam me. But, what I am learning is that we like to present India as the poster child of all the things we are not and that is where we are incorrect. Our culture has the exact same negative qualities, but we have learned to hide them because we do not like the messy part of life. And life is messy. In India, all these qualities are much more visible and I guess that is why India is so tough because it refuses to hide that which human nature is capable of accepting. They have instead allowed it to be part of daily life and learn to work with it. People expect to bargain, to argue, and to see horrific poverty.

They also accept that people are from various backgrounds and social classes. Whoever thinks the caste system is gone needs to come to India and read the local newspapers. I started reading the paper every day to help me acclimatize and get a feel for what is going on in the area I live in. I stumbled upon the marriage proposals and was reminded of the conversation I had with Priya on the airplane into Mumbai. She and her husband were explaining to me how in India marriages are still to a large degree arranged by the parents. The parents look for a suitable husband for their daughter and the couple can then decide on their own if they agree. The marriage proposals in the newspapers are all classified by which caste the potential groom or bride is in. Hetal, our supervisor, just got married a few months ago and she chuckled in that wonderful manner of hers when she said that she had intermarried. The caste system in still at work in India and will not likely go away any time soon, especially because it is so closely related to the predominant religion that teaches to accept the life you are in and do good deeds so you can be reincarnated into a better life. The only thing the law has abolished are the public negative reproductions of the caste system.

I am not saying that India is the model to strive for or that we don’t have anything right. Hanna and I were just talking about hygiene yesterday and how we so incredibly appreciate the hygiene standards in the US. We like showers (and longer than ½ minute) and we are freaked out by seeing raw chicken lying in the sweltering heat along the filthy, polluted streets of Mumbai, waiting to be fried up and eaten!! There are more profound differences than just showers. There are benefits to try to clean up the visual aspects of life and we do have better social protection systems than what I have understood India has. All I am saying is that India is not the complete opposite of our culture, even when it might seem like a hyperbol.

I have found that Indians value family very much. There is an incredible respect for elders and ancestry and Hetal explained that even though most people are born somewhere else than where they currently live, they make it a point to learn and remember the traditions and language of the area they are from. I noticed that children are loved in India. Even in the poorest areas, where little ones have no more clothes than what they were born with, mom and dad are loving and caring. I witnessed little ones walking with dad, barefooted, probably to some hard work place. Dad noticed a little one was getting tired and kindly picked him up and cuddled him. Another little one had to climb up a ladder in one of the houses in the Maratha Colony. I guess he has done that so many times, but dad carefully watched that he made it up safely. All I want to point out is that there is a lot of love in this country, expressed in places we might assume have little chance for it.

I guess the lesson about India is to assume you know nothing when you first visit this country, because there is no way to accurately convey the richness in their traditions, culture, and ways and if we compare them to our own, we will naturally consider our ways the standard for the quality control. I tried to prepare myself as much as possible before leaving and quickly found myself reading contrasting information. I now understand why.