Random thoughts from Lenny
India assaults the senses. In all dimensions there are extremes. The smell of jasmine and incense alternates with the reek of urine and body odor. Along the path to the opulent Maharaja’s palace the filthy beggar children crowd next to you, motioning with their hands towards their mouths. The countryside is quiet, but the cities present a nonstop cacophony.
High technology is surely penetrating into India somewhere, but we have seen little evidence of it on this trip aside from the storefronts that offer internet access along with their laundry service, and the hawkers who peddle memory cards instead of camera film. This is still a backward country. We’re told the literacy rate averages about 20%. Donna provocatively asks, “If you were Prime Minister, what would your priorities be?” I would opt first for Chinese-style aggressive population control. The payoff will come 50+ years later, but India would be far better off with half as many people using the same resources. The second priority, of course, would be universal education to shrink the pool of those living in squalor and expand the middle class.
There are a hundred million people living in abject poverty on less than $1 per day. Along the tracks and in the cities, a piece of discarded blue construction tarp held four feet above the ground by sticks forms a house. At every train station and tourist attraction the barefoot children and the mothers with infants are begging. Trash of all kinds is everywhere, except inside the palaces, hotels and restaurants.
There are signs of hope. Udaipur is a city on the rise, with more businesses (not just tourism) and less apparent poverty than the others. There are private schools for those who can afford it, and flowering plants at other than tourist locations. Whatever magic is working there needs to be replicated.
The movement of people, animals and vehicles in the streets is like a film being shown too fast. The buffer zone between moving objects is reduced to inches. All the motorized vehicles – scooters, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, cars and buses – use their horn continuously to create a kind of force field that repels objects in their path. Carts pulled by camels intermix with cows wandering aimlessly. Pedestrians do not have the right of way. The rule – to the extent there are any rules – seems to be that size provides authority. Whenever a space develops in dense traffic, the vacuum is filled instantly by a vehicle that exactly fills the space without regard to fairness or direction of travel. Motorcycles in particular are often moving perpendicular to the traffic flow. Yet for all of this bedlam the traffic eventually moves through, tempers are not raised, and although we saw many near collisions we never once saw contact that caused damage.
Many of us on the train have been uncomfortable with our position as masters being served. It is a social structure that reached prominence in the days the 16th century Maharajas who built the palaces and forts we visit and has not disappeared. It is more than just a hierarchy of job function – streetsweepers below shopkeepers below cabin boys (yes, “boys”) below tour guides below guests – it is the caste system of social ordering that is still very much in effect. No one talks of “untouchables” any more, but everyone still acknowledges the caste to which they belong. Most marriages are still only sanctioned with the same caste.
On the train, Umesh is our able cabin attendant, organizer, alarm clock, cook for breakfast, keeper of the schedule and general problem-solver. We have internalized his grandmother’s wisdom: “If you have a problem, you can find a solution. But if there is no solution, then you have no problem.”
India assaults the senses. In all dimensions there are extremes. The smell of jasmine and incense alternates with the reek of urine and body odor. Along the path to the opulent Maharaja’s palace the filthy beggar children crowd next to you, motioning with their hands towards their mouths. The countryside is quiet, but the cities present a nonstop cacophony.
High technology is surely penetrating into India somewhere, but we have seen little evidence of it on this trip aside from the storefronts that offer internet access along with their laundry service, and the hawkers who peddle memory cards instead of camera film. This is still a backward country. We’re told the literacy rate averages about 20%. Donna provocatively asks, “If you were Prime Minister, what would your priorities be?” I would opt first for Chinese-style aggressive population control. The payoff will come 50+ years later, but India would be far better off with half as many people using the same resources. The second priority, of course, would be universal education to shrink the pool of those living in squalor and expand the middle class.
There are a hundred million people living in abject poverty on less than $1 per day. Along the tracks and in the cities, a piece of discarded blue construction tarp held four feet above the ground by sticks forms a house. At every train station and tourist attraction the barefoot children and the mothers with infants are begging. Trash of all kinds is everywhere, except inside the palaces, hotels and restaurants.
There are signs of hope. Udaipur is a city on the rise, with more businesses (not just tourism) and less apparent poverty than the others. There are private schools for those who can afford it, and flowering plants at other than tourist locations. Whatever magic is working there needs to be replicated.
The movement of people, animals and vehicles in the streets is like a film being shown too fast. The buffer zone between moving objects is reduced to inches. All the motorized vehicles – scooters, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, cars and buses – use their horn continuously to create a kind of force field that repels objects in their path. Carts pulled by camels intermix with cows wandering aimlessly. Pedestrians do not have the right of way. The rule – to the extent there are any rules – seems to be that size provides authority. Whenever a space develops in dense traffic, the vacuum is filled instantly by a vehicle that exactly fills the space without regard to fairness or direction of travel. Motorcycles in particular are often moving perpendicular to the traffic flow. Yet for all of this bedlam the traffic eventually moves through, tempers are not raised, and although we saw many near collisions we never once saw contact that caused damage.
Many of us on the train have been uncomfortable with our position as masters being served. It is a social structure that reached prominence in the days the 16th century Maharajas who built the palaces and forts we visit and has not disappeared. It is more than just a hierarchy of job function – streetsweepers below shopkeepers below cabin boys (yes, “boys”) below tour guides below guests – it is the caste system of social ordering that is still very much in effect. No one talks of “untouchables” any more, but everyone still acknowledges the caste to which they belong. Most marriages are still only sanctioned with the same caste.
On the train, Umesh is our able cabin attendant, organizer, alarm clock, cook for breakfast, keeper of the schedule and general problem-solver. We have internalized his grandmother’s wisdom: “If you have a problem, you can find a solution. But if there is no solution, then you have no problem.”
posted by SawMillLodge at 7:23 PM
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