A. MADHAVAN writes from San Francisco: Foreign travel stimulates the mind and the senses. We are constantly asking ourselves, how does this experience match with what we are used to at home?
Whether during the transit halt of three hours at Changi airport in Singapore or in the angst-inducing Hongkong airport or on arrival at San Francisco, my mind was busy making comparisons.
Take sanitation. I have seldom found functionally efficient sanitary fittings and facilities for the public India. Perhaps it is our hot climate or the humidity, but our pipes and taps begin to leak and the flush system goes dry after a short time.
Plumbing is an area of conspicuous technological backwardness in India. We may be wizards with software, but we neglect to maintain the hardware of elementary sanitation.
A drain will be aligned slightly up a gradient to the municipal drainage, or a public drain, laid under the ground, may be allowed to overflow into the street.
We need drain inspectors like Katherine Mayo and Sir Vidya Naipaul, caustically impolite though they were, to shame us into consciousness of better sanitation.
A park in Kuvempunagar was recently spruced up with paved tiling for the footpaths and plenty of water for the grass and the flowerbeds. Within a month some of the tiles tilted up as if to mock the Corporation, some stalks of grass ventured to peep between tiles, and tap dripped water continuously.
No gardeners were there to take stop the criminal waste of water, when women in some suburbs have to get up at 3 a.m. and fill their pots in a repeated ordeal of patience and pugnacity.
(When we complained to a stray attendant of a similar leakage in Cheluvamba park, he said we should go the Water Works department. When I reported to the Chescom office about street lights burning in the blazing day, I was asked to go to the Corporation.)
Yet our construction workers can put up stunning new buildings with granite and marble and plate glass glittering to glory. Go abroad east or west, and you find that the toilets not only work, but are kept functional and clean.
On planes in the economy class, one has to bear with the inevitable queue, the selfish passenger who hogs the facility and the uncouth one who leaves it unclean.
Even so, I found on the long Cathay Pacific flight that a stewardess would come and clean up the place and spray a deodorant for good measure.
And Changi’s toilets are kept sparkling clean by vigilant staff night and day. It is another matter that Singapore vigilance is particularly harsh on those who forget to pull the flush after use.
I suppose it is a matter of what one chooses to see. When I am abroad, I too keep making comparisons with India, but usually it is India that comes out better in my comparisons. I compare the lack of life out there with the hustle and bustle of Indian cities, fact that you hardly see a living person on the roads in US whereas in India, not just people, you see many other living beings too :-) I compare the lack of roadside, “hygeinic” paani puri and churumuri gaadis there with the abundance of the same in India. Or if you take restaurants, frankly the best they can offer – the Saravana Bhavan’s and Kamath’s just don’t stand comparison to our Adiga’s or Mylary’s. I compare the fare on offer on their TV with ours and with a few exceptions like Friends and Seinfeld, rest just don’t compare. I compare their stoopid Baseball with our beautiful game Cricket and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I compare the boring monotonicity of their never-ending highways and malls with the vibrancy of Indian roads. I compare their sanitised, air-conditioned grocery shops with our Jayanagar 4th Block markets or dodda market of Mysore and invariably I end up yearning for the latter. And on and on and on…
This is not to say that we shouldn’t have good plumbing or good roads in India. We should. But point is, while there are some things that US has and India doesn’t, there are also lots of things that India has and US doesn’t and it is important to recognise those.
Mohan
I will argue with Mohan that with regard to cuisine, arts and culture, there is simply no comparison between America and the rest of the world. Period. In the Bay Area itself, the diversity is incredible. The access to libraries, plays, music concerts, restaurants or almost any language/country in the world cannot be matched anywhere. It is another matter that you feel nostalgic for home, the country/town/village where you grew up. That is your heart talking – without permission from your head. {grin}
I should stop reading A. Madhavan. This guy keeps complaining waaay too much. It’s the same old broken record again and again be it IT vs BT or Bangalore airport or the state of afaairs in Bangalore after Rajkumar’s death.
My God, after certain point it gets really boring to read the same viewpoints. Mr. Madhavan, you need to have more substance and variety if you want readers to enjoy it. SUre, you do write well. But, I can’t take any more of the same nonsense…nope !
Mohan, come on…it’s like one of my friends’ claiming how Maruthi 800 is a much superior car than Toyota Camry.
Another friend of mine bought a brand new home in USA. There are obviously some cracks inside the house. Now this friend of mine claims that ALL the houses built in India are of much better quality than that built in America. Oh, and he also complains that whites discriminate against Indians, inspite of him getting good raise and promotions at work. Plus, he thinks America is the most boring place and you can do sooo much more and enjoy life if you are in India.
So, I have been asking him regularly…then why not go back to India my friend ? Well, he never seems to have an answer for tha. I wonder why.
No, I am NOT comparing Mohan to that idiot :) I do understand your point Mohan. Infact, I think Quizman put it in the right spirit. It’s just that a lot of us become nostalgic and like the ones from our childhood more.
Though I agree to some extent with everybody’s comments, I think Madhavan wanted to point out the general lack of awareness about good hygiene & sanitation. That point got lost somewhere in the article. Had Mr. Madhavan tried to focus on that issue more and not tried comparing the conditions in India with those of other developed countries it might have made more sense. We must remember that we are talking about a relatively poorer and still developing country. India’s Human Development Index ranking is in the 120s while compared to the US (10th) or Singapore (25th). Also only 30% people are considered to have sustainable access to improved sanitation compared to the US at 100%.
That being said, it is true that having good sanitatary conditions takes a low priority in India. Though the reasons could be numerous and we have to appreciate them, I believe that traditionally it could also be due our culture that functions related to cleaning and sanitation are considered unclean and only certain types of people or communities are considered ‘fit’ to deal with such tasks. Leave alone public places some people do not like cleaning up their own homes themselves. I think increasing public awareness on these matters & providing better access would help a lot.
Quizman,
Regarding cuisine, variety in cuisine is of no use to me. I measure a restaurant by the quality of vada-sambar/dosa/coffee that they serve {grin}. So by that measure all those Italian/Thai/Lebanese restaurants don’t even qualify because they refuse to serve those blessed dishes. Saravana’s and Kamath’s do qualify but they fall way below the best you can get in Mysore/Bangalore like say Ramya or Adiga’s. Maybe it is the water, maybe the ingredients, I don’t know. But somehow they just don’t taste the same out there.
As for arts and culture, sure you do have access to plays, concerts etc. But I would argue that culture is not just about those. Our festivals, maduve’s and munji’s etc are all part of culture too and we have much better access to those here all year long. To me, attending a marriage, mingling with people, those customs and traditions, the vaalaga, the kanjeevaram sarees, baLe ele oota with chiroti is much more satisfying than going to an opera or a play. And ofcourse there is no dearth of concerts during Dasara/Ramanavami/Ganesha festivals either. Sure, we don’t have variety – but then again it is like food – when we have access to the best, why worry about the rest {grin}
Point is, we have a lot going for us here in India, especially us middle class folks. A lot of people seem to take what we have for granted and keep cribbing only about what we don’t have – good roads, uninterrupted power etc.