A visit home...

India has been difficult for me this time around. I have tried to fall in love again, but it just didn't happen. I don't suppose it ever happens, with countries or with people, when we "try". I felt obliged to try, because I was in love with it before, and because it is the place of my emotional roots. That place of my childhood lives

I have seen human beings here don't have any respect for one another. If we cannot respect each other, there is little chance that we can respect our country, and help it prosper. The other day I was crossing the street, a speeding car nearly killed me. NOT AN ACCIDENT, i'd say it was a casual approach towards driving, and fearlessness for any consequences (wat consequences???). A construction worker spit paan on my friend from the 6th floor window where he was working. No one bothers about anything...the impression is that not bothering about anything is "cool". There's utter disrespect for punctuality. The later they arrive, the more they feel they are "important". And privacy? Hahahaha....We have a problem here too. Everyone is nosy about whatever is going on in the neighbour's house. "Kaun mar gaya?", "Raju ko kitne marks mile?", "Job mili? Salary kitni hai?" are just some of the privacy violating questions you get to hear. Never will those neighbours invite you to dinner, afterall they're only interested in the gossip - pieces of information no at all useful to them. Again..."Treat dega to hi hum ayenge"...i bet u've heard this before; Or if your one of the "typical" Indians...you'd have 'said' this more than you'd have 'heard' this. Yeah...disgusting isn't it? Hail India - The land of misers.

While there is a huge amount of love and attachment to children in families, I have seen them by in large be treated with disrespect: hit gratuitously, yelled at, pushed aside, laughed at, scorned, in the community, not only by strangers, but also within families by parents and grandparents. The archaic education systems condemns them to days of rote learning and horrendous fear-mongering by teachers ready to physically punish with a ruler and ridicule the child in front of everyone. The student suicide statistics are proof to this. This is no less than terrorism.

The humiliation and trauma are not consciously inflicted, but that is the result. It is just the way things are. No one seems to think that there is a discrepancy between loving your child and ignoring their psychic pain. And so it is with animals, spouses, and the earth, all treated with equal amounts of insensitivity. As many of my Indian friends have said, it is a disconnect that happens when you are thrust unceremoniously from village to city, in search of wage work, robbed of your land by a feudal mafioso that rapes and tortures you if you object. This is all compounded by living under colonialism for hundreds of years: the Moslems, Moghuls, the British, and now globalization; self esteem is so low it's hard to measure.

Who's got time to do anything but survive? I get that it is a priority to make it through each day for the vast majority of people here.

This is not about comparing India with USA. I can list what ails USA easily. This is about my experience here. There is no race for first place, or last place.
My India is a big wounded, bleeding family with open sores. It hurts. It really hurts. Yes, there is "resilience" amongst my people. Yes, there is tenacity, Yes, there are thousands of dedicated intelligent people working to change things in India. Yes, there is hope. Some hope. I just hope that the big change comes before too many people, animals and the environment have suffered unnecessarily and die horrible deaths...and before India gets invaded by foreigners again, like it has happened from the Aryans to the British.