This was a very eventful trip and I cannot be happier that both Saloni and I got to see all our surviving grandparents during this trip. We visited, in order: Jaipur, Indore, Mumbai, Kanpur, and finally Delhi in this trip. There was lots of time for chai and conversations on politics, lots of time to meet family and catch up with friends, and the general process of giving and receiving love. I don't think I've felt so fulfilled and sated by love and family in an India trip since I left for the US, and for this I'm so thankful.
But as I get more settled in US life and culture, an India trip becomes also becomes a bit about learning how things have been progressing from the last time I visited India. So here are some thoughts on that.
Positives.
1. There is continued development of roads and airports in the country. The airports in Mumbai, Delhi, and Indore are well designed and extremely functional. The outer ring road in Delhi has been developed into a mega 7 lane per side highway. Despite the number of cars at least doubling in the last decade, it took us ~ 45 minutes to get from our home to the international airport or the railways station, and this is less than it used to before.
<1 30="" airport="" and="" are="" at="" better.="" better="" both="" college="" days.="" delhi="" discovered="" even="" from="" go="" hasn="" have="" home="" hour="" i="" in="" international="" lane="" lanes="" markings="" mid-afternoon="" minutes="" most="" mumbai="" my="" nbsp="" night="" now.="" our="" p="" people="" roads="" rohini="" slightly="" station="" t="" that="" the="" these="" though="" times="" to="" traffic="" train="" used="" was="">
2. Trash collection in some places is markedly improved. Indore was shockingly clean. We visited a night food market and a day-time street food market. Every seller had a trash can, and there was no trash on the street to be seen. People in Indore seemed to be extremely proud of this and there were loads of posters in the city requesting all locals to keep the city clean so that it can retain its #1 position in the cleanliness charts for 2018. I was informed this has been a very recent change, as well. Track collection vehicles arrived every morning at a fixed time with a dopey "Swachch Bhaarat ka Vaada" song sung by Shaan. The PM's cleanliness campaign has at the very least raised some awareness for the issue. Unfortunately, such a change in mentality does not seem to have permeated all over India, and this is particularly evident in Uttar Pradesh.
3. Power. We did not experience a single power outage in all the places we went to, besides a short 5 minute power loss in Kanpur. Credit here goes to the BJP government and its work on making the running of old coal-based power-plants more streamlined, which has transformed India into a power-surplus state for the first time in its history. The price of solar power production has also come down massively and there seems to be a push into solar power generation to add to the existing power infrastructure. This is excellent news.
4. Mumbai is beginning to develop a cool skyline.
Negatives.
1. The air quality in Delhi, and UP generally has become shockingly bad. I was happy to not be in Delhi for any longer than I was there. The coastal cities fare better only because the ocean sweeps all that smog into itself. Whether the air quality is due to burning crops, fuel-inefficient cars, small coal-based factories, or people just burning wood to keep themselves warm, this just cannot continue.
2. The air quality also impacts fog development. After 5 PM and before 11 AM, it was hard to see past a meter in Delhi/Kanpur. The thick fog has made train travel very unpredictable and frustrating. In my times as a college student, traveling between Delhi and Kanpur was a routine affair and the train was never late by more than an hour or two. This time, our train was late by over 7 hours. Of course, we were able to bide this time by making new friends who told us about their horror stories and life in tech startups.
3. I had built UP to be a total shithole so that when we actually arrived my wife would be decently surprised at (hopefully) my rather unfair and harsh evaluation of the state. Unfortunately, I ended up raising my own hopes and I was left disappointed after landing in Lucknow. The highway over the railway crossing in Kanpur continues to be under construction for the past 18 years. Trash is everywhere. Pigs, stray dogs, cows, donkeys, and all sorts of other living beings still roam free in the trash. Nothing has changed here, except for the power situation. Whether the BJP Yogi government (which I have massive reservations with generally anyway) does anything for the development of infrastructure anywhere other than Gorakhpur is to be seen.
4. Isolated incidents of sectarian violence seem to have increased. In my 3 weeks there, two incidents targeting Christians appeared on the news. The first one occurred in Madhya Pradesh, where a bunch of thugs beat up a Christian priest outside a police station. The priest and a bunch of seminarians were out singing carols in a village when some Hindutva activists alleged that the priests were trying to forcefully convert the villagers to Christianity and called the police. Things then turned violent at the police station. In Aligarh, UP, a right-wing Hindu group threatened schools against celebrating Christmas---nothing eventually came of this threat because of a clear statement from the UP police against the group, and widespread public disapproval. It is indeed a big country, but there's enough reason here to feel extremely disheartened about the future of the social fabric of the country. Meanwhile, I realized that the right-wing has become strong enough to disenfranchise shorts-wearing folk (like me) from many temple complexes in Mumbai.
5. On a personal note, I felt even more so in this trip that everyone is out to take advantage of you in India. You step aside for a second and your place in line is lost. People are ruthlessly competitive. I think I've been only able to appreciate this properly since I've been away from India. On another occasion, my parents are out to buy their retirement home. A realtor who was supposed to show us one apartment tagged along for all other properties. What's in it for them? They would always make their way into the marketing office of the apartment complex to secretly seal a cut for themselves before ushering my parents to have a conversation with the sales rep. Why can't these guys be transparent and say what they'd like their realtor fees to be? A porter at the Delhi railway station charged us obscene prices to take 3 mid-sized suitcases up and down just two flights of steps, presumably seeing that the traveling party consists of two women and one man. Taxi drivers, porters, everyone needs to be negotiated with, and it gets absolutely tiring once you're out of touch with this.
6. Industry continues to be impeded by extremely unionization-friendly Congress-era labor laws. The metal-working factory my dad is in charge of is an illustrative example. Profits are heavily dependent on reducing human errors in production, and workers are least bothered. They have been in the job for 20+ years; labor laws make it nearly impossible to fire "worker" class of people in India. There is therefore no motivation to perform. The union these workers form is additionally able to regularly increase their compensation. In fact, the workers are so complacent that performance-based salary increases are also not enough to motivate them to work more efficiently. So the factory tries to hire additional "contract" workers on lower wages that are not protected by these laws. That creates a vicious atmosphere since some workers are payed disproportionately less for the same work. Rightly these workers are knocking on the door of the courts for equal pay. Here the painfully slow Indian legal system works in the factory's favor. I do not see how this situation can be addressed. It is a bit like the introduction of reservation in education and jobs for certain castes. At 15% of job seats, it makes good sense, but at 90% in some places, it ceases to be meaningful. Similarly, the extreme protection of labor is doing no good to anyone in the country---worker salaries aren't rising fast enough and new industries are not investing in the country. The Congress has, in each iteration since their existence, introduced policies that are so politically expedient that all parties unanimously agree to them to save face. Once the policy is in paper, revoking them is simply unimaginable from a political point of view.
7. Eating out, shopping clothes, and many other things are tending towards American prices, especially if you shop in malls. Which tells me that even though salaries have risen, the standards of living have not risen by much if at all, especially for the middle class. Things are likely better for the lower classes but life is still very hard for the average worker in the Indian system.
Now time for some simpler moments:
1. It was fun to enjoy a shot of brandy with my grandma. She was her usual self. A street dog has decided that he will protect my grandma every time she's out to enjoy some sun in the afternoon time. It is unclear why this dog provides this service free of charge but I appreciate it.
2. My favorite new phrase, which was relayed to me in different Hindi dialects in both Jaipur and Kanpur is that there's no point in collecting money in life for posterity. If your child is a kaput, they'll blow through all that money in no time; if your child is a saput, they won't need your inheritance anyway. I like the idea of burning through my money by myself, personally speaking :)
3. People in my wife's family have huge social networks, especially those in Jaipur. They have seen so many deaths of other, older people that they do not feel the pain of bereavement. Life comes. Life goes. People continue smiling. It's an eerie tranquility.
<1 30="" airport="" and="" are="" at="" better.="" better="" both="" college="" days.="" delhi="" discovered="" even="" from="" go="" hasn="" have="" home="" hour="" i="" in="" international="" lane="" lanes="" markings="" mid-afternoon="" minutes="" most="" mumbai="" my="" nbsp="" night="" now.="" our="" p="" people="" roads="" rohini="" slightly="" station="" t="" that="" the="" these="" though="" times="" to="" traffic="" train="" used="" was="">PS: I need to write on these trips before I forget about them ASAP: Hawaii, Costa Rica, Spain/Morocco, and Acadia National Park travelogues. This is why from now on I will date my trips.
But as I get more settled in US life and culture, an India trip becomes also becomes a bit about learning how things have been progressing from the last time I visited India. So here are some thoughts on that.
Positives.
1. There is continued development of roads and airports in the country. The airports in Mumbai, Delhi, and Indore are well designed and extremely functional. The outer ring road in Delhi has been developed into a mega 7 lane per side highway. Despite the number of cars at least doubling in the last decade, it took us ~ 45 minutes to get from our home to the international airport or the railways station, and this is less than it used to before.
<1 30="" airport="" and="" are="" at="" better.="" better="" both="" college="" days.="" delhi="" discovered="" even="" from="" go="" hasn="" have="" home="" hour="" i="" in="" international="" lane="" lanes="" markings="" mid-afternoon="" minutes="" most="" mumbai="" my="" nbsp="" night="" now.="" our="" p="" people="" roads="" rohini="" slightly="" station="" t="" that="" the="" these="" though="" times="" to="" traffic="" train="" used="" was="">
2. Trash collection in some places is markedly improved. Indore was shockingly clean. We visited a night food market and a day-time street food market. Every seller had a trash can, and there was no trash on the street to be seen. People in Indore seemed to be extremely proud of this and there were loads of posters in the city requesting all locals to keep the city clean so that it can retain its #1 position in the cleanliness charts for 2018. I was informed this has been a very recent change, as well. Track collection vehicles arrived every morning at a fixed time with a dopey "Swachch Bhaarat ka Vaada" song sung by Shaan. The PM's cleanliness campaign has at the very least raised some awareness for the issue. Unfortunately, such a change in mentality does not seem to have permeated all over India, and this is particularly evident in Uttar Pradesh.
3. Power. We did not experience a single power outage in all the places we went to, besides a short 5 minute power loss in Kanpur. Credit here goes to the BJP government and its work on making the running of old coal-based power-plants more streamlined, which has transformed India into a power-surplus state for the first time in its history. The price of solar power production has also come down massively and there seems to be a push into solar power generation to add to the existing power infrastructure. This is excellent news.
4. Mumbai is beginning to develop a cool skyline.
Negatives.
1. The air quality in Delhi, and UP generally has become shockingly bad. I was happy to not be in Delhi for any longer than I was there. The coastal cities fare better only because the ocean sweeps all that smog into itself. Whether the air quality is due to burning crops, fuel-inefficient cars, small coal-based factories, or people just burning wood to keep themselves warm, this just cannot continue.
2. The air quality also impacts fog development. After 5 PM and before 11 AM, it was hard to see past a meter in Delhi/Kanpur. The thick fog has made train travel very unpredictable and frustrating. In my times as a college student, traveling between Delhi and Kanpur was a routine affair and the train was never late by more than an hour or two. This time, our train was late by over 7 hours. Of course, we were able to bide this time by making new friends who told us about their horror stories and life in tech startups.
3. I had built UP to be a total shithole so that when we actually arrived my wife would be decently surprised at (hopefully) my rather unfair and harsh evaluation of the state. Unfortunately, I ended up raising my own hopes and I was left disappointed after landing in Lucknow. The highway over the railway crossing in Kanpur continues to be under construction for the past 18 years. Trash is everywhere. Pigs, stray dogs, cows, donkeys, and all sorts of other living beings still roam free in the trash. Nothing has changed here, except for the power situation. Whether the BJP Yogi government (which I have massive reservations with generally anyway) does anything for the development of infrastructure anywhere other than Gorakhpur is to be seen.
4. Isolated incidents of sectarian violence seem to have increased. In my 3 weeks there, two incidents targeting Christians appeared on the news. The first one occurred in Madhya Pradesh, where a bunch of thugs beat up a Christian priest outside a police station. The priest and a bunch of seminarians were out singing carols in a village when some Hindutva activists alleged that the priests were trying to forcefully convert the villagers to Christianity and called the police. Things then turned violent at the police station. In Aligarh, UP, a right-wing Hindu group threatened schools against celebrating Christmas---nothing eventually came of this threat because of a clear statement from the UP police against the group, and widespread public disapproval. It is indeed a big country, but there's enough reason here to feel extremely disheartened about the future of the social fabric of the country. Meanwhile, I realized that the right-wing has become strong enough to disenfranchise shorts-wearing folk (like me) from many temple complexes in Mumbai.
5. On a personal note, I felt even more so in this trip that everyone is out to take advantage of you in India. You step aside for a second and your place in line is lost. People are ruthlessly competitive. I think I've been only able to appreciate this properly since I've been away from India. On another occasion, my parents are out to buy their retirement home. A realtor who was supposed to show us one apartment tagged along for all other properties. What's in it for them? They would always make their way into the marketing office of the apartment complex to secretly seal a cut for themselves before ushering my parents to have a conversation with the sales rep. Why can't these guys be transparent and say what they'd like their realtor fees to be? A porter at the Delhi railway station charged us obscene prices to take 3 mid-sized suitcases up and down just two flights of steps, presumably seeing that the traveling party consists of two women and one man. Taxi drivers, porters, everyone needs to be negotiated with, and it gets absolutely tiring once you're out of touch with this.
6. Industry continues to be impeded by extremely unionization-friendly Congress-era labor laws. The metal-working factory my dad is in charge of is an illustrative example. Profits are heavily dependent on reducing human errors in production, and workers are least bothered. They have been in the job for 20+ years; labor laws make it nearly impossible to fire "worker" class of people in India. There is therefore no motivation to perform. The union these workers form is additionally able to regularly increase their compensation. In fact, the workers are so complacent that performance-based salary increases are also not enough to motivate them to work more efficiently. So the factory tries to hire additional "contract" workers on lower wages that are not protected by these laws. That creates a vicious atmosphere since some workers are payed disproportionately less for the same work. Rightly these workers are knocking on the door of the courts for equal pay. Here the painfully slow Indian legal system works in the factory's favor. I do not see how this situation can be addressed. It is a bit like the introduction of reservation in education and jobs for certain castes. At 15% of job seats, it makes good sense, but at 90% in some places, it ceases to be meaningful. Similarly, the extreme protection of labor is doing no good to anyone in the country---worker salaries aren't rising fast enough and new industries are not investing in the country. The Congress has, in each iteration since their existence, introduced policies that are so politically expedient that all parties unanimously agree to them to save face. Once the policy is in paper, revoking them is simply unimaginable from a political point of view.
7. Eating out, shopping clothes, and many other things are tending towards American prices, especially if you shop in malls. Which tells me that even though salaries have risen, the standards of living have not risen by much if at all, especially for the middle class. Things are likely better for the lower classes but life is still very hard for the average worker in the Indian system.
Now time for some simpler moments:
1. It was fun to enjoy a shot of brandy with my grandma. She was her usual self. A street dog has decided that he will protect my grandma every time she's out to enjoy some sun in the afternoon time. It is unclear why this dog provides this service free of charge but I appreciate it.
2. My favorite new phrase, which was relayed to me in different Hindi dialects in both Jaipur and Kanpur is that there's no point in collecting money in life for posterity. If your child is a kaput, they'll blow through all that money in no time; if your child is a saput, they won't need your inheritance anyway. I like the idea of burning through my money by myself, personally speaking :)
3. People in my wife's family have huge social networks, especially those in Jaipur. They have seen so many deaths of other, older people that they do not feel the pain of bereavement. Life comes. Life goes. People continue smiling. It's an eerie tranquility.
<1 30="" airport="" and="" are="" at="" better.="" better="" both="" college="" days.="" delhi="" discovered="" even="" from="" go="" hasn="" have="" home="" hour="" i="" in="" international="" lane="" lanes="" markings="" mid-afternoon="" minutes="" most="" mumbai="" my="" nbsp="" night="" now.="" our="" p="" people="" roads="" rohini="" slightly="" station="" t="" that="" the="" these="" though="" times="" to="" traffic="" train="" used="" was="">PS: I need to write on these trips before I forget about them ASAP: Hawaii, Costa Rica, Spain/Morocco, and Acadia National Park travelogues. This is why from now on I will date my trips.
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