India as is known is a land of many greatness; great history, heritage, philosophy, spiritualism, mahatmas and gurus, yet, after every trip home I’m left feeling perplexed. The land of my birth with such rich history unfortunately, fails to provide me with the comfort and ease of home coming.
Our great philosophy preaches of the land being an abode of peace and in stark contrast is reality.
The minute you step foot on the Indian soil there’s noise, screeches to the decibel that paralyzes your senses. Yet to everyone around, this chaos appears natural and they are one with the flow.
While waiting to board the connecting flight, I seek for a quiet corner with a Reader’s Digest hoping to read but to my utter dismay this isn’t a place for reading. There’s a battle of announcements of arrivals and departures and movement your eyes can hardly keep pace with. People in my homeland it appears do not know the ‘art of soft speech’, they either yell or scream. We don’t exchange friendly smiles, we glare or stare. Why I wonder, do we have to be so cynical and scared.
To add to it, we have flies and mosquitoes in profusion desperate to seek alien blood and patience. Sad but true, the first hour in my homeland is aching, my mind is a confusion and the brain ceases to think. I muster whatever needed courage to board the next plane with a consolation that things won’t be that bad. Yes, things aren’t that bad, the view of the place that bred me uplift my spirit, every lane has a memory buried deep and I’m glad to be back but such a feeling is momentary.
Day two is for running errands and that is when reality hits hard. The land of ethics and discipline lacks both in the work atmosphere. Ask for suggestion and you are given wrong advice, ask for assistance, you are ripped. For reasons unknown, there’s this lurking self centeredness. The first thought in everyone’s mind is to have the better of you since you are living ‘abroad’.
Second point of disappointment is lack of work culture. There’s no sense of time, commitment, dedication and duty. You talk and take innumerable tea breaks . Taking breaks and passing work is working in the Indian context.
Then you have endless list of holidays and strikes. In the one week that I was in India, three days were non working days; a fisherman was beaten up so the ‘Leftist’ called for a strike, the bankers were unhappy so their union called for a strike, it was Rabindranath Tagore’s death anniversary so his patriots decided on a holiday. And mind you, all of these were overnight decisions. No, it’s not important if your life comes to a standstill with these instant decisions. You are meant to be flexible and fit in; after all you are in a land of diversity.
Organization , discipline and patience are ‘foreign’ words; the roads are a swarm of rickshaws, vehicles of all sizes , pedestrians, cyclists and ‘cows’ with everyone huffing and puffing to go first. No rules of any sort prevail. In a land of overpopulation the ‘me’ and ‘I’ dominate. No one wants to compromise or even consider.
The concept of malls may have crept in but how about mall etiquette? Why does music have to blare? Why do announcements have to be made? Can’t our people read and understand for themselves? Why do we have to push? Can't we wait for our turn? Why do security people have to check at every entrance and exit? Why do sale tags have to be put when there’s no sale? And, why can’t people be pleasant?
Everyone looks so angry…wonder why.
Everyone looks so angry…wonder why.
