Whenever it hits me, I think I'll start posting a few rants & raves. A quick couple that are top-of-mind:
RAVES:
The Food: almost all of the meals I've eaten here have been outstanding. Growing up in Wyoming, I never acquired much of a taste for spicy food, in fact, I usually stayed away from it. Now I get disappointed when meals aren't spicy enough! It's funny -- everything I eat (besides bran cereal and powerbars) is spicy hot -- the breakfasts (upamaas and dosas and iddlies), lunches, dinners, even the snacks - Lays even makes special spicy versions of their chips called Chaat Street - will make your tastebuds snap to attention. :-)
The People: man, are people friendly here. There is such a sense of hospitality and approachability, and everyone seems so sincere. There has not been a single time (yet?) that I've felt awkward or threatened in any way. It has made it very easy to feel really settled here.
RANTS:
Pollution: To be completely honest, the air here in Bangalore (far worse than most of India) is terrible; my eyes burn and my sinuses start to hurt if I spend too long near a crowded street. As I mentioned before, it always smells like theres a fire burning somewhere nearby. Something has got to be done.
Everyone is angry at America for not signing the Kyoto Treaty to limit greenhouse gas production... but one of the main reasons for the refusal of the Bush administration is that the Kyoto Treaty puts no restrictions on developing nations -- particularly India and China. And I agree that is a death knell for the world. Technologies have come so far; there is NO reason, for example, that the thousands of rickshaws here should be running two-stroke engines. (Two stroke engines burn a mixture of oil and gas, making them constantly spew a toxic bluish smoke.) Developing countries need to be held to a correspondingly higher standard -- one that's correlated to both today's anti-pollution technologies & fuels and their current/projected contribution to world GDP per capita.
Trash: There are practically no public trash cans to be found *anywhere* in this city, even in the most developed areas. So everyone is forced to litter. Every few days, women come along and sweep the trash into piles. Then the garbage trucks come and a whole crew of people pour out to pick up the trash *by hand* into baskets and load it onto the trucks. Or the piles get burned right there in the street. So much of this filth and energy could be spared by having a dispersed network of trash cans and dumpsters like we do in the US. Given that there are no real constraints to implementing this, I hold this to be a major shortcoming of the government here.
Don't get me wrong, of course -- I've found it quite easy to adapt to everything here... I just think it's important to realize that it doesn't have to be this way as India plans its future.
RAVES:
The Food: almost all of the meals I've eaten here have been outstanding. Growing up in Wyoming, I never acquired much of a taste for spicy food, in fact, I usually stayed away from it. Now I get disappointed when meals aren't spicy enough! It's funny -- everything I eat (besides bran cereal and powerbars) is spicy hot -- the breakfasts (upamaas and dosas and iddlies), lunches, dinners, even the snacks - Lays even makes special spicy versions of their chips called Chaat Street - will make your tastebuds snap to attention. :-)
The People: man, are people friendly here. There is such a sense of hospitality and approachability, and everyone seems so sincere. There has not been a single time (yet?) that I've felt awkward or threatened in any way. It has made it very easy to feel really settled here.
RANTS:
Pollution: To be completely honest, the air here in Bangalore (far worse than most of India) is terrible; my eyes burn and my sinuses start to hurt if I spend too long near a crowded street. As I mentioned before, it always smells like theres a fire burning somewhere nearby. Something has got to be done.
Everyone is angry at America for not signing the Kyoto Treaty to limit greenhouse gas production... but one of the main reasons for the refusal of the Bush administration is that the Kyoto Treaty puts no restrictions on developing nations -- particularly India and China. And I agree that is a death knell for the world. Technologies have come so far; there is NO reason, for example, that the thousands of rickshaws here should be running two-stroke engines. (Two stroke engines burn a mixture of oil and gas, making them constantly spew a toxic bluish smoke.) Developing countries need to be held to a correspondingly higher standard -- one that's correlated to both today's anti-pollution technologies & fuels and their current/projected contribution to world GDP per capita.
Trash: There are practically no public trash cans to be found *anywhere* in this city, even in the most developed areas. So everyone is forced to litter. Every few days, women come along and sweep the trash into piles. Then the garbage trucks come and a whole crew of people pour out to pick up the trash *by hand* into baskets and load it onto the trucks. Or the piles get burned right there in the street. So much of this filth and energy could be spared by having a dispersed network of trash cans and dumpsters like we do in the US. Given that there are no real constraints to implementing this, I hold this to be a major shortcoming of the government here.
Don't get me wrong, of course -- I've found it quite easy to adapt to everything here... I just think it's important to realize that it doesn't have to be this way as India plans its future.
posted by jdmc at 12:02 AM
3 Comments:
Bombay is much better than Banglore or any other city. You can't get away from the pollution. When you return to U.S.A., you will have a dry cough for a long time. It doesn't go away even if you take any medicine. Go back to Wyoming for a mega dose of fresh air.
Glad to see you have so many raves!
Most people can't manage to go beyond pollution, poverty and dirt.
I am impressed.
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