Billion Shades of India from Bhanu Sharma on Vimeo.
And I like it. I have had the wonderful fortune of traveling quite a bit across India and enjoying the company of people from different regions with all the diversity in full glory. This includes visiting the Moffussil areas of TamilNadu, breathing the natural beauty of Kerala, walking the lush green fields of Punjab, scaling the pilgrimage to Vaishno Devi/Tirupati/Golden Temple, foot board traveling in trains in Uttar Pradesh, enjoying the tasty strawberries of Mahabaleshwar, driving on the expressway between Bombay and Pune and lots and lots of experiences interspersed between.
While that has been remarkable, the daily life of a average resident in India is quite below-average to say the least. We have to deal with bad traffic, infrastructure and in general a low urban life. We also have to deal with corruption and inefficiency of the systems and the unruly behavior of our corrupt leaders.
On the other hand when I toured Singapore last year for a week or so last year, it was quite a pleasant experience. We stayed, ate, drank, commuted, snapped photos and in all experienced various facets of life in Singapore and to say the least, it was quite pleasant. When I moved to Singapore earlier this year, it was about as pleasant. You of course have to spend the effort getting things up and running, but once done, you are all set. There is the occasional MRT breakdowns, but in general, life is Singapore is made comfortable by the efficiency displayed by the Singaporeans.
So, why is it difficult for us to bridge the gap between having pleasant experiences in our holidays and experiencing a comfortable life on a daily basis? Its time we think about our aims from this aspect.
ps: Thanks to Om's blog for showing this video.
2 comments:
The sheer number of people that have to be educated about so many things makes me wonder on when would we achieve what we see outside. I am going slow right now, striving to fix problems within my reach first. May be someone would reciprocate. I guess when you come back (you would, won't you?), things would improve due to you too. :)
Rishi: good to see you here.
Yes, the sheer magnitude of the problem is almost overwhelming. Good to see people like you trying to get into the act. I do intend to come back and I would like to work on it. However, my personal belief is that the system is so ingrained to behave in a certain manner that it would need a draconian change (a dictator perhaps) to come at the top for anything to significantly change. Small improvements here and there have always happened, only to be taken back by another round of official stupidity. That however, is no excuse for not trying and to that extent I think all of us should contribute to make things better.
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