> > Near the first anniversary of our return, I had my first road-rage > incident: I verbally abused a hawker who was blocking the road. I?m not > going to let bullock-cart India make my daughter late for her school > admission test. > > The hawker glared but scampered away, the road cleared, and, as I walked > back to my car, I saw something new and disturbing in my driver?s eyes: > respect. I don?t know how my daughter felt because I couldn?t look her > in the eye.
I liked the article. What he doesn't address is that these daily bullock-scooter-airplane India juxtapositions force you to lead the "examined life" in a way that is difficult in the developed world. Sure, there are drivers in India who scam you with advances; but there are 20 others who don't. Given their underprivileged circumstances, are they better humans than us? For every person who feels that they are dehumanizing the help (as this author does), there are Indian families who retain help for decades. They have figured out how to extract work while making the help part of their families. India forces you to look into your soul every day and, many days, what you see ain't pretty. India forces you to cultivate character, in accordance to my favorite definition of it: "Character is what you do when others aren't looking." Your peers and colleagues don't know how you treat the beggar, the bullock cart driver and the hawker. But such encounters force you to figure out who you are. Some cannot bear the heat and run away. Others plod on-- sometimes with self-loathing about what they just did; many times with joy about what is possible to be done (where else can a Deepavali bonus that is under $50 produce such smiles from X, Y, Z-- gardner, housekeeper, you fill it in), but always questioning (are you being true/good by giving $50 when you could afford $200 and do you deserve the gratitude from the beneficiary?) I "fought" to return to India so I am heavily invested in this debate (and therefore biased so take my views with a pinch of that proverbial salt). But India is like those great cities of the world-- London, New York, Milan. Each of them fraught with inequalities, full of challenges (and character) and allowing for volatility. These are the places where "ideas have sex." Those who cannot deal with this can seek refuge in suburbia.
