Incomprehensible.
For the western tourist in India, this is the word one keeps coming back to when considering India as a player in the modern world. Incomprehensible – incredibly so.
Staggering poverty, disease, filth, toxic pollution levels, and an infrastructure bordering on the absurd – in India even the new buildings seem to be ready for the status of “ruins”.
Amongst all of this is the knowledge that the same country governing this hopeless mess is the same body preparing to send a man to the moon, producing some of the world’s great thinkers and technology, and of course possessing the ability to generate nuclear energy.
The western mind witnessing all of this is left baffled. The extremes one finds in India are the source of endless confusion for how it could all possibly function, let alone coexist.
While considering all of this amongst friends, the point was made that while these facts are true of India, the same points may be made for the US. South Central LA, Appalachia, the attitude of the southern states – the US health care system – are these issues also not incomprehensible in a modern era and country of wealth?
Traveling, while often difficult and uncomfortable, seems to be necessary for understanding something about ourselves and our world. It is not always the differences we should pay attention to when studying another culture.
Perhaps more importantly we should pay attention to things we see that first disgust us, only to later realize that due to some disguises or a blind eye, are more similar to our own world than we originally realized.
— Post From My iPhone
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