Trip to India
March 3, 2014
Elizabeth and I went all the way to India for just a total of 9 days. My policy has always been to try to spend more time at places that are far away, but this was an exception because it was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. E was going there on a business trip so I decided to tag along. Fortunately, we arranged for our moms (Terri and Sandy) to watch the boys (Ian and Michael) for us while we were gone.
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| At the Taj Mahal |
The trip was great! No travel glitches or anything. India is a wonderful place. At least a few world travelers have told me that India is one of their favorite places largely because it so different, and not so Westernized. I found this to be true. Many times that I was wandering around Mumbai and Delhi I was of the a very few other "gringos" or tourists. This was especially true when I took a ride on the Delhi Metro/subway system. It was wonderful! When I boarded one of the Metro cars, I was very gently told that I was in the women's car and I made way to the men's car.
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| On boat to Mumbai with locals. |
Not only was this my first trip to India, it was also my first time traveling business class. It was an awesome flying experience! I had very little leg or back pain, as I do when we fly coach. Also, the food and drink were really good. I watched several current movies, including many of the Oscar contenders, including "Gravity", "All Is Lost", "12 Years a Slave" and "Blue Jasmine". Lufthansa is a good airline.
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| Cave No. 1 at Elephanta Island. |
It takes about 7-8 hours to India from Frankfurt and another 10-11 to San Francisco. It's amazing to think that were just there yesterday! As I told E, it's the closest thing to time travel that one could ever get to.
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| At Agra Fort |
Anyway, it was nice to be on the road again, especially to a developing country.
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| Inside Agra Fort |
At the bottom of this post is an essay I wrote halfway into the trip. Please excuse my simplistic and not completely well-informed view of things, but I just wanted to put many of my thoughts together.
Namaste,
Mike
My YouTube Playlist of India
16 short videos
Highlights: Elephanta Island near Mumbai and the Taj Majal near Delhi
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyJ15Ji1d-S8Tk0lN5DT5LWZxpApc4eJr
Link to 50 Pictures
https://plus.google.com/103571760965577902482/posts/Ck8gEK4uDcD
Books on India that I haven't read but were recommended to me while I was there:
"Shantaram" and "Behind the beautiful forever", by Katherine Boo.
My India Essay
If you ask me India needs another Gandhi. What I mean by that is that according to a Financial Times article a fairly vibrant and orderly democracy here allows for people from the lower classes or castes to gain political office. The problem is that government and politics are known as some of the best ways to get rich.
So Indian needs more people, more politicians who like Gandhi worked on behalf of the benefit of the country and not on his own behalf. From my study of Latin America and elsewhere, countries benefit greatly if their leaders choose to leave at the end of their term and do not loot the treasury as they go. Departing this way hugely and positively impacts the country. Some positive examples includes the mid 19th century leaders in Costa Rica, and recent transitions of power in Brazil especially the predecessor to Lula and Lula himself. Some negative examples of this include Putin's hanging on in Russia, and Robert Mugaby in Africa.
India is a fascinating country. Other than China, it's got to be the largest developing country with 1.2 billion people.
India's GDP of 1.8 trillion is about the same as Canada's. Though Canada's population is about 30 million. Mexico's GDP is about 1.1 trillion with a population of 120 million. Brazil's GDP is about 2.2 trillion with a population of about 200 million people.
Whatever India's GDP there's obviously not enough income to go around. There's massive poverty. Some estimates say that about 350 million people live in poverty in India. (total US population equals about 300 million). But there's also a massive amount of development, skyscrapers, airlines and airports, roads and cars (traffic and air pollution, too) etc.
Addressing inequality, like currently in the United States, needs to be one of India's biggest objectives.
Former Pres. Lula Da Silva in Brazil helped usher in a lot of positive economic development as well as distributing the benefits of growth to the lower classes especially with his Bolsa Familia, which guaranteed every family a certain amount of food, health and education supplies and opportunities, from my understanding of it.
There seems to be great potential in this country. Lots of economic opportunities such as in the high-tech sectors, textile industries and manufacturing. Recent news has shown that India is benefiting from the movement of manufacturing activities away from China which is becoming relatively expensive in labor costs.
From what we can tell, the educational system in India is very good. We have met many people here in India and Indian Americans in United States that are super bright.
One Indian friend of ours lives in the US but operates a textile business here. He says that he dedicates 30 to 40% of his work on non-profit, urban planning and development activities. I believe that India needs more people like him.
At times the scenes of poverty with the massive shanties and people begging can be disquieting. A recent story in the New York Times talked of pressures on rural farmers who get into debt and commit suicide. There seems to be a large amount of predatory lending going on to these low income folks. The loans are mostly often used to pay for improving a child's educational opportunities, but also sometimes for alcohol. The debts of the father transfers to his survivors and then moneylenders come calling threatening to dispossess the mother and children of their homes and small farms, their only means of producing any income.
On the other hand, one can see from the recent movie/documentary "Happy", that's some families here can be happy with very modest income. A very interesting point made in the documentary is that once people achieve a certain level of income, which in the US is about $50,000, they seem to have enough money to be content. Though , earning much beyond that amount does not necessarily contribute to additional happiness.
Apparently, in order to meet the demands of such a large population, India needs to grow beyond its current rate of 5% a year. India must also be careful about keeping its fiscal and monetary houses in order. Not least because of the pressures brought to bear by the loss of confidence in emerging-market currencies, partially if not largely due to excessive speculation.
I believe that India's short-term and long-term prospects are good. There is a large supply of well educated and talented human resources here. Let's hope that the country's and the world's natural resources will be used wisely in order to fulfill the aspirations of our 7 billion people without destroying the environment in the process.
