Last June I visited India for the very first time. On my return I wanted to write about my observations but the impressions were so close to be almost jumbled up and I felt I needed some time to reflect on my trip. So, even though I had promised my readers a series of blogs I have not been able to write until now. And I feel that it is better this way. A lot of these writings have a context, my point of reference is Pakistan and my impressions are all a conversation with what is the state of affairs in my own country. It is an attempt to point out where we are going wrong.
Some of the recurrent themes about India are, over-powering smells, population over-drive and of course extreme poverty. I wasn't disappointed either and I did see and experience all of these, really its hard not to encounter these and there were other not so flattering sights to boot. Like piles of garbage inside foyers, corridors and hallways of offices; hundreds of stray dogs roaming everywhere, within compounds of temples, inside corridors of offices, in parks, on the streets and crowded bazaars; whole families simply living on sidewalks and under flyovers - There aren't enough sidewalks to accommodate all of them. In Calcutta, I passed a sloping sidewalk along a very narrow inner street and was amazed to see that somehow rows of people had managed to make it their home and there was a man sleeping on that sloping sidewalk with a cloth draped over him. I couldn't figure out how the man did not slide off the sidewalk and how he could sleep so peacefully while also propping himself up? These and scores of other settlers along roads and side streets did not look like they had any intention or a possibility of living anywhere else. They could be seen engaged in all activities of life, like playing card games, sitting in circles and chatting, cooking, washing clothes, just as if they were living in a village.
Even as I write there are so many flashes of scenes that I feel should be narrated and become a part of this write up but I can't find a good enough narrative style to fit all of it in. My writing, therefore will be like India: full of noise and commotion and above all contradictions!
This is the thing that stands out about India that it is a country of contradictions. But this goes against as well as in favour of India. Most of what I have written in the first paragraph for many critics of India would be an 'ah ha!' moment but at the same time there are contradictions in them which sheds a favourable light on India. Yes, millions of people live on the streets and you see them everywhere, even along the main sidewalk leading to Gateway of India which is right beside Taj Hotel and along the very boundary wall of Taj Hotel itself! I found this to be a fascinating phenomenon. These people, though a very sore sight for the image that India is projecting to the world, are not shunned from these very visible tourist destinations. The rich, when getting off in all their designer paraphernalia from their cars and rushing into the Taj cannot possibly miss these rows upon rows of unfortunate, dirty, poor people. The rich haven't barricaded their areas and cordoned off the poor! A phenomena which is all too common in Pakistan. Some years ago, I saw a guard outside a mall in Karachi insult a provincial looking family for standing outside the mall and banishing them from entering the mall from the front entrance! Nowadays in Pakistan, under the excuse of fear of terrorism attacks, it is only the poor who are systematically screened and barricaded out of major chunks of rich places of interest and neighbourhoods. India, on the other hand, equally under threat, did not seem to have the same intense phobias and people could easily come and go everywhere they pleased.
My travel to India was to attend a conference on Abul Kalam Azad and interestingly during the course of the conference an attendee pointed out the respect we have given to our proponents of partition by making them places where guard of honour is offered day and night and in contrast people like Abul Kalam Azad, staunchly against two nation theory are forgotten and dogs frequent his graveside. It is true! Both, that Abul Kalam has been forgotten and also that stray dogs roam around his grave site but these two are not related. In Calcutta, dogs are everywhere! Inside government offices, not just the compounds but inside the buildings! Rabindranath Tagore has almost god-like status for Bengalis and even inside his ancestral home there were stray dogs . So, yes, you will probably see as many dogs in India as you will see human beings and they did seem quite harmless.
Smells - they simply take your breath away, literally! There were stenches which I had never encountered before and I am someone who has lived in Pakistan for almost 27 years, I pride myself on my familiarity with smells! For a country with this ginormous size of human population, it is not surprising that sometimes it smells so bad....
To be continued....
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