Justin Reflects on India

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Geo: 9.72978, 76.381

As we near the end of our time in India, I find myself struggling to find words to describe all that we have experienced over the past four months. So I won't even try to encapsulate it all and instead, just provide my take on something that Jamie and I have enjoyed more than anything else, more than the food, and more than India's natural beauty - India's people.

Wherever we go, we find that the Indians we meet to be welcoming, gregarious, and extremely friendly (sometimes exasperatingly so when we're in a touristy area and there is a sale to be attempted). Having said that, on several occasions, we have mistaken a simple greeting for a sales pitch. This was the case with the Hindu priest outside a temple who simply wanted to compare life philosophies with me, as well as with a man in Kolkata who invited us into his ten-square foot dry goods shop, not to sell us anything, but to drink a cup of chai (spiced milk tea) with him and practice his English.

Together with this warmth is an incredible interest in being hospitable. Books on India (and discussions with Indian friends confirm this) talk about the idea that Indians of all creeds pay homage to three additional gods - Mother, Father, and Guest. Essentially, opening one's life and home to guests is seen as an obvious duty.

We have experienced this time and time again - from Mukesh Sen who allowed two unknown Americans to live in his apartment for two and a half months to the Alikhan family who invited the three of us to celebrate a Muslim holiday with them - neither would accept an iota of compensation. I dare say that native-born Americans would be unlikely to take in random strangers they had met at Pioneer Courthouse Square or at the airport and if so, certainly not for weeks at a time.

In addition to witnessing amicability and hospitality, I have also seen an incredible sense of competition amongst people here. In November, Jamie and I were visiting with the cousin of an Indian-American friend. He was proudly describing his daughter's recent acceptance into a prestigious school. The cousin described the interviews and tests for which she had to sit - all in English. The school is one of the most selective in Mumbai... a kindergarten!

All other things being equal (individual drive/intelligence and family situation), I believe that this zeal to do well in life comes out of the knowledge that there is no economic safety net in India, no proverbial second place. On the ladder towards success, there just aren't too many rungs between success and failure. To be sure, India's middle class has been expanding over rapidly over the last ten years, but below them are people below the poverty line in India (defined by the World Bank as those earning $1 or less a day) mostly in rural areas. These folks are approximately 75%!o(MISSING)f the population (which is over a billion people). One thing is a daily reminder of the struggle to get ahead: on the streets of every city and small town we've been in, beggars (young, old, men, women, children) have approached us about every ten minutes.

Just about everybody we meet seems to have a hunger to get ahead - to do well in school, to get a better job, or to emmigrate. Sometimes, all three things at once. Time and time again, as soon as we reveal that we're American, people report that they have a cousin/uncle/sister in Detroit/California/New York City. To capture this desire to forge a better life, I'll quote an Indian friend, Tejwant Singh, MD with whom I used to work in Portland. Dr. Singh went through a medical school and residency in India. But he wanted to practice medicine in the US. Doing that required him to pass several difficult board exams as well as go through a medical residency in the US, which he'll start later this year in Detroit. When asked to describe what motivated him to emigrate, he writes:

"The greatest factors to come here is to live a life which is clean and corruption free. You have to be born in a developing country to understand passion.

Secondly, the media and the movies create a huge hype about life in the US. They
make the younger generation believe that is no work.......which is entirely false (which you and I know, but people won't understand until they come here and experience it for themselves).

I worked hard in India, even got my residency done and was getting an equivalent of
$400/month. Here I will get more than $10,000 . That is a tremendous difference. And the effort I had to put in here to get into residency is 10%!o(MISSING)f what I did to get my into my medical residency in India."

Tomorrow, we leave for Sri Lanka. But even after four months, we have only scratched the surface to learn about what makes this country tick. India's been enthralling, exhausting, and maddening, but never dull. We will definitely be back some day...

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