The post-India moment
It has happened before. This feeling is not at all new. However, this time is more acute, more penetrating and intense. I hate myself. My luck, my wealth, my 10 pairs of shoes, my 80 EUR perfume and my 3 iPods. Landed from India in London and I felt incredibly bizarre. The plane was full of second-generation Indians who today are British and eat, behave and are like myself. Western. I had some (pretty strong) negative transference towards them, they looked to me as the lucky ones, the ones who were fortunate enough to be born in a country where vending machines work, floors are clean, airports are filled with Bally, Prada, Pink and Burberry stores and people overeat and own too many pairs of shoes. I hated myself first and I hated them. I am aware this is an unfounded, totally subjective negative reaction product of my heart and not of my brain… each of those individuals has a story behind. I do too. Moreover, in Brigade Road in Bangalore people also accumulate shoes and I bet some expensive high-end store will soon move in and the world will have a happy Pizza Hut face here and there.
I can’t believe how things are so unevenly distributed: I am counting 15 (15!) rubbish bins around me. 15 bins for plastic, cans, liter and paper in about 100 sq. meters. In Delhi I walked for 20 minutes before I found a bin where to throw a banana skin. Environment is a luxury good, though. Other simple things are equally unfairly distributed around the world: windows closed and are clean, door handles work, toilets flush, lights work and all this while nobody seems to be working at all. In any Indian station you would see a battalion of workers doing very little because very little can be done. They do not have tools, construction materials or incentive to work. It goes like the old communist joke: you make us think you are working and we will make you believe we are paying you. I read somewhere that giving construction-kind of jobs to poor people in India (paying them between $1 or $2 per day) could be sometimes seen as not only a way to help them earning a salary but also of reminding them where their place in society is: filling potholes, redoing river banks…
I can’t believe how things are so unevenly distributed: I am counting 15 (15!) rubbish bins around me. 15 bins for plastic, cans, liter and paper in about 100 sq. meters. In Delhi I walked for 20 minutes before I found a bin where to throw a banana skin. Environment is a luxury good, though. Other simple things are equally unfairly distributed around the world: windows closed and are clean, door handles work, toilets flush, lights work and all this while nobody seems to be working at all. In any Indian station you would see a battalion of workers doing very little because very little can be done. They do not have tools, construction materials or incentive to work. It goes like the old communist joke: you make us think you are working and we will make you believe we are paying you. I read somewhere that giving construction-kind of jobs to poor people in India (paying them between $1 or $2 per day) could be sometimes seen as not only a way to help them earning a salary but also of reminding them where their place in society is: filling potholes, redoing river banks…
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Love you Macha xx