Development

          What is the meaning of 'developed nation'? If the measure is in the number of people with mobile phones and personal vehicles, number of fancy restaurants to eat and high-rise malls to shell money out, increase in the number of ‘life-style diseases’, India is getting there. Almost all the people above poverty line carry around phones. Almost all the middle class households have vehicles (at least a two wheeler). The average salary has significantly increased, so did the price of common goods. Value of money has significantly gone down. I don’t understand economics much so I cannot say anything on what changes have happened at deeper level.

            But, unfortunately, I could not observe any paradigm changes at the socio-political system. The traffic culture is pretty much same. Professional drivers tend to drive very aggressively, being inconsiderate to pedestrians and try their level best to push traffic rules without getting fined. There is no concept of queue in public places such as ticket counters in rail stations and nationalized bank (at least in two places I visited). And of course we never had the concept of personal space. If one tries to keep a distance from the person in front in a “queue”, some one will try to squeeze into that space. In the bank I tried to form a queue and even after 5 minutes my one-man queue did not move an inch while there was a crowd in front of the counter with four or five hands reaching into the counter with there passbooks and forms. I started an argument with a guy there saying that I was standing there before he sneaked in front of me. He gave me a broad moronic smile and said, “no worries, I am not in a hurry, you can go ahead if you want” and pushed his filthy hand holding the passport on to the face of the bank clerk. The clerk looked up and gave me a smirk and made no effort bring an order to the chaos happening in front of him.

            On another occasion, when I went to collect my PIN number for ATM card to the local branch, the dude sitting there opened the envelope in front of me and announced my ‘secret PIN’ to 10 people standing there. “Isn’t it supposed to be a secret number known only to the card holder”, I asked. “No one can take money without your card, you know” he educated me. I thanked him for that word of wisdom and ran to the next ATM to change my PIN ASAP. Indian railway has started the electronic reservation system. It is a convenient mode than the traditional ‘street fight’ approach to reservation, ignoring the not so uncomment glitches of the website. However the infrastructure has not improved significantly. Yesterday, to travel a distance of 140 km the daily express train took 8 hours (usual run time ~ 4 hours). There was some maintenance work on the way. I realized it only when I boarded the train. I got down in one of the station and went to the station master and asked what was going on and why was it not informed while I purchased my ticket. He explained the situation briefly and gave me a a piece of advice “you should read news paper daily. It was there in it…” I carried that advice to my heart and got back on to the train to waste 5 more valuable hours of my life. Another aspect that has not made any significant improvement is public sanitation. Even educated people do not have any qualms about dirtying public spaces by spitting or littering. The authorities are partly to blame for this pathetic situation because of their inability to provide basic facilities to dispose to trash and plastic waste. One may have to carry around the waste with them for a long time to dispose them. Many of the trashcans are to just give you a feeling of undertaking social responsibility, because I found many of them have large holes in their bottom and abode to a variety of pests and insects.

             Anyhow, I am trying to find some humor here. It is not meant to be serious criticism. I know it is very easy to criticize without doing anything to change the situation. I do not know how to change the situation other than make myself right and 'be the change I want in the society'. Just like any other part of the world, there are both good and bad things happening here. And of course, whatever happens we cannot expect a revolutionary change in life-style and way of thinking in a span of seven short years. It will take decades. The old generation has to be replaced with fresh blood who think right and positively. And to end in a positive note, I found most of youngsters I met, extremely bright, ambitious and eager to uproot the social injustice and corrupt system. A new generation who want changes to happen in the right direction. I will call them the internet generation (iGeneration). Although some change has to happen in their social out look and philosophies, I hope things are moving along in the right direction. Lets hope that technology will make all of better and motivate us to make technologies that is right for all of us.