I really love India, have been visiting for tech business for over 20 years. I've found it to be one of the toughest countries to do business. I'd be more physically and mentally drained at the end of each day. And I'd fly out with a huge to do list. Yet there has been many heartening observations along the way.
I saw a poor woman go up to the window of the frequent flyer lounge kitchen, she placed with her hands out, and the staff returned and gave her a bundle of eggs. She was so grateful.
While stuck in a jam traveling between meetings, slums lined the side of the road, three kids under 5, no clothes, covered in filth, hitting a stone around with a stick with huge smiles... happiness.
And last night on the way home in Mumbai I see a father and son on a dark street intersection with almost nobody around. The father laid out a tarp and the under 5 year old son was hopping and dancing around taking shoes out of the sack and placing them neatly in pairs.
And then the little jobs to help people. The chaiwala and the lift attendant.
Its a fantastic place to 'grow up' from whining western spoiled kid into mature adult, to get some grip on how real world is, unfair, cruel, harsh, but also amazingly beautiful.
The quickest and by far best way to do this is backpacking all around, taking slow public transport, sleeping cheap, eating cheap where locals eat etc. I've spent like 500$ per month there in 2010. Yes there may be unpleasant bowel issues but after weeks you will come back a slightly better human being, and memories and experiences will be part of your personality. Best parts are usually random interactions with anybody out there, asking for directions and ending up eating dinner with their family, haggling with rickshaws, seeing how untouchable caste lives, feeling the intense heat of burning bodies in front of me on Manikarnika ghat in Varanasi... I could go on and on for very long time.
I've done in my previous life 2x 3 months backpacking like that, just big fat lonely planet book and deciding what to do and where to go next on the spot. Everybody from west we met was doing exactly this, just time varied between few weeks to few years. Felt like being in completely different universe, friends and family back home just distant dream of a dream. Both times it also felt as spending few decades there. And oh boy did it change me for the better, even I could see it.
I saw a poor woman go up to the window of the frequent flyer lounge kitchen, she placed with her hands out, and the staff returned and gave her a bundle of eggs. She was so grateful.
While stuck in a jam traveling between meetings, slums lined the side of the road, three kids under 5, no clothes, covered in filth, hitting a stone around with a stick with huge smiles... happiness.
And last night on the way home in Mumbai I see a father and son on a dark street intersection with almost nobody around. The father laid out a tarp and the under 5 year old son was hopping and dancing around taking shoes out of the sack and placing them neatly in pairs.
And then the little jobs to help people. The chaiwala and the lift attendant.
And well... the food! Thank you India.