My Passage to India

Back from India and what an excellent experience! I hesitate to say crazy because somehow I wasn't shocked at all, everything was just as i had pictured it. So many people had raved about how crazy it was, the pollution, the bustle, the noise, the crowds, the lack of health & safety and the list goes on to include just about every opposite quality of the west.  Of course, in true developing third world fashion, the extreme poverty is modestly off-set by the not so modest marvels of luxury hotels, restaurants and bars complete with exceptional first-calss service.  Then again, with every statement about the country, there is an aspect of india to contradict it, so the best way to describe it is to say that it is absolutely everything, just with fewer white people.

 

Naturally, my first venture to India had to be accompanied by E.M. Forster's 'A Passage to India', which presents some rather incisive comments on the British colonisation of the country with wider explorations as to the fundamental incompatibilities of two cultures. Upon my return, in keeping with the region, I have also gotten through the engaging and quick read of Aravind Adiga's 'The White Tiger', which I recommend as a kind of modern day assessment of Indian mentality and life in contrast with the comparative order of the West.