New Delhi – Sunday February 18, 2007

One wonders if there is anything to say that has not been said before. This is a city of extreme contrasts drawn together by sights and smells that all can enjoy and none can avoid. A delicate smoke fills the air, coloring the sky with endless smog. Somewhere between burning wood, incense and exhaust fumes. From the remnants of the British Colonial empire that exude an opulence that one could almost mistake for Hong Kong, London or even New York to poverty that is not at all beyond what I had imagined but it’s closeness makes it intense well beyond what I am prepared for. It stops me from walking; my eyes cannot drink in enough of the sights that I have never before seen. Four year old children run barefoot in the street, emaciated dogs lie somewhere between dead and almost dead, faces of seven year old girls that are hauntingly beautiful – begging – presumably chosen because someone has determined their beauty in our Western eyes. Architectural sites can’t seem to compare with the traffic that rushes wildly through the streets, bicycles, rigshaws, cars, busses, trucks in all sizes and shapes competing for the same space on roads that have no lanes. Shops no wider that the width of two doorways selling things I don’t understand. Smiling, kind, pleading faces. These seem a very sweet and gentle people. Soft voices fill loud spaces with our raising up to shout. Standing amidst such a rush of humanity the poverty is less sad than I expected. Proud and almost, mostly happy. This feels richer that the streets of New York, or even Rio. It is filled with a humanity that seems more apparent, resting right on the surface. Not ashamed to bath in the street or to persistently but not pleadingly insist that you ride in a cab, hire a guide or purchase a souvenir. Happy to be here.

Tuesday
6:00 am Delhi to Agra by train

Yesterday in the Old Delhi market my experience of this culture reached a more visceral level. I enter it with my son Alex and a grade school friend Peter Graham. On the boarders of the market people live with their families and animals. Cots line the edges of the street where people sleep out in the open. They cook, wash, children run naked, barbers offer shaves or haircuts, and of course people plead for money. This however is the exception, not the rule as one might expect. We were the only white faces among the thousands we could see. As you venture into the heart of the market you enter the largest recycling facility one can imagine, everything that can be salvaged is saved and resold. Engine parts, metal scraps, old tools, and hundreds of other things we couldn’t even identify. Cabling is painstakingly pounded apart as each individual layer is separated and resold. Everyone is working. Industriously everyone finds something to sell. How one would chose how to select a screw of a wrench from dozens of stalls al seemingly offering the same thing is never clear.

In this maze one can easily imagine becoming lost. Alleys lead to smaller, narrower and darker passage ways. And with so many people in such a small space we always felt safe. Often overwhelmed, but always safe. While hands pulled at my arm for attention they never ventured toward my pocket, though I found my hand resting on my wallet for reassurance.

As we emerge out into the street we walk past larger storefronts. Frustrated with our slow progress we switch to rigshaws, three wheeled bicycles designed to seat two behind the driver, but often accommodating 5 or 6 people, and at times they carried cargo that seems stacked up to 12 of 15 feet high. The pace is quicker. Each rigshaw gently nudges the others forward. Often coming to a complete stop, 4, 5 or even 6 across the width of the street. People run through the maze of bicycles, there are few cars here, the roads are to narrow and congested. Everyone seems fast at work, carrying a load, moving something somewhere, packing or unpacking. You get this tremendous sense of industriousness at all levels of the society. People are ready to hustle at the first opportunity. Yet whether offering ice cream for sale, begging or attempting to coax you into a storefront, after insisting briefly, usually in a soft spoken voice, you are permitted to move on in peace.

The intensity of all this humanity is vastly beyond the scale of a city like New York. While it is more that I can usually make sense of, it is clear something is happening, this nation is growing well beyond its outsourcing, high tech reputation. Building something at all levels. A country of education and of peace, gently lifting up more people every day than seem to fall through the cracks every year in America.

Thursday February 22, 2007
The Golden Temple Mail Train from Bharatpur to Sawai Madhopur

While we sit rather comfortable in a sleeping compartment with fans, windows and curtains, just ahead and behind us are cars overflowing with people who have paid about $2.00 for this 2 ½ hour ride. What’s amazing is that on Amtrak a similar trip would cost $50 – $100. In Agra, where we spent the past two days – as every tourist who goes there does – visited the Taj Mahal. With great pride our guide told us that this building was lovingly built by artists and craftsmen, unlike the slaves that built the pyramids in Egypt. The sight of the Taj Mahal at sunrise is impressive to say the least. It hard to imagine that such a great building was constructed as a burial site for a handful of people – and that no one ever lived on these grounds.

I visited another local market in Agra. The rush of humanity pressed together so closely is addictive. Again I saw no white faces, and in this market there were no beggars, unlike on the grounds surrounding the Taj Mahal. Multi-colored spices created a beautiful picture as women in brightly colored saris stopped to examine bright red chilies, yellow mustard and rich brown coffee beans.

Along the side of the road are mounds of round brown paddies piled in a special pattern that rise up to six feet high. Women sit for hours working cow dung into these discs that when dried will provide fuel for fires used for cooking. Nothing is wasted. Garbage piled in the street feeds goats and pigs. Most towns have no garbage collection process.

Sunday February 25, 2007 – Jaipur

This city of three million is the capital of Rajasthan was built only several hundred years ago. Outside the city is the Amber Palace and Fort one of the most amazing sites we have visited. Unlike the Taj Mahal, the Amber Palace was built as the home to a royal family. Its three foot thick walls hold running water that cools rooms in the summer, the entire palace collects rain water to provide for the nine month period with out rain and there was even a system to heat water for bathing.

Construction was started by Raja Man Singh I, army commander of Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1592 and was completed by Mirza Raja Jai Singh and Sawai Jai Singh, over a period of about two centuries. It is a classic fusion of Mughal and Hindu architecture, built in red sandstone and white marble.

Returning to Jaipur I was drawn back to the markets of the old part of the city. There is a similarity to these markets, the food, the inexpensive clothing, shoe repair, spices, fresh fruit and vegetables. There is also a huge amount of people in a very small space. There is often no where to walk that provides protection from the traffic. We are always advised not to give money to the beggars and instead to donate to the local charities that provide food and clothing. A minimal level of medical care is free to the poor. For housing they are on their own, evidenced by tent cities and many living by the side of the road.

My growing affection for this amazing country is also giving way to an overwhelming sense of sorrow for the disparity between the comfort of my hotel and those living just out side its gates in crude structures made from plastic tarps that rest on the ground. Raised a few feet high by what ever sticks they are able to find permitting one only to crawl in and out. They, as much of the city is, are surrounded by endless amounts of garbage dumped by the side of the road, seeming to benefit only the animals that feed on it.

Our guide is licensed by the government and considers himself an ambassador for his country. He was born and educated in Jaipur receiving advanced degrees in linguistics and history. His knowledge of this country is vast, from business and history to culture and politics. In America he would more likely be a University professor than a tour guide, a profession that he is very proud of. Whether the question is India’s literacy rate (about 43%) or the living quarters of the founder of one of the largest conglomerates in India (Tata, who’s founder lives in en extremely modest two bedroom apartment in Mumbi) his pride for India is irrepressible. The poverty that is hard for me to look at is a vast improvement over the country he grew up in. Yet with 47% of all children malnourished one wonders how deeply the countries financial success will penetrate into society. Is it inherent in all capitalistic countries that the poorest will always be left behind. Is a more socialist leaning government, as in many European countries, necessary to ensure that wealth is more evenly distributed.

As Thomas Friedman documents in The World is Flat, India has become an international financial powerhouse. It’s power is driven by education rather than natural resources. This is one of the most promising trends on the globe, the discovery that there is an alternative to the sale of natural resources to create wealth, intellectual capital. India, perhaps more so than any country on the planet has invested heavily in education creating MBA’s, engineers, software designers that rival anything that MIT or Harvard produces. This is a lesson that has escaped most of the developing world and much of the developed world from the USA to Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. But intellectual capital has yet to solve the issue of poverty.

Mumbai, March 1, 2007

I thought that the politically correct name for the city was Mumbai, but many successful, well-educated natives actually still prefer it’s original name, Bombay. This city of 18 million is almost beyond comprehension. Home to both Bollywood, India’s hugely successful movie industry and the world’s largest squatter village of one million people. Bombay is all the contradictions and extremes of India on steroids. Beautiful colonial architecture stands above sidewalks filled with crudely built shacks that house families that effectively are eating, bathing and sleeping on the street in plain view. I was told that almost half the city lives in these structures. I have no idea if it’s true, but where ever you go in this city the poverty is inescapable.

Several hundred yards from the Taj Mahal Hotel, regarded as one of the best in the world was sprawling village of tents and corrugated metal structures that housed an untold number of people. At night to stay cool people slept scattered about on the ground, one even on the hood of a stray car. The poverty is truly staggering.

In contrast, the upper middle class live with as many as nine servants, including a car and driver for each member of the family. Unless you insist otherwise they will attend to your every need. We experienced this visiting the home of friends. These servants often seem overly eager to please. They accept their fate, and both master and servant seem inextricably bound up together in a relationship that seems mostly beyond question. While I did not witness this myself, our host acknowledged that this at times leads to abuse.
The Indians also seem surprisingly willing to provide money to beggars, accepting that the theoretical social safety net meant to provide for them is largely nonexistent. While the notion that no one goes hungry might have some truth in the country side, it’s hard to imagine anything further from the truth in this city.

While we were visiting the new national budget was announced, an event of huge importance compared to the US where no one seems to notice, care or even understand its impact. Every newspaper and TV news show ran extensive coverage in both the days leading up to the announcement and afterwards. The impact of the budget on everything from the price of rice and mangos to the impact it is expected to have on individual public companies is analyzed and debated. This particular budget seems to move slightly away from a more pro-business agenda investing a bit more heavily in public education and transportation, agricultural price supports and other social services. To some surprise the IT industry, India’s prized and highly successful industrial sector was to face a slightly higher tax rate.

In some respects India is struggling to keep up with China’s more heavily planned economy. From health care to education, China has achieved higher overall standards. The come at a high price in terms of a non-democratic, much more highly controlled, less free society, but the progress in never the less impressive. India is, on the other hand, an amazing open, accepting and diverse democracy. Debate on everything from politics to cricket is expected.

The failure of small and medium sized business in the US to understand the opportunity for collaboration, the potential for purchasing services and the ability of Indian firms to provide high quality products is a loss they can ill afford. Departing from Bombay back to Delhi on Jet Airways, an Indian carrier, we received in economy class a better meal, on a newer plane, with outstanding service that puts the First Class service of most US carriers flying domestically to shame.

So what do I make of this experience. Some things are clear. I want to come back, more so that what I feel visiting most other countries. There is something happening here that I don’t want to miss and want to continue to struggle to understand. There is a huge business opportunity that must be figured out. As I kept reading the World is Flat during the trip, India is featured more proximately that any country other than the US. What ever is happening to revolutionize business in the world it’s happening at warp speed in India? The poverty is staggering, well beyond what I have ever seen or imagined. The slums in Bombay made the slums in Rio look like middle class housing.
More to come.

March 3rd, Back in Vermont

The silence is eerie. After the intensity of Bombay, the endless noise of drivers who rarely remove their hand from their horn, as they literally seem to try and move other cars out of their way, the silence in Vermont is both a refuge and an oddity. In some way I feel as if I have been cast out into the wilderness, isolated from civilization.

The luxury of my home, the vast space, the huge number of possessions, the electronic equipment, is hugely disconcerting. We could comfortable fit some hundreds of people in our house in greater comfort than half the citizens of Bombay. It’s painfully clear how I, we Americans, consume an immensely disproportionate amount of natural resources. Consumption that is blindly unconscious. Blind because it is the norm, what others do. Yet compared to a family living under a plastic tarp of less than 20 square feet, with no running water or electricity, my comfort is slightly sickening.

Too much ain’t enough. I remember a sign that sat on the roof of a bar that was located on Fifth Avenue and 13th Street in New York City. How true it is. The endless pursuit of more stuff, of a world filled with artifacts rather than value. How do we stop this madness, or at least slow it down. I fear that its familiarity has made it invisible, has caused us to feel all this stuff is essential. I used to believe I had more than I need, now it seems I have 10 or even 100 times more than I need.

The sun is out. The ground is filled with fresh snow. It’s peaceful and quite depressing.
Sorry, but that’s the way it looks from here.

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