Day One: The Train Station:
While reading the book I was able to recognize a few things that I’ve seen myself in India and that you can probably see nowhere else in the world. Like when he mentioned the Thumbs Up bottles that he has broken or the small tea shops where Indians often buy a few cigarettes and a tea to relax. Those tea shops usually have Egg puffs, Samosas, and other Indian street food. But there is something I never saw in India, and I have been in India for four years. I have never seen a paisa coin; sure I’ve heard of the paisa but didn’t think there was a paisa coin. Maybe in his village a paisa is worth way more than here in Bangalore. I also felt familiar with the image of Indians smoking biddies in their corners; I have seen that many times. In the languages I saw some words widely used by Indians, for example “fellow”. They use fellow to make reference of other people, but not in the most polite way. Something I really did relate to in the start of the book is the way that Indian are always so exited and full of energy. When he was upset he ran around the train station and when he was happy he was thinking full of excitement. And also we can see the hard work that Indians will put themselves though for money, they won’t even ask why they are doing it as loon as there is money at the end of the road. Zia only asked about the reason why he had to count the trains later. Something very obvious is how when you give money to Indians they won’t take it, they will ask for less. But they do want it, if you insist they will take it for sure. But they are really polite so they won’t take it as soon as you propose it to them. It is very hard to relate my experience in India to Zia’s story because he lives in a small village and I live in one of the biggest cities in Bangalore. He is also very poor and I don’t think I am considered as poor. I am also a Muslim but in all those years in India I have never had a Hindu disrespect me or frame me for something I did not do. So I did not relate with that very well. The way the rich Pathan is descriped sounds like a typical average Indian in Bangalore, with the cotton grey pants and the button shirt. Most likely he has quite the tummy, leather shoes, and hair brushed sideways. Like a typical average Indian, but for Zia, who lives in a poor town, average Indian in Bangalore is a rich Indian in his village.
Day One: The Bunder:
This story is very hard to relate too. Most of the relations I was able to make were with objects or logo. The first object that that related is the Air India logo on the whiskey glass. Once I was visiting a company in Hosur and they had coffee glasses with a logo on it. Not even their own logo, a logo of TATA a other popular Indian company. After the whiskey glass there was the white ambassador car. When I hear tha name I totally think of India. The car is very widely spread across India more than any country. In fact many people who come to India bring one of these cars back with them if they have enough money to do so. Personally I see these cars everywhere and only in India. The third object is the Karnataka Bank; Especially since Bangalore is in Karnataka; it was more easy to relate to it. Well in this book so far I have only related to objects. The stories are not very easy for me to relate to, but I can easily see those Indian objects or brands that belong to India and can only be found in India. It is like stereotypes, you know to who they belong to once you see them. There was a big part in the story talking about counterfeit and corrumption, and as far a personal experience goes, I think india has a lot of counterfeit goods. I myself sold some counterfeit goods in town. There are even some malls specialized in counterfeit goods. People in Bangalore or anywhere else in India can steal and sell at any store really easily. And I once even read in the newspaper a story about a Indian guy going around and stealing gas from two wheelers and cars and later reselling it. There are many kind of counterfeit I have seen and it gets more and more amazing every day. And there is a big corruption in India; many people are doing work that endangers their life and health for almost no money. India says it is a socialist country but from personal view it looks more like it’s one of the most capitalist countries in the world. There are literally rich people building house next to slums. The part where it said that when you get close to the sea you can start smelling the salt in the air and the fishes being sold by the fisherman on the side of the port. It reminds me of when I went to goa, it had the same feeling and the same smell when we get next to the sea. But goa is sharing the same sea as the village.
Day two (Xerox):
This story is shorter than the others but in this story we can really see the corruption in India. Xerox’s father cleans shit for work. And he probably does not get payed enough to support his family. And I related to that story because in India I have experimented many ties where the polices beats up a civilian because they can. In India taking care of the law means being above the law and I think this is a major problem. Xerox was asleep and the cop was drunk so he decided to break Xerox’s legs. And in a developed country that would be enough to sue the cop and get justice for the act the cop and the lawyer had done. But instead the cops and lawyer don’t even apologize, they tell Xerox that if he is caught selling that satanic book once more time they will do worse to him than just breaking his legs. And this really shows how India’s justice is not good. The story is really short and it is really hard to relate to such a short story but I can surely relate to the Old Monk bottle. It is a very cheap rhum that poor Indians buy when they want to drink. They don’t have enough money for Johnny Walker or Jack Daniel’s and Old Monk in India is really inexpensive. And in the story we can see the other problem there is in India. This is the counterfeits they sell all the time. In this story he sells photocopies of book to students and people that might need them which is illegal. But in India piracy is not that much of a big deal which is the main reason there are so many fake things around. In Bangalore if I need I can walk to commercial street and get as many fake DVD’s, clothe or anything else really. On the side of all that I think that the book uses quite strong language, I am not against that but I was not expecting a book coming from India talking about a small village like Kittur use such words. And later in the book it also has some preety detailed descriptions on pornographics. I was really surprised while reading this book.
Day two (School)
This is way easier to relate to because the kid in the story is rich like everyone in our class. It was really related to because he had the same lifestyle as me. He had a driver that listen to everything to what he said but could not use him whenever he wants because his mom needs him. He is probably as old as me because he has the same ways to think. But in this story I really saw why people are calling India the biggest democracy in the world. Because there are so many different kind of groups of people. There were so many. I did not expect that such a small town can have so many different ethnic groups. And the problem in India that I have seen myself is that those groups don’t get along very well. People are discriminated because of the group they belong to. In Bangalore I have seen a couple of time riots because people don’t want religions to mix with each other. Once there was a bunch of hindus rioting against a new mosque being built in a hindu terictory. And hindus don’t like when the other religions eat their cows which cause a lot of tension between religions. In the book you can really see those tensions and why it is so hard to leave in a country with so many demographics. I also sometimes feel like Hindus don’t feel comfortable around me because I have a different skin color from them and they see me as a lucky guy who doesn’t have to work hard to get what I get. And sometimes some Indians really can’t stand you and it is something I had to learn when I got in India. And also I was able to related that friends don’t live close to each other in India like in Canada. In Canada I use to walk 2 minutes to all my friends house but in india it’s a 30 minutes ride with the driver or a rickshaw. And the kid is in the same problem than me because when he goes to his friend house he had to call his mom to send the driver so that he can go back home. Same with the school he has to go to school with the car and come back home with the car, in Canada you can preety much walk anywhere from school to your friends house very easily.
Day 2 (D’mello)
By far the hardest story to relate to since it talks about school life of a Indian school which I have yet never set foot on. But I think that the best way anyone can relate to that story is by seeing the corruption mass media has done to Childs in India. Maybe in the story the problem was pornographic movies but for me and for my experience in India I have seen many kids dreaming of becoming cricket players knowing that they have no chance and dropping studies to pursuit their dream. I have even seen some kids that are more interested by Hanuman or Ben Ten than by their studies. Now a day in India kids have lost their priorities. I think the main reason for that is the west world is starting to blend in the traditional culture of Indians. There are thousands of new projects being built in India everyday making it the fastest developing country in the world. But instead of making physical projects the government should focus more on social projects. They should spend more money on getting every kid to school and make sure that corruption does not get to them. The government has gone to hell like the theatre in the story. They need to renovate everything to make sure that it does not happen again. And I know that India has the money to do it but they prefer to spend money on the main source of the corruption than on the corruption… Rich people. They build big malls, big roads and better business. As if the well being of a foreigner is more important than making sure every kid is getting proper education. In the story that is very obvious. The teachers put on their best suits and make sure that the British Lady that is coming to visit school feels at home. They really want to show that India is a good place to invest money. But I think it will help more by educating the kids first, that way more people would want to invest in India.
