Posted on 05/31/2015 10:17:42 AM PDT by Lorianne
And brushing your teeth.
air so bad that every morning I tied a clean T-shirt around my face and soaked it with bottled water.
I think I read over 2000 dead in India due to a heat wave lasting over a week.
Oh my heavens! Glad you recovered!
Yes over a billion total ,but somewhere around 400 million of them have no sewer system or do not use the one they have.
Once in a while somebody uses a toilet, but about half never do. That’s hundreds or thousands of tons of raw sewage every day that just sits around. you cannot go anywhere without stepping around piles of shit. Don’t even get me started on the cow thing.
Brushing your teeth, right.
And opening your mouth in the shower.
“have the flies, mosquitos, gnats, etc. been surpressed in smoky areas or have the little beasts adapted?”
Not to worry - they are among the last species to die.
But seriously, India is changing pretty quickly. It just has a lot more people than anywhere else, and is starting from rock bottom on sanitation. Rapidly growing pollution from industrialization and wider car ownership contribute, but biological waste is what makes India so special.
Richer parts of the country are much cleaner, and in many rural areas, people area spread out.
Delhi has a pretty nice metro train system, with good air conditioning for example, but when you get off, you might see some wild monkeys attack a legless leper to steal his food.
In Delhi you just have to turn the corner from the glitzy Hilton to find someone (many) in squalor, but in newer IT havens like Bangalore or Hyderbad down South, there are broad sweeps of relatively upscale new construction. In the agriculturally prosperous areas in the Northwest which are predominantly Sikh, cities like Chandigarh have nice wide clean streets. Most Indians will point you to Goa in the Southwest as a particularly nice place. Up North in Ladakh the air is quite clean.
But when it is bad, as it mostly is, it is world-class bad.
Really, the place is coming along quickly, but it is still one of the most shocking places for Westerners to visit, and second only to Central Africa for the concentration of disease.
Have you ever been in Bapatla in south India? I know a lady there who runs an orphanage, and some of us try to help her gets funds. Is it that bad there?
During the British Raj this was quite a place to reside if one had money I reckon but now at an average of a thousand head per square mile it ain’t for me.
Bo, I agree, there are parts of India that is improving, however, one thing that you should never to is try to drive
a car. There are no rules. Period.
You always hire a car and driver. You sit in back and read the India Times, never looking out because if you lock eyes
with a beggar, your car will be surrounded and you can’t move.
Begging in India is a form of work; they can’t get regular jobs; so much so that young beggar families will cut of an infants arm to create more sympathy;ie bring more money home.
Also note that most cars don’t have side view mirrors, and if they do, they are taped back against the door post and window. That’s how close the come to other cars in traffic and on the highway. That’s also the reason to keep your arms inside the car. You can also lose your watch to a thief in a NY second.
During the time of the Raj, those who could escaped the summer heat and humidity by going to Nepal, using the trains. Of all the European colonies, Britain left
India in the best shape, with a functioning bureaucracy and
a decent transportation system.
In the good hotels, the water was treated. The water at the
Blue Diamond, in Pune, tasted like mountain spring water.
Think highway robber with his mask just up to his nose.
Looks like the first census was in 1881 and counted @255 million. A billion less would have made for a nicer country. I think the Brits were the ones who pulled the disparate kingdoms into a unified country.
Somwhere amidst my mess there is a good book about the Brtish mapping of India. It was a difficult and trmendous accomplishment.
Why can’t the burnable trash be used to burn the corpses? Seem like a win-win.
“Have you ever been in Bapatla in south India? Is it that bad there?”
I have never been to that part of the country (East Coast in Andra Pradesh).
For all the talk we have done of the downside of India, there is a a lot of spectacular beauty and extraordinary culture as well. Intricate architecture on temples, elaborate textiles, ornate decoration of brides, highly developed styles of dance, flowers and incense - It is pretty fascinating and diverse. Part of the extreme culture shock of traveling to India is being jarred from something beautiful or fascinating to suddenly something horrible or repugnant. And stuff just keeps coming at you. It is kind of overwhelming.
That part of the country is really tropical.
In any part of the county, orphans could have a real hard time of it - like something out of Charles Dickens, or worse. Kids can end up picking through garbage to live, forced into prostitution, or in rare cases even killed for their organs. A basic living with food, clothes and a decent roof can be had for a child in India a lot cheaper than in the US, so a dollar can make more a difference there.
I really appreciate you helping out there. I am on my fifth child there that I sponsor, until they hit 18. Although not an orphan, this child’s father earns about fifty cents a day.
Yes, unfortunately true
Yes, been to Bapatla
Yes, it is that bad there
Orphans. I was visiting a foundry in Gujerate and watched
the orphan kids pouring molten Aluminum into sand molds, waiting for them to cool, and then breaking them out of the
sand. As young as four, no shoes, shirts, no protection of
any kind, open air surrounded by brick walls and the temp was 117 degrees.
Went to another factory that was a fabrication shop. Watched
as a huge press make oil pans for diesel engines, found out
for Cat here in US. Right out of the press to a gang of kids who sat and hand filled all the rough trim from the punch press.
One thing I learned from all my trips. I don’t believe any label that says “Manufactured in USA”. They all lie.
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