This is the end…

my only friend the end!

It’s truly over. There is no more heat from the pounding city of Mumbai. Im right now sitting at the comforting home of my lovely girl.My god I’ve missed her, she has truly made it easy to forget Mumbai and embrace Scandinavia as the paradise I remember! Yesterday I got of the plane to smell fresh air, wet tarmac and summer, I’m still amazed over the small things that I’ve come to take for granted. I still can’t grasp the fact that the evenings are long when I’m used to the sun heading down as it was scared of the skies at seven. This summer will go down in history as the best one ever! Dear friends, strangers, relatives and animals this is the end of the India chapter of this blogg, maybe some other interesting subject will appear, who knows?! I expect to miss the big city and one point, but until then, let’s enjoy this summer together!!

Question nr.4

“How do the cultural clashes between the traditional Indian culture and the emergence of technology such as text messaging and Internet dating effect romantic relationships in India?

This is question nr.4 provided by Lauria Meadoff who is co-founder of Chat the Planet. My answer can be read below.

The story about love in India is an interesting subject. What is love, and how do you show/see it in a culture that have strong traditional or religious restrictions? And how are the modern ways of communication changing the way people interact. One could believe that this can easily result in people having one life online and a whole other one in real life. But i don’t think that is the case.

First of all a lot of things are changing as the now young generation grow up. As I’ve said in previous posts the younger generation is no longer paying as much attention to the social traditions that their parents live by. I believe that this has a lot to do with the western, capitalistic move into India, and the products, television and vast choices of communication that come with it. All of a sudden people have a lot of ways to look at the world outside India and choose what they want to take in.

With that said it doesn’t mean all Indian have similar romantic experiences as I have back home. I spoke to a very nice, very modern Indian girl who studies at a university and is for the time being having her internship at MTV here i Mumbai. She was with me and my friends for a night out on the town. We all had a blast and I realized we are not so different. But for romance and love we had totally different points of view.

She told us that her future husband is something that her parents looked after, and eventually she will be “given” away in marriage. And I as a hopeless romantic wonder of course what she felt about not being able to choose? What about love and forever?

This is a bright young girl, so she told me that things aren’t as fixed and traditional as I might think. It is i no way she will get a call saying “we found you a husband you will marrie tomorrow”

She says its more like a recommendation of a boyfriend or future husband. She says her parents will probably talk to some relative who knows someone who has a son that they think will fit together. They get to met, talk, get to know each other and find out if they get along. After that she says you can say “no, we don’t match” Then it’s starts over again. This dating period last around 6 months so that they give each other a decent chance, she says. And she is still yet only 22, and is not expected to marry for another 2 to 4 years. But still I asked, what about falling in love, the nerve wrecking first couple of dates that makes that first kiss so wonderful. The response was that she didn’t really care for all that, the important thing was that they trust one and other and that they can work on their relationship and love. I couldn’t agree more that relationships needs trust and the will to keep it alive, but that it starts somewhere else. So we look upon love differently, and no one gets to be wrong in this matter.

But we both dream of love and hope that it will find us both. I truly hope she gets to experience love the way that I have. Love is my fuel and passion is my trade.

“Its beyond what we see or even what we feel. It’s an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever, and the reality from perception. We’re helpless in the face of it and the cost of knowing love is sometimes greater than any heart would willingly pay” from the book Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

Indian’s walk like they drive

I think I stumbled across, in a Seinfeld kind of way, a curious observation.

The thousands and thousands of black and yellow taxi-cabs fight to get ahead in the dense traffic in this town. Without exaggerating they make a 3 lane road into a 6 lane by squeezing, honking and waving with there arms out the window. On top of this they have no rear view mirrors, I guess there can be nothing sticking out from the cars if they are to accomplish the 6 lanes. So thats where all the honking begins, so you don’t have to look back while driving. Just honk and the car in front of you have a slight idea that someone behind you is up to something.

So this is the traffic in Mumbai, but what about walking?

Crawford market is a place not far from where i live. This is a place you go to buy things that you don’t quite know where to find and you’re not quite sure they exist. The market offers whole streets of exactly the same products. The textile-street, the suitcase-street, the sunglasses-street, the fruit square and not to forget the street of toys-that-no-one-wants-or-are-very-old-and-broken. Here you have a large crowd of people, mostly natives and they are heading somewhere. Try to be in a hurry in this place.

I tried out my thesis here about Indian’s walking like they drive. There are no particular lanes like right side walks south and left side walks north, and if you are a polite western man like myself, I can hardly move forward. A push and a shove is a must to get by. Ones/if you get to a decent pace someone will naturally step in front of you either to stop or move in a very slow pace. To avoid this sudden stops the Indian’s have implemented a way of honking when you walk. It is a squeaking sound like your calling for a dog or trying to use a straw without one. Of course they have, cause it seems impossible to ever pay attention to anything but the path that lies just in front of your nose. Revelation! It seems like no one here have the ability to see anything else but whats just in front of their nose, period! Welcome to the land of reactive thinking. ( Generalizing is a lovely tool)

Maybe the bottom line here is, in Scandinavia we walk like we drive and Indian’s do too. But in India you buy your driver license!