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!!

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

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!

We are soon there, at the end of the line.

Last weekend we had our ”Yuva Vividha” which was a youth festival with approximately 3000 children and young ones passing by. We had our two booths with “I Have a dream” and our own created movement “SayItOutLoud” ( sayitoutloud08.wordpress.com )A great success is the only word to describe it properly. And now we have our last and final project “The Pangea Day” film festival. Which we all should watch 2330-0330 Indian time. That leaves us with 2000-2400 back home in Sweden/Scandinavia. Check out pangeaday.org for info about channels and stuff.

I’ll be in Dharavi for the show, hanging out with the locals. Its gonna be great!

Damn allot has happened since I first set foot in this place!! I’m gonna enjoy kicking back on Sunday and look back at the path that lies behind me, that’s a totally new adventure!

First off, let’s have a look at the question.

“Will India be able to learn from the missteps of the West regarding ecology, energy and education?Will they recognize earlier in their economic and social development that material resources are finite yet human resources (such as creativity, innovation and expression) are infinite? Will India achieve a true global consciousness that recognizes the unique contribution of all cultures?”

At first glance, we actually have three questions all starting with the ”Will’s”, and even more questions within that.

I find the question as a whole to be a philosophical one and not as much factual as the earlier questions were. So I will reflect around this in my own ignorance, with the knowledge I’ve obtained here in India. And bare in mind this will be answered from my point of view.

”Will India be able to learn from the missteps of the West regarding ecology, energy and education?”

Concerning the education and its missteps, I will first define what I believe is the biggest misstep. The educational system or more accurately, the ones who are in it or has passed through it, are experiencing an educational inflation where educations no longer holds the same high value as it once did. In the past the reward of educating your self was a prominent job and the status it brings. But educating one self is now more of a rule than an exception, which of course implements the inflation of education and therefor, it no longer brings it’s past benefits. I can see the same pattern in India where a degree is to be the path for success. I also believe education is vital, and that it is the foundation in changing this world, but.

India seem even more, compared to Scandinavia, traditional in their approach on educating, which results in people getting their degree having read a lot of books. What about, experience, reflection, diversity, and creativity? These words maybe “buzzwords” of my context but not in Indian’s. Is India educating for the future and changing curriculum’s to fit what is to come or are they getting stuck in western traditional routine of education?

I can tell now that this can easily become a 20 page essay, but to keep the spirit of the blogg, I will spare you from this.

I do see a pattern in all these questions, and the answer that comes with them. We are talking about India working Pro-actively, which is to plan ahead and see the obstacles and threats that they may occur and work towards a solution before hitting it. But my experience, conversations and observations here in India has never told me the story of India being Pro-active. That leaves us with Re-active which is the total opposite and means to React when faced with the problem at hand.

A dialog with Mumbai’s University professor regarding the heavy traffic in the city and the fact that people’s welfare is on the uprise and an “obvious” symbol of wealth is a car. And ad the fact that the national hero Tata is producing a car which is to become the cheapest car in the world is being launched or even has been launched upon the world. And by easy math this can really be an issue for Mumbai, a major one(!)And of course the question sprung from a pro-active kaospilot, what are you doing to prepare for this flood of cars. And the simple answer was,

“- We will see to it when that day comes”

Re-actively? Yes i would say so!

But there is a twist to this country(!)and it is here it becomes more interesting, trust me I’m still exploring these twists.

We talked economy with a very nice professor called Amrit. He reminded us that this country is still very young since they got their independence in 1947 and changes happen constantly. But the thing is this economic plan of theirs is a combination of both the American and the Soviet economic styles. So they have a partial 5 year plan economy, that Amrit thinks is the right way to go, but the free market is smothering the public sector as India is becoming more and more liberal and the money keeps pouring in. Amrit suggests that the government has to be firmer in believing in the more communistic part of the economic plan. So here we have an interesting notion. Are they to fall in love with the flood of the money coming into India or are they sticking to their prior beliefs. I hope the have a house full of the best and brightest to have a look around them and see our mistakes and successes.

And the matter of human resources, I would think that they know they have a lot of people on their hands and are using as many as the can possibly afford. This keeps the unemployment figures down some, but it is a disaster for wages. I don’t know what came first, the low wages or the decision of hiring many to do the job of one and also share the wages of one?

Example, I saw 10 people behind a McDonald’s desk taking orders from 3 cash registers, another 9 behind them making the burgers, 3 who where cleaning the place and this is those who where in my line of sight. That makes 22 people that I could see. Back home 4 teenagers would have driven this place by them selfs. And still I had to ask three times before the order milkshake arrived. It is such an obvious problem with information getting lost when it has to pass through so many. And being apart of a big mass of workers you can feel very little pride or responsibility for what you do. To many chefs……

Thou this wasn’t the question asked concerning the human resources it is still a quite comical sight, being used to western-understaffed-overworked approach. But are the human resources infinite? Don’t we humans also have limitations? But is India to take advantage of Indian’s creativity, innovation and expression, then we are back at the educational issue

All of these questions are of high interest and value and would be done right being forwarded to the Indian Government. But who will I ask to answer all these questions when communication is not prioritized and corruption is supposedly very high. So like a true Kaospilot I was provided with a question and end up with more questions. Give me ten years of diplomatic authority and the insight of an oracle, then I’ll provide answers.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

From the 15th of April

This is the fourth day I’m stuck in bed, with little or no energy to even go to the toilett. My back is getting sore for lying down all this time, and that goes for my neck too. It feels like just typing this blogg drains my energy little by little, let’s hope I get to finish it before I fall asleep.

The doctor was here for the fifth time in two days this morning giving me another shot and reasured me that all the drugs in my body will be kicking in any second now. I hope he’s right. I dont think I can bare another day seeing the insides of my hotellroom. Well I’ll be getting a room mate today, Siri is returning from the hospital after a week there so she is also fairly tired of pills, doctors, and lying down. It’s seems like our puny swedish body’s cant handle the roughness of India. Let’s hope, by the time I get home I’ll be immune to all infections. I think thats an appropriate reward after this week!

Please try it out your self. check out the sayitoutloud08.wordpress.com for the instructions. Tell the world what you wish to change in the world!

“Trying out the Indian look.. Any Resemblance to my father?”

Soon two months have past here in India and the weather is getting hotter and hotter. And we are told that more is yet to come. I’m not that worried about surviving the heat, we have our air conditioning and our water. I fear more the arrival in Scandinavia. Am I to freeze an entire summer back in Sweden, now that I’m used to this? Am I going to be the pale one always wearing jeans back home? I should hope not. I prefer the Swedish summer, tho it sometimes rains and every time the suns out it chocks everyone but still. 40 Celsius is a bit to much.

Even tho nothing here is the same as back home. This has become home away from home. Colaba is now the familiar, my neighborhood. I know where I can get decent food without feeling sick afterwards. I have my fruit vendor, or “proot” vendor as they call it here. I don’t feel challenged by walking out my hotel door. Colaba is now a safe zone. And I have my routines, breakfast at 2 or 3 different places, I work and I work out at the gym. It is the safety of repetition just like back home. So I’m gonna start moving around in this big city again to wake myself up.

So it’s time to whip up the camera and be a tourist again!

By Pico Iyer