Gurgaon is the city we based our small company in.
Five years back they told us: "It's a posh place". I never understood what they meant. As a small company we didn't have the means to lease an office in the few new MNC-buildings. We had to go with the regular places, where also normal people are living.
During the years I have seen:
- lots of big projects coming up, including thousands of skyscrapers
- these skyscrapers are for a big part not used, as can be seen from the few lights that are burning inside the flats in the evening
- though flyovers have been constructed, and a metro, the quality of the regular roads is really pathetic
- the city gets more and more crowded with people, vehicles, ...
- lease prices going up till 2008 and collapsed in 2009 (according to me to never come back to the old levels)
Though my wife and I considered for a while buying some property in Gurgaon, I'm very happy that I didn't take the risk. You can just see how much cheating, stealing and robbery is going on with these constructions.
Buying a flat in Gurgaon? With the levels of maintenance accepted by Indian people ? Not in a million years ! It's lost money.
The video from this link clearly describes what is going on. The report is in Dutch but you can easily follow the video by the witnesses.
I will not mention the social inequality which is apparent everywhere, but not shown hard enough in this video:
There's the woman pretending to find no single beggar. However, if I myself walk ten minutes from my office, then I see hundreds of families living on a waste belt. I will shoot some photographs and place them here one of the next days.
The same woman tells openly that "her maid is not allowed to leave the compound". Now the shown maid is an adult but in India the majority of maids are just kids below 18. In my eyes that is sheer child-slavery.
It's very disturbing to hear Indians talk openly about this shame!
I hope they will be able to enjoy their Commonwealth Games.
3 comments:
Hi Tony, It seems that your love with India is fading.
I find that there is a dichotomy when any statement about India is made in International arena. So one has to choose what one desires to.
There is no doubt that the poverty, social inequality, deprivation and corruption is there but it has mostly arisen due to the fast pace growth in past 20 years to which many people are not able to keep pace with. And it is more visible in newer cities.
It is our unfortunate history that India has been stripped of its wealth, time and again and now also in lure of cheap manpower resources the world is flocking to India but not many companies are doing in return.
I am equally concerned about the situation and doing my limited best to improve the things.
Hi Amit,
Nice to hear from you.
Well, just like is the case for every Indian himself, my relationship to India is contradicting in nature.
Living long time here, but having experience abroad, it is very clear to us all that Indian culture, especialy Hinduism, is so promising in itself
that one is inclined to expect much from the nation. Though I understand very little of Hinduism, I can see and experience the openmindness,
the sheer generosity and the religious truthfullness in it. (though I'm catholic myself, I could never find these things in Catholicism).
Nevertheless, if one looks at the actual things that happen in the field, the way things and especially public spaces or happenings are organised, then
I often feel ashamed.
It's like Indians are proud on the surface, but in reality are unable to do something right. I refer to the CWG.
This makes me really sad.
I don't feel I may say much about the "ethical" judgment, as these are of course very personal and culturally bound.
But the worsening gap between the haves and have-nots is a bad thing which will certainly lead to major conflicts in the society.
And these conflicts will not be solved by creating an extra State.
Just like in Europe social welfare schemes were initially started by the haves to prevent physical diseases (of which they were very
scared in the 19th Century), the Indian haves should realise that not doing something about this inequality will lead to their own
demise. I'm not talking ethics here, so I believe no Indian should be offended.
My love for India fading? I don't think so.
I do love my wife very much. But when I don't agree with her, and think I have very good reasons to do so, then she'll hear it
till she bends (or starts crying if you will). Sometimes that is very hard. I expect her also to in turn confront me myself with reality.
The last thing I would appreciate is that she would not be honest with me.
I like to think about myself as not giving a fuck about my own image but of course in reality this is a lie also.
However, I still prefer to live in reality.
India, however, wants to live in a virtual world sometimes.
Indians are very concerned about their image to the outer world, more than about what actually is happening in reality.
There's only one way to change something here.
That is to try to show the real things when reporting about India.
Sadly for you, my friend, but the real picture is rather grim.
This also needs to be reported from time to time.
Because of love.
Tony
Interesting discussion guys. I can only recommend everyone to go and read `The White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga. It's a brutal view of India's not so lyrical reality.
Especially the beginning is very nice!
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