India and Britain

I have not had time to read any of the books, I will probably start them in the next few days. Between the India trip and finishing up last semester I haven't been able to keep up on reading.

I was able however to incorporate a lot of what we were doing with the India trip into some interviews on a variety of topics related to Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and globalization. I took notes on a number of lectures and asked extra questions at the end relating to the topic, plus I was sometimes able to ask for opinions on the side. I was also able to have a number of small chat/interviews with people including a Canadian who has taught and worked in an orphanage in India for several years, an American university student who has been working with NGOs in India for ~ 5 months, an Indian University student in the process of getting his PHD and several Indian people who's lives seem to depend upon foreign investment (either directly or indirectly) including fishermen, mall salesmen and souvenir sellers. These conversations often ranged from 2 minutes depending on language barriers to 15-30 minutes.

In the next few days I will give some brief excerpts along with some case studies of NGO work in India, and hopefully start reading the books so that I can incorporate that into it.

Members of the NGO Rural Institute for Development (RIDE) at a rally.

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On a personal note, reverse culture shock hit me hard when I got to London: the language, climate and people all hit and depressed me. I spent a few hours waiting at a bus station considering the differences between the people and the commercial stores.

Besides skin color, there was also a general unfriendliness about the British people, most people didn't smile, looked tired or bored and didn't seem very eager for life.
Although several of these traits could be noted in India people at the airport, one also found a lot more hustle and bustle. In India there were always very eager sales-people trying to get you to buy things at their store or something similar.  The British store clerks had their heads in books and seemed uninterested in whether people bought from them or not. In India it was uncommon to see a store person sitting down when you entered, they saw you before you walked in, greeted and welcomed you, regardless of whether you got anything, they were glad you had been there.

I wonder if this is a strictly cultural difference or economics or what. I was treated similarly to the Indian style  in Turkey, Morocco and Tanzania but there are more similarities between India and Islamic cultures than Indian and European.

Food Court at the mall in Bangalore

Still evidence seems to point more to economics, in the rich stores of Bangalore, the salespeople didn't follow you around.
*Though one could make the argument that Bangalore as a whole has adapted to Western cultural habits.






What makes it really interesting though is that in Britain and much of Europe you find these same people working in many of the small corner stores, or the less wealthy markets. Indians, Pakistanis, Kurds in Britain, Turkish people in Germany, North Africans in France. So it makes it hard to tell whether culture or economics plays more of a role.