Well I almost titled it India Yelling - as I was yelled at >5 times by my mom while writing this blog on the eve before returning back from India. Each yelling had resulted in some punctuations and the final yelling has resulted in the abrupt ending.
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My first morning in India began with a -
"Hello - How are you - New yorkk - hmmm" - remark from my 60 odd year old neighbour with a brisk handshake.
"No - Seattle" - was my reply
"hmmm uhmmm"
(We need to give Seattle more internaltional recognition. )
This was my first dawn in India(with a marathon 30 hours journey - 24 on flight and 6 on road).
Well the next morning began with a 6.30 am jog with my mp3 player strapped around my arm. On my way back my jog reduced to a walk on seeing a pack of stray dogs and that was the last time I jogged in India. The pounds I have piled over are testimony to that.
This time I went around India - Bangalore, Nagpur, Rajnandgaon and ofcourse Nashik. Travel on air, road and train. Met a ton of people - visited places ranging from a pub in Bangalore to a fort to the labour room of a general hospital (as a guest not a patient). I saw a whole world out there - just like here And I saw India changed like never before. The increase in consumerism reflected the evident rise in GDP, the increase of middle class people travelling in flights, surge of credit cards and online bookings (my dad using them!), and Ferrro Rocher in Raj Bhandar of a village. And the youth - never have I encountered so much energy, never have people tried to break the routine engineer, doctor profession, never have the doctors and engineers looked so enthusiastic (i met a small subset though) never had media been so visible (I have some issues with sensationalism and obsession with Ash-Abhishek marriage but I guess that would get tamed soon).
When in America - I always feel that I am in my mid-thirties. In India I felt as if I was in mid twenties. And that is India's age right now. And that is the promise it holds.
Yest went to Seattle's Pike's place market with my parents, VC's parents, Shankar's parents, Dami, Mary, Sam and Paramesh.Pike's place has the first starbucks shop (the differnetiating factor as pointed out by Shank was that in only that shop the lady is topless), there was a cheese tasting fest going but seems only I was interested in tasting cheese but I managed to munch on some until Dami said - chalo - kitna kha rahe ho moti.
