Finally BACK

Before you think I had such a long vacation in India, please STOP…I ‘literally’ came back more than a month ago. It just took me some more time to settle down to the routine again. India trip was fabulous. As I said before….HOME IS HOME (Period). Had great food (Smack!….Amma samayal na summa va?), did lots of shopping, visited many friends, got my Visa stamped, also caught up with some Mega serials,etc. It was loads of fun.

I went to India after about 2 yrs. This was the longest period I was away from home. I don’t know if it was because of the long gap or I have got used to the system here, but I found one thing very weird - Lack of Courtesy.

Thanks to the Multiplexes and hi-fi shopping malls, we now have glass doors for most of the entrances in India. You approach a door, you see someone entering in, and you hope they will keep it open for few seconds so that u can hold it, but BANG – reality slaps at U fast. You walk into the store awestruck, looking at all the colorful & shining dresses and OUCH – somebody just stamped on your leg with boots. You turn around and wait for an apology. But it ends up you are the only one who is standing there in pain & vain. You select an amazing “short kurta” and want to try it on. So you stand in a line in front of the fitting room. After about 15 mins, when it is finally your turn to enter, someone just comes out of nowhere and gets inside ahead of you. You just stand there wondering if finally you have found that “Invisible coat” that you were long hoping for.

You finally get done with your shopping and head home. Now comes the most frustrating part…the traffic. The day I landed in India, I was so thrilled to see multiple lanes on the roads. But my happiness was short lived; those lines don’t mean a thing to people. A road ‘technically’ just had 2-3 lanes. But there are atleast 6-7 buses, cars, auto-rickshaws, bikes, cycles that ride side by side. When a signal turns green, everybody starts rushing to cross it, create a commotion there, as a result of which, hardly a handful get to move forward before the signal turns red again. So after you complete 8 kms of drive in 1.5 hrs, you reach home. You get into the elevator along with 5-6 people. You say, “9 please” and see that no one moves a muscle. So you say it again, this time louder, “9 PLEASE” and still no response. Man...you just have to wait until a couple of people get down at 3^rd floor, so that you can reach for the button and press 9.

All these incidents just made me wonder, does a thing called ‘Courtesy’ even exists in our country? Are people even aware that we have to show some concern to the people around us? And these did not happen on just one day. Things like these happened wherever I went. And not just one city; Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Coimbatore – everywhere. May be not the same incidents, but similar.

Though our country is improving a lot in terms of Economy, the way of living, Education, etc, I think people in India still need to take a major STEP in terms of Courtesy towards others. And I sincerely hope they do it soon.