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"India, first of all, came to the game with some just natural advantages: one, English-speaking population; two, real emphasis on education. You also had a country that is very instinctively able to glocalize, take the best of the global world and meld it with their own culture."
Tom Friedman
Columnist,
The New York Times |
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21st CENTURY INDIA
When I first visited India in 1992, it was a very different country. It was still diverse and a pure saturation of all the five senses. As a 16 year old, visiting for only a couple of weeks, I was unable to make any grand assessments; however, the visuals are what stand out in my mind. I remember sea of white automobiles, with two major brands, the Ambassador and the Fiat. There were no major advertising or media billboards strewn all over the city and rural areas. Train travel was the major choice for long destination travel. One could drive directly up to the Taj Mahal on a bumpy old dirt road.
India of 2006 is a much different scene. Globalization has come to India in a very big way. Every month there is a new car launched in the market, with Indian brands competing with foreign companies. Advertising and media is plastered everywhere. Even entire shops are painted with the logos of Western and Indian brands. The low-cost aviation sector is rapidly expanding and connecting parts of India that would otherwise take dozens of hours or days to reach in a train or a vehicle. And due to the worldwide threats of terrorism, the Taj Mahal undergone a major change with massive security and car parking shifted to a lot 1 KM away. Tourists are made to board environmentally friendly rickshaws which are electric for the short drive to and from the Taj Mahal entrance. Furthermore, tourists are now charged an insane amount of 750 Rupees to enter the Taj Mahal compared with that of only 20 Rupees for an Indian Citizen.
India is rapidly changing and thus creates a dynamic backdrop to participate in a TGU volunteer program. The fact is that most of the outside world knows really very little about India and its Culture. What is known is often from the media and negative in context, Poverty, Nuclear Proliferation, Overpopulation & Environmental problems.
One of India's great strengths and one of the reasons it has been able to exist for thousands of years is a strong sense of spiritualism. It is the hope of TGU, that volunteering in India would be an eye opening experience. India has contributed to the world in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Understanding India's complexities and offering to join hands in India's development can help lead to a more stable and peaceful world.
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