Davide is O.K.

I woke up in the middle of the night as the neighboors next door were calling for help, as David, on of their sons I presume, was not feeling well. While listening to the debate weather them calling an ambulance or not, I took a book I’m reading called “Ganesha on the Dashboad”  by V. Raghunathan which questions many of Indian traditions, as they lack, what the Indian author describes as “scientific temper“.

Which brought me to the question: Why are people buried when they die?…

To my understanding it’s some foolish tradition that happens to be a big business for packing nicely a body that is going to decompose anyway, not to mention the space it unnecessarily occupies in this piece of land called cementery. What if Hindus were buried instead of cremated? would there be enough space in India for all of them? I wonder if burying is actually cheaper than cremating, or viceversa. or maybe it has to be with a sociological explanation, desguised as a religious one (as usual).

If it’s a sociological explanation, then maybe the Christian view has to do with nature, decomposition and nurturing the land. Maybe this is why bodies were buried… considering, of course, there were no space constraints in ancient times. But where they in India?… I don’t think so, which complicates far more my assumptions.

In any case, I thought it was an interesting topic to investigate on, hopefully I’ll get some answers. And yes, it sucks to be waked up un the middle of the night, but at least I’m almost done with the book.

At the end  don’t think no ambulance came, so in case anyone was worried, Davide is O.K…. and I go back to sleep.

Don’t Mess With Texas

Missing weddings is a very bad habit I involuntarily developed for logistics implications since I first went to live abroad a few years back. Last weekend, while in Mexico for my summer “break”, I visited my best friend who got married a couple of months ago and lives in San Antonio, Tx. What was really curious was that I felt like an alien in a context that was a normal and ordinary thing since for many years I went there for anything such as touring, concerts, shopping, etc. These are some of the ideas that crossed my mind during the weekend, in no specific order of importance/relevance:

Fried Chicken: We are facing a food crisis for the simple reason that Asians, such as Chinese and Indians, are raising their income, and therefore they afford more food. Can you imagine 1.3 billion Chinese affording to eat an extra piece of chicken in their daily diets? The point goes a little beyond that, and it has to do with the fact that food is being genetically modified (grains, animals, plants, etc.) to produce more than what nature can, since we are consuming at a faster pace than what resource are renewing.

I normally say this as a joke, but what if the Hindu/vegetarian Indians decided to start eating beef?… they will end up getting it all and the one ending up eating a plate of rice would be me. The point is that current levels of food production are skewed because they are planned and based on current world ratios, but evidently, the moment people scale up their consumption (it’s happening already, from vegetables, grains into fish, meat, etc.), we will be in deep trouble.

Luxury food: this is related to the previous point. Basically today you can chose between a fruit that grew out of fertilizers (and God knows what other chemicals) vs. a fruit that is “organic”. Of course, you have to pay premium for these types of products. So then again, when did eating healthy, natural and organic food became a luxury? And what kind of food have we been eating, and people will continue to do so, with counter effects in health that we don’t know today because all those transgenic stuff is being tested on us like lab rats?

Unsustainable consumption: buy, buy, buy, the more you buy, the more you save… One of the things I like about India is that it makes you forget a bit that you have to keep on buying stuff to be “cool” and “fit in” with the context. It is though quite obvious that in such country there is basically no “need” to show off or anything. Sometimes I even chose not to buy those new shoes because they would easily get ruined the minute I put a foot on the street. But this perspective helped me also develop the habit of getting rid and donating stuff to people who could need it and being more responsible with what I buy. So if I would buy a shirt, I would go to find an old one I didn’t used much and give it away. I am sure that regardless of where you live there would be people that could appreciate such gestures.

Upselling: You can buy some item and pay just half the price of the 2nd one… you want a regular soda, but you can make it X-Large for just a few cents more… what about upgrading your fries from french to curly ones?… extra cheese?…  why wouldn’t you?… so you end up either paying more or just spending more money for stuff and would up ending not drinking/eating/consuming, therefore… wasting. The concepts of scarce resources, buying only what you need and not what you want are not present in a society that is used to have everything and more, at any time, with no constraints.

Public transportation: I was just wondering how someone can chose not to drive a car in San Antonio, it’s impossible, because there is no public transportation to move you miles from one mall, or supermarket to the next one and back home. The U.S. has indeed the largest cars per capita ratio in the world with 812 cars per 1,000 people. Italy has 690, Mexico 276 and India 18. I am no scientist, so I’ll just leave open the ecologic implications of vehicles in the environment.

Going to the U.S. is the most normal thing in the world for an average Mexican mid-class person living close to the border. But it was really interesting to see things from a different perspective. I am just sorry I had to around the world to now come and notice them, but I am sure that by deciding to do small changes in our habits can make a contribution to help manage our resources.

But anyway, coming back to my starting point, my best friend is doing great and happily married with his lovely wife. Me as usual, I’m just happy I have another place to crash in this planet!

The Road For Coffee

Find a few obstacles right off the office…

In India people are very warm and gentle, they can easily offer a ride to a stranger who needs help to cross the street…

The contrasts here are such, that from one street to another a meter to another you find so different realities…

Indian Starbucks…

Coffee and a Samosa?… why not..

The reward….

India is indeed a challenging place… that’s the beauty of it

Marketing is Overrated Anyway…

One of the most recurrent things I heard from people turning to their countries after living in India was that life back there was boring… And now that I’m back in Mumbai I have to say that I can’t agree more…

But if there’s someone out there who thinks the contrary, then I hope she/he has good arguments to prove it!

Safety First

I think one of the things I have wrongy taken for granted the most in India is its safety, at least in Bangalore where I have spent the last year. This picture right here is very interesting because I took it sometime around 1:00 A.M. when I was coming back from having dinner with a friend and needed some cash.

The guy you see in the picture covered with the blanket is perhaps the security guard of the bank or a homeless person. In either of the cases,… harmless.

Nowadays in México there is no way in life that I will get into an ATM to withraw money at 1am. Especially in Monterrey, chances are that our harmless Indian guy would be in fact a criminal with an AK-74 waiting for someone to come in. If you are lucky he would only take your money, and I say lucky, because it can go as far as shooting or kidnapping you.

Last December when I came to Monterrey after studying in Milan, I heard the most terrible stories of people very close to me who had suffered some kind of violence regarding the drug war in Monterrey. When I spoke to my friends at that time, I think the only one that was happy with the idea of me coming back was my mother.

After I did, it was not until I woke up one day to the sound of gun fire happening in a main street very close to my house that I realized how much my city had changed in the almost two years I was away.

And then, luckily for me, India happened… and I will always thank life for that opportunity…

Landing Planes

It is interesting to observe how people behave in planes, especially when you land. I hate totally dislike when people stand when the seatbelt light is still on. We might think some things are absurd, but if we chose to travel by air we should stick to their rules. And yes, I know, I´m no etiquette authority to point this out, but…

The funniest scene I’ve seen is actually an guy that stood up right after landing while the plane was still moving towards the platform and they were calling him from the cabin on the speakers asking him to go back to his seat. While he was the only one standing getting his luggage from the storage compartments, he didn´t realized they were talking to him. My best guess is that he thought he was travelling on a bus… back to Bangalore from Thailand. After a couple of attempts, a flight attendant had to stand up to personally ask him to go back to his seat and buckle up.

Yesterday I landed in Mumbai and even when the plane had already stopped, the seatbelt light was still on. Yet, people stood up and picked their stuff while the attendant again had to ask a bunch of guys in suits to seat back. Anyway, I guess right now I’m a little susceptible to Indian behavior, but I’m sure it happens at all levels and in every country.

I find observing this behavior very interesting because I see no difference in saving a couple of minutes, standing on a queue, being pushed by the other passengers while the doors have not even been opened for exiting. All this happening while I´m still comfortably seated sipping the last drops of my bottle of water.

Same thing happens with the cell phones. I mean, you have already survived with your device off for a couple of hours. What is the rush of checking your emails/missed calls/sms´s before the Capitan confirms that you can turn your cel back on? I could understand that businessmen consider that time is money, but hey, remaining seated a couple of minutes with your phone off, as security measures advice, haven´t kill anyone.

But the most nonsense behavior is rushing in the queue for boarding the plane in the first place. People, if you already checked-in at the counter and made it through the security checks, trust me, the airline people are well aware that you are around, so even if you are busy taking a leak, you will hear your name called out in the boarding gates a few times before they decide to leave without you.

Moreover, your seat is numbered (unless you are flying Ryan Air where I could understand the rush), so there is no way that someone will arbitrarily take your seat. If you are worried about not finding place for your luggage, then it means you are carrying too much. In any case, the airline is well aware of how many people and luggage’s checked in, so in the worse case they will find space for your stuff. And even if it is not exactly above your head as you would like to, trust me, no one will steal it.

Yes yes, I know, we are very busy and important people, but just remember from time to time to follow basic courtesy and safety rules. For God´s sake, let´s behave like if we have really came a long way since we were chimpanzees… even if, perhaps, we haven´t actually made that much progress…

Gender Nonsense

Some months back I was looking at the figures from the last census in India saying that in this country there were 109 males for every 100 females under the age of six, up from 107 in 2001… and increasing.

This calls my attention because having a male son is very important for the role they play as a traditional supporter of the family, while the female has a more family-house oriented role. At the same time, India is statistically considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world due to the evidence of femicides.

According to a 2011 study by the Center for Global Health Research in Canada, between 4.2 million and 12.1 million girls were aborted during the last three decades in this country. Some studies point that there is a common myth that daughters don’t benefit their families, I guess as a tradeoff of a productive economic activity perspective.

I would like to think it’s the lower uneducated classes who invest their lifetime savings in educating the son, while the daughter is left at home for housekeeping activities. Upper class families with money and access to ultrasound could potentially use this technology for sex determination purposes, something illegal in India if used for that particular matter. So then the reasons for deciding to have a boy over a girl is not exactly monetary, but traditional.

What I can conclude so far, and this is a very personal point of view, is that females are considered more a liability than an asset to a typical Indian family. But again, I hope this happens in the traditional lower levels of societies and that things in modern times are changing.

The reasons for this sociocultural phenomenon can have its roots in other fundamentals, such as poverty. But for the time being, I’m just trying to bring a picture of the story to the people that have never been in India. In fact, the ultimate reason why this calls my attention is not really for those people, but for simple market reasons. Let me explain…

In India the tradition for marriage, apart that it is most likely arranged between the parents, is that the family of the bride has to pay contribute with a dowry. This is can be in the form of money, goods or properties that a woman brings forth to the marriage. So then the question is how in the world this whole dowry thing is, at least statistically, a nonsense exception to the basic supply and demand rule, where:

The “shortage” of females represents a movement (decrease) along the Quantity Axis to the left (arrow 1), which inversely affects the Y Axis, as explained in arrow 2, pushing the price upwards.

So, why again do the family of the girl would have to pay when it’s actually the daughter who is the scarce “resource” in society? Which brings us to the next stage of the evolution of the theory of trade which is precisely…?

You guessed, Import-Export, the way markets make up for their deficits or surpluses… but that is perhaps a topic for some other time…

Broadband Service in India: A Love Story

It took five weeks for Airtel, the supposedly most reliable mobile and broadband service company in India, to connect Internet in my house when I moved there last year.

The day they finally came (on a Friday around 9:30 PM), there were five technicians in my living room… one was holding the computer, one was reading some kind of manual, other was proofreading what the guy holding the computer was typing, and the other two were watching supervising what the other three were doing (I assume).

Since I recently moved to a new apartment with existing Internet connection, I stopped by the office of my previous provider to inform them that I am cancelling the service. It is true, I confess, that I didn´t had any bill or account number with me, but they were not able to locate my phone number in the system, perhaps because it´s from another mobile company (Aircel). Next thing they asked is my account number, for what I reply that I am walking-in in a rush and I have no bill whatsoever, as I declared myself guilty of previously.

One would think that perhaps the easiest way would be to search by name, and I do understand that within 1.2 billion people there could be a lot of matches of people with the same names and my logic could actually be nonsense for them, but yet for undisclosed reasons they said it was not possible to search customers this way. Then I don´t want to sound too idealistic, but apart of a number I am also a person… right?

Then I spoke to some kind of manager to explain that I was there trying to end our customer-company relationship amicably, and that I just wanted to know the balance so I can pay and close the account.  She kept arguing that she needed the account number or registered cellphone number in order to search for my account.

I asked her what would happen if I would owe a lot of money to the company and it was perhaps their last chance to ever see that money again, for what she responded: “Sorry for the inconvenience sir, we can´t help you without this information”. It is obvious that it is not me who they should be helping, but themselves…

But since I am in India and learnt to be a patient and positive person, I was looking at the bright side of singing up with them for some iPhone package to be paid in installments, get a free phone with my previous address and then disappear!!!