During our recent India visit, Yash traveled with me to Varanasi and Pune. This time he could share his own opinions about life in India with me because this time he traveled along with other family members and his improved analytical abilities allowed him to compare things. His first encounter with India was with airports and the staff there, I must say that even I was impressed by the well-maintained domestic as well as international airports and very courteous staff.
In the first segment of our trip after we landed in Mumbai, stayed in Pune for a day and then went to Varanasi, a very colorful and amazing city. He stayed there for a week and during that week visited malls and marketplace, traveled by rickshaw, city bus, cycle rickshaw, and also by walk. As much as he loved meeting family members and travelling with them he hated the roads and traffic of Varanasi. He really freaked out when people honked at him aggressively, the sound was really loud for him to tolerate. I wonder why people need such a loud horn for their vehicles. It creates a lot of noise pollution as well as inconvenience for people, especially for kids and seniors but no one seems to care about this in India. They honk aggressively even at kids and seniors. Loud and aggressive honking was the most annoying part of Varanasi's traffic for Yash. Roads were narrow and traffic jams were a regular event, other vehicles hitting or dashing cycle rickshaws in crowded traffic was a regular affair, it seemed exciting for Yash as he had never seen anything like this before. People throwing trash on the road, and spitting wherever they want also surprised him. He was also amazed to see that kids, as well as grownups, were equally contributing towards making the city dirty. He tried to tell few times to his cousins and others that it was not a good thing to do but he soon stopped doing that when he found out the futility of offering any such advice. Yash didn't dare to come with me to my village as he was scared of having no electricity and no toilets (I should mention here that this time I was pleased to see that most homes had a toilet in our village). He preferred to stay in Varanasi and enjoy the traffic chaos rather than visiting the village.
After experiencing the chaos of Varanasi he came back with me to Pune and landed in another chaos. But he found Pune much less chaotic than Varanasi. Honking was there but not that aggressive and loud, more traffic but fewer jams, and somewhat less garbage on the streets. People's attitude towards following traffic rules was not much different in both places. Actually, we counted once during nighttime (when there were no traffic police) how many people stopped at the red light, and to our surprise more than 90% didn't bother to stop. Despite all this, he liked Pune more in comparison with Varanasi. Pune people should stop complaining about all the traffic jams and other problems, our city is much better than the constituency of our PM. I wonder why all PM candidates of India fight their election from one of the most undeveloped states or parts of India? Is it just because they are safer seats and they can win it without putting much effort or is it because they really care about these places and want to develop them? The constituencies that Indian prime ministers have represented for years are not considered as most developed cities or villages of India and they remain considerably undeveloped even after being represented by one of the most powerful politicians in the country for many years. Let's hope our current PM Mr. Modi manages to change this and when Yash visits Varanasi next time he doesn't find any difference between Pune and Varanasi. After all, Varanasi is already a well-known city and tourist hub, it should not be hard to develop it compared to other parts of Uttar Pradesh. I know why Yash liked more in Pune compared to Varanasi. But when he compared Pune with New Haven he preferred New Haven. Let's hope that the difference gets reduced in the coming years and the gap between Varanasi, Pune, and New Haven becomes more narrow.
In the first segment of our trip after we landed in Mumbai, stayed in Pune for a day and then went to Varanasi, a very colorful and amazing city. He stayed there for a week and during that week visited malls and marketplace, traveled by rickshaw, city bus, cycle rickshaw, and also by walk. As much as he loved meeting family members and travelling with them he hated the roads and traffic of Varanasi. He really freaked out when people honked at him aggressively, the sound was really loud for him to tolerate. I wonder why people need such a loud horn for their vehicles. It creates a lot of noise pollution as well as inconvenience for people, especially for kids and seniors but no one seems to care about this in India. They honk aggressively even at kids and seniors. Loud and aggressive honking was the most annoying part of Varanasi's traffic for Yash. Roads were narrow and traffic jams were a regular event, other vehicles hitting or dashing cycle rickshaws in crowded traffic was a regular affair, it seemed exciting for Yash as he had never seen anything like this before. People throwing trash on the road, and spitting wherever they want also surprised him. He was also amazed to see that kids, as well as grownups, were equally contributing towards making the city dirty. He tried to tell few times to his cousins and others that it was not a good thing to do but he soon stopped doing that when he found out the futility of offering any such advice. Yash didn't dare to come with me to my village as he was scared of having no electricity and no toilets (I should mention here that this time I was pleased to see that most homes had a toilet in our village). He preferred to stay in Varanasi and enjoy the traffic chaos rather than visiting the village.
After experiencing the chaos of Varanasi he came back with me to Pune and landed in another chaos. But he found Pune much less chaotic than Varanasi. Honking was there but not that aggressive and loud, more traffic but fewer jams, and somewhat less garbage on the streets. People's attitude towards following traffic rules was not much different in both places. Actually, we counted once during nighttime (when there were no traffic police) how many people stopped at the red light, and to our surprise more than 90% didn't bother to stop. Despite all this, he liked Pune more in comparison with Varanasi. Pune people should stop complaining about all the traffic jams and other problems, our city is much better than the constituency of our PM. I wonder why all PM candidates of India fight their election from one of the most undeveloped states or parts of India? Is it just because they are safer seats and they can win it without putting much effort or is it because they really care about these places and want to develop them? The constituencies that Indian prime ministers have represented for years are not considered as most developed cities or villages of India and they remain considerably undeveloped even after being represented by one of the most powerful politicians in the country for many years. Let's hope our current PM Mr. Modi manages to change this and when Yash visits Varanasi next time he doesn't find any difference between Pune and Varanasi. After all, Varanasi is already a well-known city and tourist hub, it should not be hard to develop it compared to other parts of Uttar Pradesh. I know why Yash liked more in Pune compared to Varanasi. But when he compared Pune with New Haven he preferred New Haven. Let's hope that the difference gets reduced in the coming years and the gap between Varanasi, Pune, and New Haven becomes more narrow.
Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.
[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]
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