“Will India be able to learn from the missteps of the West regarding ecology, energy and education?
Ecologic products are not common not even in big cities like Mumbai but I think there will be more and more but it will take some time. I know some restaurants owner that are planning to start on having a ecologic business but to get it widespread in India there are a lot of years to go. To keep in mind when lifting this topic is the agriculture in India. A lot of people will rather earn 10 rupees today than earn 50 next weeks to be certain they have food on the table. I am not quit curtain how the reformation of changing from normal agriculture to ecologic agriculture works in India but in Sweden it takes a year to do the reformation to legality call it ecologic. The Indian system works something similar to the Swedish which results in that the income will come after a longer term and therefore also affects if the families will have food on their table or not. Therefore I would say that they would be able to learn from western ecology missteps but the social and financial system of today makes it hard to implement it.
I have seen examples of it in the backwater, in the south of India where they were using electric power plants on small water springs to gain energy. Sun cells are also to be found on both houses here in Mumbai but also on houseboats in Kerala. On that concern they use different kinds of methods to gain energy in a more sustainable way. But traveling around India you will find strings for electricity all over the country and in a system where the main source is divided into to many small strings which waste energy on its way. So they have learned some, reinvented some by themselves and missed out on the main system pretty badly which wont change in a long while. But the energy topic lies mostly on a higher level where the problem of implementing it is hard and not on top one to be solved now.
Concerning the education system it is still today mostly focused on learning from books says Chandita Mukherjee, filmmaker and active in children festivals in Mumbai. She mean that there is not one right way of learning but that the Indian School education system insists that the approach to learn is through text books. Keeping this in mind I am happy that there are already today organizations like the Comet Media whom has focused on educational communication in the topic of diversity. But I still would say that the system is pretty narrow which also can be explained with the fact that the status of ones job is still very important in all areas. I would say that they are on their way but they will not learn enough since the living conditions are quite different from Western. There are still a lot of children that live on the street on do not get any education. With that some parts of the education system is very far ahead and on other parts it is still excluded for a lot of people.
Will they recognize earlier in their economic and social development that material resources are finite yet human resources (such as creativity, innovation and expression) are infinite?
Traveling on most of India’s south coast I have seen the country from different views. I would not say that they have understood the finite of materials. Or more they haven’t understood that they have millions of human that could work in a different place where they could be more effective and use their creativity more. I think the understanding of that they does not have to fit in to the picture for them to be and see the human resources in another way. Taking Richard Florida’s example of the agriculture growth though creativity where the tools develop the development or the time and space to develop is limited here. To speak in general about India I would say no, it is a pretty limited concerning seeing and understanding the creativity that is happening on grassroots level.
Will India achieve a true global consciousness that recognizes the unique contribution of all cultures?”
The next generation of India is more aware about India as a part of the rest of the world. Cultural habits in the city are more and more brushed out by the new generation. But still we see conflicts in the north between Muslims and Buddhist. Moving around in cities like Mumbai, some parts will be opened to you as well as places in the south where I have been where being different is ok. But when moving around in the smaller cities and villages appropriate dressing is a fact, which for certain is a great part of the Indian culture. I also see an effort at many places where they try for example to combine the Indian food with the western which often makes it taste worse than making it western or Indian. What I miss is seeing the charm in all cultures and aspects of it in its own way. The contribution is seeing the special culture as it is and praise it and learn to differences it and therefore also see how it can contribute to their own culture and add taste to eat without taking something away.
On the other hand they have a female president, which is more than we in Sweden has succeed to have. Where I would say that they are one step before a lot of countries in the rest of the world. And at some certainties I would say that they will gain a global consciousness around different cultures but as in countries like Scandinavia it will still take a long time before people recognizes the contribution of all cultures.
The second question for the exam comes from Uffe Elbaeck the founder of the Kaospilot currently working with the world out games Copenhagen.
“What are the living conditions for homosexuals in India. Socially, culturally and politically?”
Social
First of all it is important to mention that there are some people that talk about sex and some that never talk about it. I had luck and manage to get hold on two waiters, Christopher and Mahad at a restaurant. They were opened to have a small talk with me about homosexuality.
Outspoken homosexuals are mainly in the Bollywood industry, marketing business and art business. Bobby darling and Rodriguez are two known fashion designers that are gay. There is one known gay bar in Mumbai called Woodoo and a webpage called gaybombay.org to find different places to go or organizations to get in contact with. But it is rather concentrated to special places.
Cultural
Concerning the cultural aspect it is not acknowledged to be homosexual in India. If I would be living here as an Indian I would never been able to be accepted as a homosexual. I would have to keep it secret though it would be seen as my parents have failed to raise me in the right culture. In therefore in general it is not accepted.
Political
Homosexuality in India is criminalized with the mind-set that it is “unnatural sex”. There are no political parties working for homosexuals rights but there are several organizations in different cities in India that are working for the legal and human rights as homosexuals. Different international organizations are working for legalize it but some say it is still a long process.
During our outpost here in Mumbai we have to answer some questions asked by external people. Our first question comes from Allan Webber and concerning the Indian economic growth and it’s relation the to the people.
How are Indias people handling the countries transition into a growing world economic people?
First thing to be said that I have learned from Kirschta a guide that took us around in one of the slums in Mumbai are that people in India are very aware about what is going on in the world in relation to India. The growing economy make it possible for people to for example get out of the slum because they earn more. I get the feeling that with the growth comes more global pressure. We visited Dr Savant (at Mumbai University) and talked to him about globalization and India. His answers about the system were or were to be handled by a national programme (includes homelessness, water cleaning system).
Do they feel any change in the status in the world?
Doctor Savant said that he thinks that India will be the next USA and leading country in the world. I have got the impression that some people do both feel and see the change. On this hand it should be mentioned the religious aspect of the people and the cast system. This means that if you are not Hindi then you are not a part of the system of being re-borned and therefore not really existing in real. Therefore the status will not be notified as changed or comperative to the rest of the world. And because of the cast system the people do not aim for getting a higher status.
There is so many things to understand and get a grip of in this city. Mumbai is pretty dirty, most of the days it is impossible to see the sun because of the polution and it smells bad. The smell of garbage and poo reaches you when travelling through the city, at some places worse then others. There are a lot of rats to be seen and half-dying cats and dogs are all over the ctiy. The appreciative numbers of people are 17 million during the night and a little bit more then 20 million during the day. The traffic is crazy and they are beeping the horn 24 seven. But I can still say that I like the city a little bit. There is something that makes me feel good about the city, maybe it is the low criminality.
At the moment I am living in Colaba which is the tourist area at the Cowie’s hotel in a room with Amy and Lisen from my team. We are living on the top floor with Peder, Borgar and Finnur as our next dooor neighbour and with a lounge just outside the room. It is a really nice hang out space and the only thing that is missing is Internet connection. But there is a nice caffé just five minutes walk from here which can be compared to starbucks and the Internet connection is good there and it costs less then 30 SKR for two hours. It is not cheap to live in this city, especially not if you compare to what things cost here. I pay almost 800 rupis per night which is around 130 sek a night. It is not that bad but the standard here is low. On the other hand half of Mumbai’s inhabitans are homeless so no wonder the living prices are pretty high. At least there are no rats to be seen on this hotel yet.
Finally I have arrived to Mumbai… the smell is awfull, the buildings are in pretty bad shape and people are sleeping everywhere. But it is nice, I like it. I have never lived anywhere like it and the only thing I can compare to is Tanger in Marroco, which was even more crazy and dirty. Anyway the people here seems nice and I like the athmosphere. Going to look at another part of town.
After sitting and listening at Anders Winther from the Kaospilot team12, talking about what you should think about when going to India I can see similarities to the culture in other countries. To me it seems like he knows a lot about India and the culture but the question I am asking is if he is able to look at it from an systemic perspective. For me it seems like the culture of the way of looking at women are alike to Spain. Anders tells us that people often are screaming to women at the street like, “madam you look good”, which for me is very similar to what they do in Spain. I have also experienced the same kind of thing in Marocco when I was in Tanger. Right now I am really looking forward to go to Mumbai and experience the culture for myself and find out how I look at it. But I am going to follow one of Anders tips to buy an indian skirt.
Cant wait to go to Mumbai
