Jugadh - The Magic of Creative Ingenuity

Location: Road between Bangalore, Mysore, Coorg and Wayanad in Karnataka and Kerala South India

There is a word in Hindi - jugadh - which is roughly translated as "the magic of creative ingenuity." An example of jugadh is when you see a heaping pile of coconuts and one guy who needs to carry them, and you wonder- how is that guy possibly going to carry 100 coconuts? 

Somehow those coconuts reach their destination. 

How? 

Jugadh.

People often ask me why I like India so much. Now I have a one word answer - Jugadh. 

India is a colorful and fiercely unique country with 1.2 billion people of vastly differing religions, cultures, ethnicities, languages, economic statuses and everything that goes with that. Yet, when I think about what unifies India's people across all these different characteristics, what I find most endearing and inspiring about India is this magic.

Nothing in this world is perfect. Marketing is all about creating illusions of and desire for perfection. As such, on my personal list of first world problems, being concerned with a lack of perfection permeates much of my existence despite my efforts to the contrary. In the corporate world, being concerned with a lack of perfection is encouraged - it drives employees and organizations to identify problems and fix them. In personal lives, striving for something closer to perfect is a strong motivator to many people, whether it's more money, a bigger house, nicer clothes, or a better relationship with spouse, friends, etc. In one form or another the pursuit of perfection is what drives most people in most developed nations. Yet, it is an unachievable goal.

We forget that it's unachievable because we, as Americans, have so many resources at our disposal. Yes, America has its problems, and living in San Francisco I am reminded of the many flaws of our system with the vast number of homeless people in one of the richest cities in the richest country in the world. Yet, in comparison to most others, we have unbelievable resources right at our finger tips, which leads us to expect to eventually reach perfection, even if perfection is a loosely defined moving target. This is simply not the case in India, and so there is no pretense that anything can be perfect. What that results in is a much more tangible daily visualization of problem solving and jugadh - people doing what they can with what they have, even if what they have is next to nothing.

While traveling in India, it is quite noticeable to foreigners that people everywhere are doing seemingly ridiculous things - strapping a full-sized refrigerator to the back of a motorcycle, a family of five stuffing onto one motorcycle with mom riding side-saddle in a sari while holding a baby, auto-rickshaws so over-stuffed with hay that it looks like they might actually explode, shepherds pushing hundreds of goats across the national highway, etc. But foreigners who judge or fixate on how dangerous or seemingly inconvenient many of these activities are should take a moment to understand and appreciate the role that jugadh is playing in keeping one of the world's most populace countries running. 

If you need to get a refrigerator home and all you have is a moped - delivery service is not an option, renting or borrowing a car is not an option - what exactly would you do? You could 1) not buy the refrigerator (but you really need it), 2) wait until you have access to transportation (which may be never), or  3) you could take it home right now with a little jugadh and some (hopefully) strong rope. 

Need to get to the grandparents' house with your whole family and all you have is a motorcycle? You can 1) stay home 2) try to find alternative transportation or 3) pile onto the motorcycle that you have and just go. When option 2 is clearly not available, people are left with options 1 and 3. While option one sounds the safest, in India it is the equivalent of cutting your most basic lifeline - family. They are your support, emotionally and financially, and staying close to them provides intangible values that are more important to people than the risk they take by piling the family onto the motorcycle. Does this mean that it's safe? Of course not. Would that family chose to take a car if they could? Very likely. But they don't have that choice. What they have instead is jugadh. 

Let's return to my example of the guy with 100 coconuts. I don't have some sort of sadistic enjoyment of watching people suffer while doing difficult things. I enjoy observing examples of the perseverance and creativity of jugadh because it reminds me that with a little jugadh you can achieve far more than anyone thought possible. Don't sit around complaining or sulking that you don't have the perfect tools - figure out how to do what you need to do with whatever you have. What I have in comparison to coconut guy is a lot - so I'd better get cracking. 

If that guy could move 100 coconuts with a bicycle, then what can I achieve? I'd better roll up my sleeves and get to it - there's a tall pile of coconuts waiting for me.

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Bombings in India and the US: Why are our reactions so different?

Location: Bangalore, India

Today there was at least one bombing in the part of Bangalore where I am staying. Reports say that 10-13 people were injured/killed from an IED that was attached to a motorcycle near the ruling political party's office. There may have been a second bombing in a marketplace, also in this part of town (the West of Bangalore) that hasn't yet hit the news.

When I was living in Hyderabad in 2007 there were two sets of bombings, one at the major historical mosque in the center of the old city, the Mecca Masjid, and the other at popular cafes. At that time the city went under bandh, or curfew, because of the civil unrest that would follow. At this moment, it is unclear if the bombings have stopped in Bangalore.

I learned of the news a few hours after the bombing by word of mouth. I was going to do some last minute shopping before my flight leaves tonight, and one of my gracious Indian hosts showed up to take me to the mall. He wasn't overly worried about the bombing and said it happens frequently in India and that with some basic precautions we could stay safe.

We picked up his cousin and her daughter on our way to the mall. His cousin mentioned that she had heard that there had been a second bombing in a marketplace in the same neighborhood (through which we were driving) a few hours after the first. We continued on our route to the mall in the economic center of Bangalore, where a World Trade Center, Sheraton and mall are based. As images of the Mumbai attacks flooded my mind (in which bombs were followed by militants taking the famous Taj Mahal hotel hostage and killing a total of 164 people), my friends pleaded with me that we were in no danger.

This for me highlighted what is possibly the biggest cultural difference between the US and India that I've ever encountered. In the US, three people were killed in the Boston Marathon attack and that is still all the news can talk about. Undoubtedly new security measures will be put into place and an entire industry will emerge to support our efforts to not let an exact attack like this happen again. Every day millions of people give up their shampoo and walk barefoot through airport security because of our well-intentioned efforts to prevent a disaster from happening, yet do we really think they'll do exactly the same thing again? They just might try, which is why we do this.

In India, doing such a thing is totally impossible. All major hotels and malls already have security where they check bags, customers have to walk through metal detectors, and cars are searched with mirrors. Yet, every few months there are more bombings. The bombings typically happen where there is not that level of security (Taj Mahal hotel being a major exception), but if someone really wanted to do something, no one is really going to be able to stop them. Every moment of every day the streets are jam-packed with cars, motorcycles, rickshaws, animals and people and it would be absolutely impossible to manage security in such an environment without all people giving up a huge amount of freedom. This is true in India and in the US, from Boston to Bangalore.

At the end of the day you have to do what you can to protect yourself while still being able to live your life and just hope that if something happens, it doesn't happen to you. And, similarly, being killed or injured in a traffic accident is far, far more likely to happen in both India and the US than being killed in a terrorist attack. Yet, those terrorist attacks are SCARY!

So, given all these similarities between India and the US, what I have learned today is that the line of "protecting yourself while still being able to live you life" is drawn in a different place between America and India - and it's not just my perspective. We give up more freedom every time an attack happens in the US in our effort to protect ourselves, and sometimes that is necessary and useful. But, what we have to be careful about is still being able to live our lives.

Today I didn't do my shopping, much to the disappointment of my Indian friends, who I'm sure saw that line in a different place. Yet, in my assessment of the situation, there were two bombings in my neighborhood within a few hours and we were going to the economic center of the city, also in that neighborhood, where there is a world trade center. Had I told Americans that I nonchalantly went straight into that world trade center to go about my business I'm quite sure they would have judged me to be a masochistic daredevil. Yet, leaving that place for the refuge of my oasis hotel with stronger security seemed like a hugely paranoid waste to my Indian hosts. We just draw that line about protecting ourselves and going about our daily lives in a different place.

I'm quite sure that the stats are on their side and not mine - I'm falling into a classic pattern of overemphasizing potential negatives due to their emotional poignancy. Did the fact that the building was called the World Trade Center have an impact on my perception - absolutely. Like many Americans, I have a deep ingrained memory of the moment when the idea that the first plane flying into the towers twelve years ago was just a terrible accident was shattered by the second plane hitting -  eliminating in one moment a deep, yet untrue belief that nothing like that could happen to us. That is a belief that has never existed here in India, and in many ways there is more freedom because of it. There also may be more bombings. It's hard to tell. But in a country of 1.2 billion people, still their chances of being killed by a bomb are close to nil. In America our chances of being killed in a bomb are far less than being shot accidentally with a gun. Yet our opinions about policies to prevent these two issues differ drastically.

Where is the line drawn between reasonably protecting yourself and living your life?

I don't know exactly where that line should be, but I do know that we need to be conscious of maintaining our ability to live our lives, because if we give up more freedom to protect ourselves, it's only a matter of time until the cure is worse than the disease.

In the meantime, though, I'm pretty OK with having retreated to my oasis - thus demonstrating the deep divide between the logical and emotional that permeates our society's approach to this unpleasant issue. 

Wifi in the time of cholera (and malaria) - notes from modernity in the last Indian jungle

Location: Vythiri, Wayanad, Kerala, South India

The world is much smaller than it used to be and that obviously comes with a million shades of gray (or in the case of the Indian jungle...green). As I sit here, listening to cicadas in the Indian jungle and typing on my mac, I am reminded that development can be deceiving. As much as it seems like just being here and having modern technology makes this a modern place, I have to remember that the presence of some modern conveniences doesn't necessarily mean that the benefits and safety that come with a fully developed infrastructure are available.

I made it to the last real Indian jungle. This is in Vythiri Nature Preserve in Wayanad, Kerala, India. The rope bridge is part of the Vythiri Resort - everyone has to cross it to get to the restaurant (so it's slightly less adventurous than it looks). Still, while crossing it I observed a family of monkeys and an endangered malabar "flying" squirrel (about 4-5 times the size of an American squirrel with buggy eyes that look like a lemur).

Case in point, as I sit outside listening to the jungle night sounds (and a giant drill that's doing construction next door), I am slathered in pesticides (DEET) in order to avoid contracting one of the many remaining mosquito-spread diseases (including malaria, dengue fever and encephalitis) that continue to plague people here, while they are eradicated in other parts of the world. In addition to mosquito-borne illnesses, I am also at risk of other diseases including cholera, dysentery, and plague, previously believed by me and many others to only plague unfortunate wagon trains in Oregon Trail, the classic early-90's computer game of american pioneer struggle. The fact that I got myself here in less than 24 hours and have wifi doesn't mean that I can't contract one of many diseases that have killed millions of people over the last 500 years….and my question is…Why?

I am still fighting with my senses as I ask myself the question of how I can sit here with this smooth little mac next to a swimming pool and still be in danger from diseases feared in victorian romance novels. Of course, the answer is that it is much easier for me to get on an airplane and fly across the world and for anyone globally, even in the jungles of India, to purchase and activate a wifi router, than it is to coordinate disease control across millions of people. But what if we put the same ingenuity that goes into the supply chain of this shiny apple device into eradicating malaria - would that be enough? 

 Deep jungle and a swimming pool. The pool is a good reminder about different levels of modernity in this world - the water is green not because the bottom of the pool is green. Many kids had fun splashing around in it - my ex-pat sensibilities kept me away. 

We don't know, because malaria and these other diseases are a "third world problem" now and therefore there is not enough profit in it to initiate the full investment it would take to really eradicate it. Yet, there are many reasons why that is a shortsighted and dangerous viewpoint that needs to be addressed, and here are two off the top of my head as I compulsively check my arms and legs for mosquitos between typing sentences.

#1: Imagine what would happen to the Indian and Brazilian economies if magically millions of people weren't dying or becoming sick each year from a disease that has been eradicated in most other countries? Would that stability produce enough benefit to one particular corporate entity to be worth their time and money? Possibly, if they thought big. The challenge is that even if they think super long term, with the way capitalism works they need to clearly benefit enough in the short term to prove their investment will pay back reasonably, which will be hard to do because the primary value is avoiding cost in loss of life and other more subtle factors that don't so clearly show on balance sheets without some serious (and highly assumption-based) analytical measurement techniques.

Perhaps a drug company will gain short term benefit, but once everyone is cured they'll lose their market. Perhaps an energy or communications company that will benefit from more people buying from them over time would be a candidate- but that's not short term, and they can't guarantee that they will be the company that benefits from all those healthy cell-phone and internet-using customers in 10 or 20 years. Which leaves us with the only primary candidate I can think of that would tangibly benefit in the short and long term…that contentious and flawed entity that we all depend on for more of our comfort and security than we'd like to admit…the government. It would save them money in health care, make the people happy because they don't have diseases, and improve the overall economy, improving GDP and productivity and providing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness along the way. 

This, of course, assumes that solving this problem doesn't cause even worse problems such as a population boom that causes more competition for resources like precious water, which is already contentious and hard to get in rural India. Just yesterday I watched a crowd of villagers collecting what was left from a muddy puddle for their daily water.  Suffice it to say, this is not a good situation for them, and they are more precariously situated than ever before. Water resources are already a global problem that impacts the most vulnerable people in their most basic need on a DAILY basis. But in addition to rural villagers, who some can write off as the unlucky others, this is a more tangible problem than most people think and it has strong impact across all economic statuses that goes far beyond not being able to water your lawn every day. 

Water trucks are all over major Indian cities, I saw at least 20-30 of them in my few days in Hyderabad and Bangalore delivering water to upper and middle class houses - there isn't enough water for everyone already, and we're just at the beginning of this climate crisis. It's probably going to get ugly. So, we are left with a complex, long term problem with no clear quick win from a profit perspective and a huge initial investment…hmmm…sounds like a topic destined for failure in today's world. Capitalism has never fanned the flame of long term development over short term profits, and here what we are talking about is more of a public good - no individual company or industry will directly benefit enough to invest in something that is of genuine need and interest to the public good (listen to this interesting podcast about the complexities around the public good from NPR's Planet Money).

Yet, in today's world, democracy is driven by elections that fixate on convincing people to care about the media topics of the day, many of which have little or no impact on them directly. In that environment, whether it is the US or India, electing a government who actually drives forward real long term agendas is virtually impossible, and unfortunately, disease eradication is very long term. Maybe someday there will be a leader who can lead with such conviction that the people will allow the indulgence of long term planning, but I don't see that happening any time soon in India or in the US. 

#2 If "third world" diseases remain, there will come a time, sooner than we think, when one or more of them will re-emerge. Malaria is already resistant to some of the major drugs that used to work, such as what's been happening in Thailand. West Nile virus, which couldn't possibly sound more like a third world disease, now strikes panic in the heart of many an american summer BBQ crowd. It doesn't take very much to spread these diseases, and the more the climate changes and the more people move around, the faster and more aggressively this problem will spread.

We are living in a time of relative health, but as flying around Asia during the avian and swine flu panics and watching season 2 of Downton Abbey reminded me - we are not very far from these epidemics that we think of as only existing in the past. My DEET usage paranoia in the Indian jungle is probably only a foreshadow of the future that we will all live in, in every country, as globalization enables all sorts of creatures to transport themselves around the globe in hours, including many of those pesky diseases.

For now, I'll keep slathering myself in DEET and keep my fingers crossed, hoping that the day doesn't come when the choice of toxic chemical versus terrible disease isn't a daily reality for me. For many unlucky others, that day is today as it has always been; but it doesn't have to be.

Top: This is what a water crisis looks like. It is everyone's problem. People carry small jugs for personal use and when the source is dry, they have to walk or ride farther. This is in a different league than rationed lawn watering, and it is likely the new reality not just in India and not just for the poorest people. Bottom: One of the many water trucks in Bangalore delivering water to a range of economic statuses. In Hyderabad even the modern fancy apartments where Google and other tech company employees live have problems with consistent access to water. 

Wild elephants in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle: Wayanad Nature Preserve, Kerala, South India

I'm reporting in from one of the most remote places on earth - the Indian jungle of the south western state of Kerala in Wayanad nature preserve. The cicadas are humming, the vines are creeping down the beautifully deep green trees. About an hour ago I felt the light breeze wash across my face standing between a tea plantation and a coffee plantation with pepper crawling up the silver oak trees planted to keep the terraced hillsides from eroding. About three hours ago I watched a flying malabar squirrel (an endangered species) happily eat an entire jackfruit. About 30 hours ago I watched a group of wild elephants happily go about their meal on the side of the national highway through Bandipur. This is Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Book" jungle (quite precisely). This is one of the only places on earth where there still is Indian jungle and where you can still see wild elephants and tigers, and…they have wifi.

I'll focus on the most amazing experience - the wild elephants. Yesterday while driving on the national highway which runs through Bandipur nature preserve I saw a group of wild elephants. After going through the tiger preserve which was in the height of the dry season and a drought with giant ant mounds and clusters of brown, dead-looking bamboo all over, suddenly I entered Kerala and it became lush and green. There they were, just munching away in a group of six, seemingly oblivious to the traffic on the road. They were noble, intelligent and expressive. 

There was a very small baby that stayed under the protection of the entire group and especially his mother - literally, he stayed directly underneath her as she stared down the human incursion. Overall they didn't seem too concerned about the cars until too many pulled up (about 8-10) and people started getting out in large numbers to take pictures while others, including a couple of jerks on a motorcyle drove passed honking over and over again (really, what is the point of that other than to prove you're an asshole?). I was very happy to have taken the video that I did, and I didn't feel like I was annoying them, but I also couldn't help but project that they weren't super happy to become the center of attention, and I was certainly part of that. 

When a group of cars honked and more stopped to take pictures, the elephants clearly decided they'd put up with us long enough and changed their demeanor into an aggressive stance, and one even charged at an idiot who came at him too quickly. That was the point for us and for them that it was time to head on, since elephants are very, very dangerous when they are unhappy - they can topple cars and easily kill humans using many different techniques. I didn't want to take a chance, and whether it's personifying them or not, it was clear that they were not OK with the attention any more.

Luckily none of us were poachers (and there were several checks by the forest service where they were allowed to search cars if they thought they looked suspicious), but these elephants are already quite rare and despite our lack of malice, they had to deal with a group of humans encroaching on their lunch. What's worse is that pollution-belching trucks are roaring their way through their last remaining territory. Maybe they don't care at all, but maybe they do, and I'm pretty torn on what that should mean for humans' appropriate behavior. Selfishly, I'm still very elated to have been able to see such a rare occurrence in such close up detail. It leads to an age-old conundrum of understanding where the balance is: If you told me that the elephants would become extinct by my behavior I would obviously not do it- but what about those millions of tiny steps in the middle where it's unclear what the impact is? This is a rhetorical exercise because I don't have a good answer, and India is full of rhetorical exercises without perfect answers.

For the time being, the elephants held their own and continued to chomp away on kilos of green grass. If they toppled some cars it was after I had left. I hope that they can continue to hold their own and not have to topple cars, but they will need humans' help - not necessarily in what we do, but in what we don't do. 

Top two: Elephants graze in the jungle at the border between Bandipur nature preserve in Karnataka, India and Wayanad nature preserve in Kerala, India. 

Third: Check out the way the group protects the baby by encircling it.

Fourth: After some more cars come, mom protects baby more directly.

Fifth: proof that I'm here! This is as close as I got. Still, I was careful to be slow and quiet, which worked until more cars came and started honking. I hope my presence didn't disturb them. Most people were respectful and quiet, but it only took a few jerks to endanger everyone, including the humans and the elephants. I wonder if this kind of experience will be possible in another 20 years. It's up to humans to make sure it can.

Global meets local: the westin hyderabad shuttle

As an air-conditioned jet-lag-friendly activity, Rupa suggested that we go to the new western mall in Hyderabad. We asked at the concierge if they had a shuttle, since the mall was relatively close to the hotel, and they said yes and showed us the timing on a printed placard at the concierge's desk. They asked us how many people, took our names and told us to be back at noon and that the shuttle only ran on the schedule.

This seemed pretty standard as I envisioned a van or mini-bus organized to carry 8-10 passengers on the hour. However, just when I thought I was doing the most western thing in India - taking a shuttle from a hotel in an office park to the mall, India threw back an awesome Indian curveball that made it so awesomely Indian that I had to sit back and remind myself that no matter how western it seems, India is India.

Here I am in the "shuttle" or, more awesomely, the official auto-rickshaw of the Westin Mindspace in Hyderabad. Even looking at this picture brings a huge grin to my face because it is such a beautifully obvious yet ingenious combination of globalization and localization. 

To set some context about why this is so awesome, you have to appreciate the ubiquitous presence of the auto-rickshaw in India and the typical level of comfort (or lack thereof) that comes with riding in one. Here is a picture I took from the top of Charminar, the most famous historical monument in the center of the historical islamic city of hyderabad from the 16th century. All of those cute little yellow cars with black canvas tops are auto-rickshaws, and you will notice the ratio of auto-rickshaws to other forms of transportation (in this case 22:0 which is slightly exaggerated compared to normal, more often it would be about 10:1).

As cute as they are from afar, riding in an auto-rickshaw often involves a complicated and extended bargaining session, an assertion of your awareness of the area and a polite clarification of "don't mess with me" attitude, followed by a harrowing ride of weaving in and out of Indian traffic (including between giant trucks, pushcarts, cars, motorcycles and other aggressive auto-rickshaws), while you sput sput along, breathing in some unpleasant fuel exhaust and road dust. It is sometimes worth this effort because auto-rickshaws are very easy to find (they are absolutely everywhere and very enthusiastic about your business) and especially in smaller streets, they are much easier to get around in than cars are.

The Westin auto-rickshaw beautifully marries the convenience of the auto-rickshaw with the comfort and peace of mind of a fancy hotel including leather seats, no bargaining, and responsible driving. Looks like they really did need to regulate the number of passengers on our shuttle ;).

Namaste India: Back to my old Hyderabad haunt

I've just arrived in Bangalore after a weekend in my old haunt of Hyderabad, where I spent 6 life-changing months in 2007 (read the blog here). I am happy to report that India remains the crazy, invigorating, predictably unpredictable wild east that I found so endearing before, and if anything, it is more so.

Ever since I was here at the impressionable age of 25, India has held a special place in my heart. The people I met were warm, welcoming and interested in discussing cultural differences which were endless, entertaining and a good exercise in self-reflection. Nothing causes self-reflection more than being asked to clarify a statement that is so obvious in your head that you didn't realize anyone wouldn't know what you are talking about. It reminds you not to take anything for granted.

I don't know if I would have reached this level of reflection and appreciation had I come here as a tourist. India is wild and difficult for foreigners who aren't in the right mindset. It can be dangerous to your health and safety and a fatiguing assault on the senses, yet if you are prepared and open, it can be worth the hardship. I was here for "business" (in quotes because in my head I have an image of "business travel" as a middle-aged white guy with a gut and a blue-tooth) for a long time as a google team trainer, so I got to experience the best of both worlds.

I experienced the comforts of home by living in a house with other foreign googlers and going to an air conditioned office each day, but worked with hundreds of Indians which allowed me to feel like a local in Hyderabad and to travel all over India on weekends either with ex-pats or with locals (like this exciting weekend in Chennai staying at the family home of my friend Ramya and riding side-sattle in a saree on her motorbike to the hindu temple and brahmin fortune-teller). It wasn't the hippie backpacker experience that many 25-year-olds seek in India, but I would argue that I actually got a more authentic, diverse and personal experience than any hippie backpacker could hope for (and I escaped with no bedbug bites).

Now I am back, five years later, revisiting my friends and my favorite city followed by some exploration and adventure to the beautiful mountains of Kerala and the elephant preserves. Hyderabad is not the city that tourists typically go to, but it is my second home, and despite the development of an entire city of tall buildings since the last time I was there (including their first western mall), it is still the city I knew. People are exceptionally nice, nicer than almost any other place I've been in India, and the culture is exceptionally diverse with the historic city being a former islamic sultanate (nizam-ate to be precise) and the other parts of the city being the capital of the Telegu-speaking, mostly-Hindu state of Andhra Pradesh.

In a tribute to modern India and my jet-lag, I focused my time in Hyderabad purely on friends and shopping. I met up with Rupa, one of my very best friends in the whole world (and that is a big world!) who I met in India and have since seen on two other continents and who is indirectly responsible for my meeting of my future husband :). Rupa accompanied me on my saree-buying outing for my wonderful bridesmaids who have graciously accepted my request to add Indian fashion accents to my western wedding in San Francisco by wearing sarees. To top off my Indian wedding mini-experience I got bridal henna/mehendi and finally went to Rupa's house and hung out with her family - three generations of them.

This was the perfect dip back into India, reminding me of many of the things that I liked so much about Hyderabad, most of all, feeling like I still can be a local in a place on the absolute opposite side of the world, even if that local needs to ride in an air-conditioned car ;).

Top: Bridal henna mehendi at shilparamam (a folk art park in Hi-tec city in Hyderabad that is now completely surrounded by office parks). Middle: my finished henna/mehendi with my bridesmaid sarees. Bottom: Rupa and her mom.

Journey back to India begins!

I'm currently sitting in the San Francisco International airport terminal drinking a 22 ounce blue moon and eating a pile of french fries and an aoili-slathered vegetarian panini. One of the great things about traveling to India is that I don't care about calories at all, because I'll be so invested in not getting food poisoning while I'm there that I'll take whatever safe calories I can get. Somehow that makes everything test better! Step one of India reminding me to appreciate the little things that I take for granted - safe food and water (I'm sure this will come back as a theme in the next couple weeks, hopefully as a philosophical and political topic, not as a personal topic...).

This is an extra interesting trip for me. I spent 6 months in India in 2007 and went back in 2008 and 2009 for business trips; the amount of development between 2007 and 2009 was staggering. My first time in Hyderabad it was a fledgling former sultanate with two official languages that were totally unrelated spoken natively within the city's borders (urdu or "hyderabadi hindi" for the muslims at the city core and Telugu for the Hindus living everywhere else). The only  tall buildings were being quickly slapped up on the edge of town in a marketing-centric area optimistically named "Hi-Tec City" which had an amusing welcome sign that announced that "Hi-Tec City is the most Beauty full place in India."

I spent six months without access to a western grocery store and with airport security who pretended that the broken metal detector was working as a deterrence measure (a very common alternative to actual law enforcement in India). The chaos was addictive and freeing - for the first time I realized that society can in fact function without extensive law and order. The lack of law and order meant there were more bombings and riots (among other events), but in a city of 6 million people, even with those things happening (two different sets of bombings and ensuing riots occurred in the city while I was there), most people don't ever see those events. People go about their daily lives with a far more acute risk of terrorism and personal harm than such in America or Western Europe, yet, they don't live in deep fear - staying inside to avoid the dangers beyond their doors.

People go about their lives, depending on their strong and extensive family and community structures to protect them. In many ways they exhibit acute signs of happiness and contentment far stronger than most people I know in the US. I think that I have some idea of why it is, that in a place that is riskier and harder with shorter life expectancy, that people seem to be far less stressed out about everyday life than they are in the West. Yet, every moment in India reminds me of the deep contrast that exists in the world's largest democracy with the world's oldest continuous cultures, and it would be absolute arrogance to assume that I really understand what keeps the country and the people running in such relative peace and prosperity.

Not everyone lives in that peace and prosperity, and the deep contrast between the top and bottom is also part of the mystery,  even while massive tech buildings are popping up in cities across the country, hundreds of millions of people are living without access to clean water and extreme cultural and religious disparities display themselves everywhere, everyday. I like to think of what would happen in the US if every state and every city within each state had their own language, own system of writing, and if 1/3 of the country's population was one distinct devout religion, while 2/3 were another distinct devout religion (the current political crisis underscores this point greatly). The US runs into crises over differences between different forms of protestant christianity, yet the city of Hyderabad serves as a historical and ancient center of Islam and the capital of a mostly Hindu state that speaks a different language. In my opinion, India is remarkably peaceful given these circumstances.

Now it's been another 4 years since I was there and I will, for the first time, be there without the institution of Google caring for my every need - from drivers picking me up at the airport to my housing, food and the maids cleaning my room everyday. The ex-pat life then was interesting - probably the closest an American can get to Downton Abbey (replace the rigid dining dress code and spired stone house with a loosey goosey dinner schedule consumed on the couch with fellow expats and a recently-built white-washed cement house in a guarded complex).

I must now depart on my Cathay Pacific flight to India via Hong Kong. In a mere 22 hours I'll be in India!

Re-entry

My name is Ashley. To start this new blog I feel like I need to tell a quick re-cap of a few pertinent details my life. This blog is not so much the beginning of the story, but a re-entry after a very long hiatus.

Previously in my travel blogs I wore a saree to the Taj Mahal and a burkha to the souk. I drove a moped through the streets of Chennai and stumbled upon a dragon dance in Singapore. I climbed the Great Wall of China and drank beer in Tokyo parks under cherry blossoms. I tiptoed on untrodden white sand beaches in Western Australia and swam with squid and rainbow fish in the crystal clear water of the coral islands of the Maldives. I was a child of the world who thrived on exploring the beauty and comedy of cultural differences. I believed strongly that we are more similar than we are different, and identifying those similarities, especially when they are not on the surface, was one of my favorite things to do. Now I'm back. 

But let's go a little further back, a pre-quel you can call it. Throughout my life I have been on an unusual path, filled with love, adventure and drama. The defining quest of my life is simply to learn and explore, and I have very actively sought and received unusual opportunities to do that. 

I grew up in the all-american suburbs of Sacramento, California playing soccer, eating Dairy Queen and attending public schools. I dreamily read National Geographic and envisioned myself one of their intrepid explorers - uncovering the hidden secrets of exciting and exotic civilizations. In my spare time I sung opera, because it turned out that I could, and that talent along with some other factors got me into Stanford on an almost full scholarship. Stanford changed my life because it introduced me to a huge diversity of people who were all interested in learning and exploring just like I was. I was in heaven.

All american soccer kid turned opera singer

At my first opportunity, I signed up for free travel - and for that instance it turned out that I signed up to do manual labor on an archaeology dig in 110 degree heat (with no shade and no air conditioners!) in Sicily - and it was totally worth it. Since then, I've signed up for every exciting travel opportunity that comes my way (luckily they didn't involve more manual labor), and I was lucky enough to explore India and Asia in a very unique way - as a Google training specialist. Google flew me around Asia as I met hundreds of interesting and welcoming people across India, Singapore, China, Japan and Australia (check out my blogs from those good times- first in India and then in Singapore).

The moment I arrived in India for the first time, alone and unsuspecting, the whole world opened up - I had found a place that was unquestionably the most different place from Sacramento, California in the entire world.

Since then, in my quest to discover the diversity of the world firsthand, I have traveled to over 500 cities across 36 countries, but the 158 remaining countries remind me that my journey of cultural appreciation is still in its adolescence.

This blog is my journey from cultural adolescence to adulthood - and there is going to be a lot of interesting experiences along the way.

I'm leaving for India in less than two days - my first time back in four years and the only time I'll have ever been there without the resources and protection of working for Google. Fingers crossed that I'll be safe and healthy (neither items to be taken for granted, particularly in India), but I'll be bringing my blog and my camera along for that ride.