What to expect

Similar to what it was like when heading off to Africa, I really do not have a clue what to expect. Never having been to India, I can only glean from people I have spoken to and what I have seen in the media. In a way it is ironic that I am writing this from Deerfield Beach FL as this is where I saw my most recent exposé on India, an entertaining movie called Slumdog Millionaire. I have checked with colleagues from India since seeing that flick and they have their reservations about how realistic it depicted life in their homeland.

What do I think I will find? Let me list and compare to what I actually do find once there and back ...

1. streets crowded with people and more people
2. streets that are very narrow with coarse gravel shoulders
3. vehicles of every possible shape and size from as far back as the 1940's
4. roadside stands packed to the rafters with just about every commodity one could ever think of wanting to buy
5. a nice assortment of local brew that will please even the least discriminating (yes me Jake!) aficionados of beer
6. colourful garb on the female units, a sight to behold
7. clouds of dust wafting throughout the city, reminiscent of the cumulonimbus variety ever-present my 9 months in Addis Ababa 
8. a sea of little (and big hands) looking for as many rupee as ferenge (what foreigners are called in many countries in Africa) can possibly part with
9. an assortment of public transport vehicles of every possible shape and size, carting around anything and everything that breathes
10. a dichotomy of hopelessly poor inhabitants and quite well off neighbouring individuals

These same India people who frowned on the life there as depicted so much by Hollywood, agreed with my observation that Monsoon Wedding did one of the better jobs ... surprise surprise, that was from Bollywood not Hollywood.