The Real India

As you may have guessed, we really don't experience India or live the way that 80% of the Indians do. We go to work in our air conditioned cars with the air circulating internally to block out the smells and pollution, our offices are nicer than the US ones and have better facilities, we live in gated apartment communities that although have their own challenges are very comfortable, spacious, and have a self contained social network and this is pretty much 80% of our reality. I do occasionally pick up the groceries, go to the local library or go to the tailor and have to walk around the dogs, the garbage on the side of the streets, the dirt and avoid being run over by a car but it's really a small part of my life. Maybe this is why it's easy to live here, if I had to take public transport to work every day, work at a non MNC and live in a non gated community, our whole experience would be different. I can take comfort that we're not living in an expat community where we would be even one more step removed although I suspect we would like it there too. As one friend put it, the moment we walk out of our little bubble that we've created, we're like anyone else and that can be a bit scary and I agree it can be but if we didn't even experience that little bit, we would miss out on all the fun.