My wariness of the obvious metaphor was overwhelmed last night when we arrived in Kolkata and I realized I was in a half-hour time zone (it is 30 minutes past the hour when the hour strikes most other places on either) for the first time and a passenger in a sweaty cab that was nearly as old as I – quite a change from the comfortably air-conditioned cabs—and subways – we’ve been using earlier in our journey. The impression that India was a bit out of step was confirmed in a walk this morning when we saw multi-story buildings under construction enveloped in bamboo scaffolding like we’d seen elsewhere before but was nowhere in evidence on this trip.
India is different. Bigger. More democratic and apparently still a bit less inviting to aggressive entrepreneurs who want to build big institutions that yield them big fortunes. One surprise is that English is so rare here. Another is a suspicion that attitudes are a bit different. Certainly the enthusiasm that service personnel show toward customers is a bit more muted here, although people seem responsive. Our trip was also punctuated by an extra round of security checks at Bangkok airport for India-bound passengers. Apparently there’s more of a perceived threat than from passengers headed elsewhere, although we don’t know the basis for it. Kingfisher Air did a fine job of getting us from there to here, where we’re glad to be.
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