Yesterday and Tomorrow in India Today

Yesterday, Today
The train from Delhi to Jaisalmer passes over a short stretch of Haryana before entering into the state of Rajasthan. While passing through Haryana, one sees well-irrigated fields - green and golden - on both sides of the rail track. This greenery continues for a while after the train enters the fabled state of Rajasthan. Then the landscape begins to gradually change. The harsh climate of Rajasthan begins to show its effects as the greenery and tall trees give way to browner fields and shorter trees, which are eventually replaced by short and sparse bush. The population density declines and well-populated villages are replaced by odd mounds and castles at a distance.

From Jodhpur onwards, the land becomes more and more stark and sparsely populated. The next train stop for us after Jodhpur was Pokhran. The place looked desolate and deserted. Hardly anyone got off or on the train, except for some of us who got down to take pictures of the place as a macabre souvenir of the place which changed the military and political equations on the subcontinent for ever.

Jaisalmer is the last station on this railway line. When our train arrived at the station, we were approached by a young man in shirts and trousers who offered his services as a porter who doubled as taxi-driver (or was it the other way round?). He asked us if we had a place to stay. On our telling him that we did not, he offered to carry our luggage and show us some hotels in the downtown area for twenty rupees which we thought was a very low price, used as we were to a much higher tariff for coolies and transportation in Delhi. For these twenty rupees, the man carried our two pieces of luggage for roughly half a kilometre to the end of the rail-track, loaded it into a waiting mini-van acting as a private taxi and then drove us to a hotel in the city. We did not like the hotel, which had a gloomy air about it and asked him to show us another one. This next one was a newer hotel, not more than one or two years old. At the reception was a young girl who greeted us in English. Then lights suddenly went out (a common phenomenon in most of India) and the receptionist reflexively exclaimed, “shit!” in disgust...she had obviously been to an English medium school!…she lit up a candle and showed us a room, which was quite spacious and well furnished. It had a fairly large private bathroom with hot and cold running water, a telephone and a cable TV, plus room service and even some local entertainment to go with the dinner in the rooftop dining room. For all this, she quoted a price of Rs. 425. This was obviously poor country!

Jaisalmer is known as the golden city. Gold is the colour of the stones mined from the quarries in the district and is commonly used in construction in the city buildings. We found the city to be relatively clean and the roads well kept by the standards of the subcontinent. The highpoint of every tourist’s visit to Jaisalmer is the sand dunes at a distance of 40-50 kilometres from the city. The tourists flock to these sand dunes to watch the glorious sun setting into the West. We got into the jeep and passed once again through the desolate landscape. Here and there one could see symbols of modernity, such as tall windmills to harness the wind for power generation. But the sign of drought were everywhere; no vegetation, no sign of water, and dead carcasses here and there.

The jeep stopped two kilometres from the sand-dune site. We would be doing the rest of the journey on camels. There, by the roadside, were a hundred or so camels and their drivers waiting to pick up their passengers. Our camel driver was attired in his traditional dress – a tunic dhoti and a turban- and was being assisted by his young son. Our driver, as well as others, all belonged to a nearby village. The film Rudali was apparently shot around this area. The driver was a Muslim as were the other camel drivers on this route. He began telling his woes: There have not been rains in these parts for the last five years; the drivers cannot follow their traditional occupation of herding sheep and other cattle as all the cattle have died; even the bushes have dried up. Several animals died because of the lack of food and water, others died because of diseases like Bochu Lijamah that they caught by eating rotten carcasses and bones of dead animals. The villagers have no source of livelihood, except for the little bit that they earn from tourists. The government provides Most of these poor villagers do not practice any form of birth control, so the small quantity of ration is not sufficient for them. I asked him about the education of his assistant, his son. He had gone only to the primary school in the village. What about the government’s plans to provide mandatory education for upper classes, I asked? He would have liked his son to have more education but the higher level schools are only in Jaisalmer and there are no arrangements for transporting the boys to the school in the city. I asked him if his religion makes him feel insecure. He said that it was never an issue; there are no differences between the Hindus and Muslims in the village. But being in the border area, their lives are disrupted whenever there is tension between India and Pakistan. Then the border security force vacates the entire villages. But he had only kind words for the army people who, he said, look after their needs well whenever such disruptions take place. We were charged Rs. 200 for two camels. I was not sure how much of this amount would actually go to the driver and how much would be kept by our tourist company. This was going to be the driver’s gross earnings for the day when he got a passenger, which was not every day.

The leisurely camel ride took an hour to reach the sand dunes. The scene here was amazing. There were camels, camel drivers and groups of tourists with their cameras and camcorders on every sand dune. The place had the feel of a mela, except that most of the people here were tourists from other cities and countries and the local people merely service providers for people like us. Rajasthani dancers, singers and musicians –both men and women in their colourful costumes- had walked miles from the neighbouring villages to provide entertainment to the tourists and to sell them bottled water, drinks, chips, ice cream and knickknacks. Then the sun began to go down steadily and slowly disappeared somewhere in Pakistan. The amazing spectacle was over in minutes. We tourists got into our jeeps to return to hour hotels while the local vendors and entertainers trekked hurriedly towards their villages – some in their bare feet - so as to get there before it got too dark. Very certainly, some of them would have to go to bed on empty bellies that night and others would only have the bare minimum to keep their body and soul together. Perhaps, they might even watch a colour TV in a panchayat room to remind them of the real life luxuries and fantasies lived by some of their fellow countrymen which they could not even dream of.

Here was, then, the India of yesterday: poor, hungry, mired in poverty, highly dependent upon the vagaries of weather and yet full of life with colour, dance and music.


Tomorrow, Today
On stepping out of the train at the Bangalore city Railway station, one sees big TV monitors providing infotainment to the waiting passengers. Walk inside the hallway and one notices a large electronic board on arrivals and departures of trains that actually works. In addition to the usual bridge, which is a standard fixture at any railway station in India, there is also a modern underground passage that connects various platforms. The railway station lobby has an Internet café where one can browse through one’s email or surf the net to usefully occupy oneself while waiting for the train. Outside the railway station, there is a taxi station run by the Bangalore police where one can hire a taxi or an auto-rickshaw at a pre-set rate without having to haggle with a cabbie after a tiring journey. All these are small pointers to a functioning modern city.

A drive through the Mahatma Gandhi Road shows a city on the move. Modern shops, attractive storefronts, shopping arcades with glass elevators are the outward signs of a city with fistful of rupees to spend. We decided to go into a pub with the modern-sounding name of NASA. The pub is shaped like a spaceship. We were seated in the small ‘family’ section, which was a misnomer as it was meant by any party with at least one female in it. The music at the pub varied from pop to rock. The signs of pseudo-modernity were all there with some girls smoking, drinking and, at least one, aggressively courting her male companion. The right hand side of the menu looked as if dollar prices had been converted into rupees but the pub was full of locals rather than the tourist types.

The next day we drove 20 miles out of the city to the Electronics City, which houses several Indian and multinational corporations with their modern steel and glass structures. Our destination was the famed Infosys campus, which has become something of a pilgrimage for every visiting dignitary to India. We are not dignitaries but were fortunate in knowing someone who works there so we were able to get the same tour that the VIPs to the place get.

I had heard and read so much about the Infosys campus that it was a surprise that I was still surprised at what we saw. We knew at the entrance gate itself that this place was a step ahead not only from Indian offices but also from the many North American offices that we had been to. When we got to the gate, our host was there at the gate at the appointed time to receive us. The receptionist at the gate asked us our names and age. A computer camera took our pictures and within a minute our identitification tags were ready with our pictures, names and the name of our host. No forms to fill, no useless questions, no fuss. It was an efficient, effective control system

Once inside the campus, it was easy to forget that one was in India. There were 26 high-rise buildings, each of them conforming to the modern architectural designs. The campus was full of greenery with beautifully manicured lawns kept lush with automated sprinkler system. There was a small lake/canal with paddleboat. The Gym could be the envy of any modern health club. One of the buildings was dedicated to a modern library, another to the human resource upgrading; every Infosys employee spends almost a third of his time each year in training and retraining. This truly seemed more like a modern university campus than a corporate headquarters.

One of the 26 buildings was called the ‘Nortel’ building. This was somewhat of a shock for me because Nortel is associated with my hometown in Canada. Apparently, the building was so named because it was dedicated to handling work outsourced by Nortel to Infosys including work related to its product development. Across from it was the ‘Lucent’ building which was similarly dedicated to handling work for that archrival of Nortel. The employees ‘working’ for Nortel were not supposed to interact professionally with those working for Lucent. It was an impressive vote of confidence by the clients in the integrity of Infosys. I was even more surprised to learn that the same two companies also give similar work to Wipro, the main Indian rival of Infosys in the software business.

We went to the building holding the corporate office. On the main floor was a banquet hall, which was as luxurious and well laid out as the banquet hall of any luxury hotel. Also on the main floor was a videoconference hall. The hall had the capability to hold meetings with almost any city in the world, so that people could participate in a virtual meeting without having to be physically present. Outside the corporate headquarters was a motorized trolley for a quick tour of the campus. Alas, it was available only for use by guests more special than us!

It was now time to eat. But first we needed some cash. There were three ATMs located at strategic locations on the campus. We got the needed cash and went to the main food court, which had food outlets serving a variety of foods. Our host told us that the Dominion Pizza franchise on the campus outlet outsells every other franchisee in India. Looks like the Indian techies love their pizza as much as their American counterparts! Not being too fond of the Dominion Pizza, we settled for some cake and frappuccino at Barrista, an upscale Indian café patterned after Starbucks.

Our guest came to see us off at the gate where we had to return our photo IDs. Outside the gate, we saw 50 or more buses waiting. We were told that Infosys had contracted with the bus company to transport its staff from and to the city. The cost of this service is borne by the company and not the employees.

Back in the real world we could not help thinking that Infosys is everything that India aspires to be but is not! The visit showed us that the Indian dream of tomorrow is attainable. But to do that Indians has to show the single-minded devotion and dedication to realize their vision, as has been done by the pioneers of Infosys and others like them.

Whether India fulfils its destiny as shown by the likes of Infosys or will remain mired in its past depends upon the ability of the Indian leadership to rise above their petty squabbles, hidebound politics of division and vote banks based on caste, religion and narrow interests, wasting their energies in writing and rewriting of histories and generally pandering to the lowest common denominator in their quest for staying in their kursees or snatching it from the current occupants. More than anything else, it will depend upon whether or not the bright young men and women of India shun their disdain for politics and displace the tired old men, hereditary politicians and goons who are monopolising the political space in India at the present time.