Just got back from India last night, and couldn’t be happier to be home. I’ve come to appreciate the quality of life that we afford in America when compared to even moderately “good” parts of India. On a day-to-day basis, we don’t have to worry about catching a sickness from our water supply nor the overwhelming amount of mosquitoes in India.
More importantly, we are afforded many opportunities that are not available in India. One such example is the ability and to pursue our dreams. All our lives we have been brought up with the concept of the American Dream, something which tells us that if we work for a cause, we have a legitimate chance to achieve it. Our institutions are (in theory) designed to protect this dream, and we have checks in place, both in government and society (media), to ensure that fairness and justice are accounted for. In pursuit of our dream, we are given many financial and educational opportunities, and these are accessible to a wide majority of the people.
In India, this dream is harder to achieve, as the government is plagued with corruption and other uselessness. Roads, for example, illustrate the incompetence of the government. Most roads in India charge a toll tax for using it, typically $0.50 per car and $5 per state (I am unsure how often the $5 per state fee is paid, but I think it is once per day for cars from a different state). The money should be used to maintain the roads and make them better, but little change is seen. The quality of road makes it such that drivers have to lower their speed in hope that their car does not break down.
Roads are only a small problem when compared to the other issues India faces. The country is plagued with air pollution (so bad that blue skies are rarity, and I never saw them on my trip), noise pollution due to cars and generators, and people pollution (population density, litter, bad drainage of sewage, etc). Given that India has had an economic boom in the last decade, it’s surprising to me that many of these *basic* living conditions that we are accustomed to in America have not made it to the vast majority of India.
When I talked to other students in India, I came to the conclusion that the abundance of opportunity available to use at an educational level has largely been overlooked. From a young boy, I have been brought up in a culture of entrepreneurship. This culture has enabled me to pursue opportunities such as internships and extracurricular activities. Students in India have an “assigned” path to them, and the only way to become successful is to do well in that path. Even in the top universities in India, students are assigned a major to them based on a test score. They have to pursue that major if they decide to attend that college and cannot change their major should they want to pursue something different. The result is that students have to perform extraordinarily well in hope to make it to an American or European Institution to pursue their dreams. It is only then (after the person’s youth) that a person in this system has the ability to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.
When I concluded this, I felt a great appreciation for the way of life in America. I truly have the opportunity to do something great in this country, and I feel that I have an obligation to my ancestors (grandfather in particular, but that story is for another day) to do so. It is my hope that I utilize the resources given to me to the fullest and one day give humanitarian aid to give back to those who need it.
