Episode IV - An Old Hope

First off - I need to apologize for being a bit more serious today and providing no solutions or making any sense.

Apathy - Lack of interest or concern, especially regarding matters of general importance or appeal; indifference.

This is the definition from dictionary.com.

I do not believe that the people of Bangalore suffer from this. I think that it appears this way only on the surface. The traffic definitely helps them to tend to become indifferent. People commute and hour and a half each way to and from work each day. That sucks. But there is hope. There is an old saying that if you put a bunch of chimpanzees in a room together eventually one of them will write the novel war and peace.

Now I don't expect that anyone is writing any novels here or even reading them. That is not the point I am making, although I would like some time to read the Harry Potter novel when it is out. I have been interviewing a lot of people this week and I realized that most people have no idea where they want to be in their professional lives. There are very few people that know what they want to do. And most people are too busy trying to keep up with the Jones's to bother with the trivial act of thinking.

A few days ago somebody complained when I was parked on the side of the road and they couldn't pass as oncoming traffic was also blocking them. I thought I knew why they were complaining to me. They couldn't complain to the pile of rocks I was parked in front of or the empty autorikshaw parked behind the pile of rocks. Apathy is definitely not the problem. But the guy in the car was pretty affluent, but lacked basic manners. I have noticed the richer someone is in Bangalore, the worse they eat, talk and act in general. I could be wrong, I don't care to make stereotypes, and I have only seen this on a couple dozen occasions. I think of myself as an average guy. I probably am worth more $$ than the guy in that car, but I don't give much credence to the notion of class. It is one of the reasons I decided not to bring my BMW to India. Hahahaha....I am f'in with you. I do have these things and I am tryin' to toot my own horn and sound big. I am a big dumbass just as every other moron that is on this planet.....

So apathy is not the issue. Our answer could lie in an old hope. That people are actually really decent. That all people have compassion and kindness pre-wired in them and that it is just waiting for a chance to make an appearance.

The reason I am talking about this is that I do believe that all people have this ability, but that it is clouded by certain factors. In India and Bangalore it is clouded by population. You can't move anywhere without seeing or avoiding running into people. It is literally a sea. And it does not seem to end. It wears you out after some time. I am exhausted. Literally.

An example of this is to wait 3 seconds after you can move at an intersection. The horns start blaring. Actually they start before the light is green. The point is no one has any patience. That is definitely a factor of overpopulation, but is it really overpopulation? There are move people in the Bay Area(San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose Area) than in Bangalore. I don't see the same issue there. It could be that things are more organized and spread out. This could be it actually. If you take my house in San Jose it will sell for about 2.5 million dollars now (11 crore rupees). You take that same house and put it in Bangalore it will sell for double. Maybe more. It doesn't make sense until you realize that it is about space. A 4800 sqft modern house with a view and 1.7 acres of land will sell for a boat load in Bangalore. And it is frustrating in every way. The old hope that people are inherently good is no where in the picture anymore when you think about the sheer nature of the up hill battle people face here. I appreciate what people here have to put up with on a daily basis. And the space issue isn't getting any better. The road that I was parked on was not much bigger than my driveway back in San Jose. Sucks.

When all hope seems to be gone and people all frustrated and slowly becoming numb or apathetic towards life, it would seem that the inherent nature of what it is to be human would be lost. It is almost a kind of unintentional oppression.

And it doesn't end there. The other day I saw this puppy by the office. I asked the security guard to get me some biscuits so that I could feed her. Before I had a chance to feed her, she started to eat some shit, literally, off the road. I tried to stop her. The biscuits came and she ate a few. A kid came up to me and said that it won't eat, that it was his puppy, and it pretty much only takes milk. My thoughts at that moment were, well she seemed to like the shit and she did eat a few biscuits. But why did the puppy look under nourished? And why was the puppy afraid of people....I think if you still have decency in you and are not Apathetic you will understand the answers to these questions.

There is an Old hope I have.....unfortunately I now believe it is a fools hope.

Cheers,

Deepak