Unity in Diversity

I walk through the streets with half my attention focused on avoiding getting run over by motorcycles, dogs, carts selling street food, and other pedestrians. But the rest of my attention gets bombarded with the colorful diversity around me. People from a wide array of jobs, religions, and socioeconomic backgrounds mingling together on the same roads with the bright sun beating down on the colorful clothes. Over 1.2 billion people squeezed into a landmass 1/3 the size of America thus eliminating the concept of personal space. Small roads and disregard of rules leading to constant traffic jams. Bargaining for everything from buttons to food to furniture. Kids playing cricket in any open space they can find. The mad rush to jump onto a moving bus.  Smells of food, pollution, incense, and dirt all mixing together.

Growing up with the happy upper middle class in the stereotypical suburbs of America you never get to see such diversity and people from different lifestyles on a daily basis because of geographical distance. But in India there’s not enough space to separate these various conditions. You see beautiful shining apartment buildings towering over the city and right next to it is a slum with houses made of thin metal. Someone comes out of the IBM building after work in his suit and walks right past a man who makes his daily wages selling cheap shoes on the side of the road.

For some reason that none of us will ever know, India functions through this diversity and frenzy. As the days go by I look closely and realize that there’s actually order in this chaos. I really can’t find any words to describe it, so you’ll just have to come see Incredible India for yourself :)