First Impressions

I spoke with a number of family and friends before I set off on this journey about whether I was going to keep a blog during my time in India. I was doubtful then. However, the other night I was coming back from seeing the "old" part of Gurgaon, the city I am staying in currently and will be working in for at least the next 12 months, and realized that I have so much more to share than just my fun, personal experiences.

You see, Gurgaon is one of India's fastest growing cities. In the area of my guest house and office, huge high-rise condominiums sprout up out of nowhere. Beautiful, state-of-the art office buildings, bearing names the like of Nestle, IBM, Convergys, Tata and Ericsson, now dot the landscape of east Gurgaon. In fact, Gurgaon has a growing reputation for being the "city of malls" also. Several, multi-story, western-style shopping malls are now becoming common place. However, to talk only of those things in describing Gurgaon would be terribly misleading. Most of Gurgaon for that matter, is still very poor. It may be described as "Delhi's wealthiest satellite city," but the truth is that the majority of Gurgaon's residents live very simple lives, focused solely on providing the basic necessities of life.

This is why I came to India. The visible change of an evolving society. Modernization vs. tradition. Commercialization vs. a very old, rich culture. You see it in high-rises and tin shacks, fancy cars and horse drawn carts, all right next to each other. In the United States, we often read of India's emerging economy and new place on the world stage (usually referring to the telecommunication industry's new presence here). Take into account though, 70% of India's economy is agrarian-based and it's society as a whole has the third most cases of malnutrition in the world.

I am learning so much every day that I feel you might be interested in knowing also. To be honest, I'm still unsure what form this blog is going to take, but I do know that it's worth starting and seeing where it goes.

~ I will leave you today with something I found in the newspaper this morning: the Matrimonials section. An Indian friend of mine told me before I left that arranged marriages still account for about 80% of all Indian marriages. However, I did learn last week that dowries, "a gift of money or valuables given by the bride's family to the groom's at the time of their marriage", a custom that has a long history in India, were outlawed in recent years (even though I hear they are still pretty common)."Love marriages", as they are called here, are becoming more common, but still are not the norm.

The Matrimonials section looks and reads no different than the classifieds, containing catchy titles such as "For tall, handsome Punjabi" and ads full of acronyms. "Grooms Wanted For" is A1-4 and "Brides Wanted For" are pages A5-8. One ad reads:

"A well reputed Business Family invites alliance for their Beautiful, Elegant, Slim, Intelligent Daughter, 1971 Born (looks younger), 160 cm, 45 kg., doing her own Business. Looking for well settled educated boy from a decent business/professional family. Excellent marriage. Caste no bar."