Not even on the worst day in Rome, legendary for its traffic jams and impatient drivers, have we experienced traffic like it is in India. It’s almost as though millions and
millions of Indians have cars- and all of them were on the same road we were on, going exactly where we were going- and at the same time as we. Congestion to the MAX. Weaving in and out, making their own
lanes, horns honking incessantly. I told Nan if I heard one more horn honk, I was going to go out of my mind.
There is a “flip side” to this story, because there are millions and millions of Indians who do not own cars. In fact, they own little to nothing at all. They live on the
street- literally on the street- some with no cover to shelter them at all. Those slightly better off live in cardboard boxes, and the “top of the line” in this society live in shacks thrown
together with whatever materials they can scrounge up.
Think of it: Millions of people living with no electricity, no water, no toilets, little food, no employment, no privacy, no security.
It gives new meaning to the expression, “What have I got to complain about?”
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