Gotcha Suckers!!!!

I say it best, when I say nothing at all. Specially if nothing can be blown up into a 600 +/- 300 word blog post.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The First World

There is a very skewed system of classification that demarcates the nations of the world into different economic and socio-political spheres, thereby terming them as first world, second world and third world respectively, and you can read more here, if you don't want to read on and have fun.

Your choice. The blue pill or the red pill.

Or was it the red pill and the green pill? The yellow pill and the white one?? A hypochondriac's dream come true.

Anyways, the whole build-up towards the three worlds classification was to provide my two paise to the raging debate on whether the first world actually should be called so. One would imagine that first world nations would have a civilization where better standards of living prevail, life in general is good, and there is less pollution and they have good TV shows and all that jazz. I am sure you get the picture.

The essence of delineating nations based on this worlds system is to have them ranked on how close to a utopian existance these nations come to, the smaller your number, the closer you are to it.

This entire flow of thought came about as I was trying to figure out the strange behaviour that people in western nations have, of subsisting purely on toilet paper. Yes, no water.

Absolutely mortifying thought, ain't it? I agree.

The very first time (and thankfully ONLY time till date, touchwood) that I had to relieve myself at a no-water-only-toilet-paper place, the last time I was in Scandinavia was a frightful experience.

It was on a sunday morning in my first weekend here at Oslo, when I was visiting a museum, the Museum of Cultural History that I felt the need to go. Serendipitously enough, the museum had a free loo.

All the public loos here are paid toilets, and one has to insert 10 NOK, the equivalent of 72 Indian rupees everytime one has to go. Even relieving oneself is quite a burden on the pocket in the costliest city on earth.

Any which way, after a job well done, I discovered that there was no water. The first world countries don't use water. Nor to they use mugs. What I had to do later is obvious, and needs no description.

All these thoughts were running through my mind when I had to rush from my office to my hotel room, since the john there had running water.

I think the lack of mugs and accessible running water in most of the western nations is a contributing factor to reverse brain-drain, the kind where the Indian diaspora want to get back home to settle here after having endured years and years of not having had properly clean parts where the sun don't shine.

A lot of people that I know have gone off to the US on further studies, and have settled there. There are quite a bunch of other people who have also gone to lot of other first world countries. A lot of people highlight the various problems they face, including lack of proper food, possible encounters with racism, unfulfilled promises of getting laid and so on and so forth.

But not too many people seem to be forthcoming enough to highlight this particular problem, maybe because they just wipe it off their minds while wiping it off their behinds.

Of course, there are a lot of other issues that make you really wonder if things are actually as hunky-dory as one would imagine. High divorce rates, screwed up kids, dysfunctional families, bad bland food, reality TV and so on and so forth.

Its not like we live in a perfect land. People fight here too. The scourge of Reality TV has invaded our drawing rooms with middle class families splurging on SMSes to vote for some random Debojit or whoever so he becomes the next world-superstar-idol-of-Calcutta or something or the other.

Kids are screwed up in the head as badly. Why, I will not pretend to be holier-than-thou here and act like I was a good boy when I was younger. Sure, I had some good points that only a parent with unconditional love for their messed up child could discern. However, more often than not, I think I have put my folks through torrid times when they'd have probably wished that things would have transpired differently round about the time of my conception.

With the wide variery of food available, no complaints on that front. Ungrateful wretches, count your blessings.

Our country does not have a welfare system in place that enables the elderly people to look out for themselves courtesy of the government, as it is in the first world nations. Being eternally optimistic, it just is about looking at this as a window of opportunity to repay your parents for aiding you in you becoming what you are at this point in time, a sense of gratitude that is unflinchingly missing in the 'developed' countries.

However there is something about being from the subcontinent, about being Indian, that just makes you feel different and feel special about yourself. This feeling is even more enhanced if you're a "brown supremacist", a Racist movement whose quintessential member is a vegetarian curry and rice munching Tam Bhram with roots in Chennai, having lived in Delhi, working in Bombay with a girlfriend from Calcutta (to cover all four parts of the country somehow). Its our way of showing the Nazis and the skinheads and all the other racist people the stuff that we are made of. Taking over the world by writing software is our way of doing things.

Shady jokes apart, regardless of the huge population, the crumbling infrastructure, the huge divisions among all spectrums possible, the messy political climate or the haphazard way in which our way of life is being led, no matter which part of the world you finally end up making your life in, you secretly end up thanking God for having made you come from where you did.

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7 Comments:

Blogger tangled said...

hey. i want one of those brown supremacists i say, mokdlke.

August 30, 2006 8:52 AM  
Blogger stan_da_man said...

nice post again i say! and again...i agree totally....i suffer everyday cos of the brainwave toilet-paper-idea some guy had....well..almost evryday...and more than once daily sometimes..when my stomach aint feelin too good...errmm...i'll stop here.. :p

August 30, 2006 11:53 PM  
Blogger Sam said...

Amen ! ( Tried hard to find a hindu equivalent word..). I agree with u, I openly thank for having come from India. The single most reason for that being ur blog.Now dont take that too literally..hehhee. What I mean is that , we 'desis' reflect so much about all these issues, more or less in a subjective manner. This is a quality I have found poeple of the 'First' world completly bereft of! Values like tolerance, qualified modesty and gratitude in my opinion show development of our mental faculty. And for a supposedly developing country, we show far greater development than people from the so called developed world.

September 06, 2006 1:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

fuck the bloody kaballah reading assholes....

September 09, 2006 1:53 AM  
Blogger Hari Shenoy said...

@ Tharunya - go to the nearest Foodworld, you'll prolly find one of them shopping for groceries to cook dinner. Lurk around the green leafy vegetables section and then as soon as someone that catches your fancy arrives, pounce!!!

@ Staney Boy - too much information, but I am glad you agree.

@ Suri "who calls himself Sam since Danes can't pronounce his simple and nice name" - being from that mindset in a developing country rocks! Its probably a weird train of thought that makes me believe we'd lose all those qualities that we display now if we become more 'first-worldish' and developed, and forget where we have come from.

@ Anonymous - dude, I appreciate your candor, but I must pity you on your absolute lack of knowledge. I don't think you know what you are talking about. I have a valuable piece of advice for you - 'next time you have another such brainwave of yours, please, for the sake of humanity, let it go!'

September 11, 2006 7:13 AM  
Blogger googboog said...

this is a very inciteful blog. and speaking of too much information. the next time you have to visit a toilet abroad. always carry one of these mini water bottles which they give you on the plane. fill it with water or coke or phenyl, whatever works for you.
that way you wont be left all ehh.. never mind, i think i'll stop with this..

wsqbvajr is what the original word looked like. but it wasnt. now it's mpned

September 25, 2006 4:13 AM  
Blogger angelofdarkness said...

i agree totally, hari!
your blogs are a great read!

September 26, 2006 5:42 PM  

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