Spent the day in the rain. It rained ALL day. It went from a light rain to a very heavy rain and back again, but never not raining.
The day went very fast, I saw temples, zoos, parks, and museums.
I met and had a conversation with maybe 10 folks or so. Almost all of them asked me at some point in the conversation something along the lines of “Which is better India or America?” When I was here in 2003 the most common question was more like “Is there something you like about India?”
I think there is a real sense of things getting better here.
My answer was always something like: something better about US, something better here. I think Americans could learn a lot about how to enjoy life. The folks with the worst life in US have it way better than most in India, yet they seem to enjoy things more here. Most places I saw the folks seemed “more happy” than what I see at a similar place in US. It’s not a huge gap, but I see a definite gap. 2 examples.
1) The spill way: It was just a smallish water fall yet the folks seemed to enjoy it more than we would in US. There was more laughter, more excited talk (this might just be the language), more teenagers playing.
2) At another stop. It was on top of the hill where the stream started that folks were palying below. It was raining so hard that you really couldn’t seen anything, so a group of teens played music from their car and started dancing in the rain. It was just a big party waiting for the rain to stop enough to see something.
By the way: still not sick from the soda on day 1 so maybe I got lucky. MAYBE!!!!
