Why is India so dirty? Is India a garbage dump country?! India is the dirtiest country in the world why

India is a country where the incompatible is combined, opposites coexist and there are bright contrasts. Indians themselves proudly call their country Incredible India. To any incomprehensible event, inappropriate behavior, or poor quality, Indians smile, shrug their shoulders and say: “Incredible India.” Like, that explains everything. What did you want – India – it’s incredible. And that's it.

So, about opposites. Probably, any foreigner who has visited India, when describing what he saw there, will mention dirt. The country's littering is simply a national disaster. And the cows chewing plastic bags in the ubiquitous garbage dumps are practically a symbol of the country and the hero of any photo report about India. At the same time, Indians themselves consider themselves unusually clean, but foreigners do not.

The secret is that Indians define in their own way what needs to be put in order and how. And they just forget about the rest.

Let's start with the man himself. Indians are very careful about the cleanliness of their bodies. It is considered correct to wash every morning. And for Hindus from the 1st caste of Brahmins, this is a must. If you are not a Brahmin and do not want to necessarily take a daily shower (or, more likely, wash with a mug from a bucket or in the village at a pump), you are obliged to at least do this on holidays, before Hindu religious ceremonies - pujas, before going to temple. No Hindu will enter a temple or go near a puja venue without taking a bath. And even after washing in the morning, immediately before entering the temple, it is advisable to at least symbolically wash your feet, hands, wash your face, take water in your palms and splash it over your head back. To appear before the gods in purity. In this case, nails, for example, do not need to be tidied up. It doesn’t even make sense to talk about men and peasant women, but you often come across rich Indian matrons or stylish girls with terrible dirty nails covered with pieces of varnish that peeled off 2 weeks ago.

Looking at Indians, one gets the impression that their clothes are dirty. She looks untidy, covered in spots, white often looks yellow, and other colors are somehow strange. In fact, Indians are very particular about cleanliness of clothes. Just like the cleanliness of your body. They do laundry all the time. If there is a lot of clothes, they change them. If it’s not enough, wash it, dry it quickly and wear it again. It’s just that for Indians, stubborn stains are not a problem. They can't (or won't) afford to spend money on quality laundry detergents. Cleanliness of clothes in their understanding is a kind of symbolic concept. Clothes need to be refreshed, rinsed thoroughly in water, lightly rubbed, knocked on stones, and they will become clean. It doesn’t matter that it can dry directly on the ground. And hanging in the air it manages to become covered with dust. She is spiritually pure.

At first I took my clothes to the laundromat, and then I stopped. What comes back is simply no good. They don't wash even what I can easily wipe off with my hands in a few minutes. I had to order a washing machine. Probably the only one in Khajuraho. Labor in India is cheap, and it is much more convenient for Indians to give work to laundresses, ironers, dishwashers, and cleaners than to buy expensive equipment, install it when communications are poor (often - lack of running water, power outages, low voltage) and do something else when breakdown. After all, the service is available only in large cities.

Having put on fresh clothes, the Indian considers that the requirements of cleanliness for a day or two have been met. He does not believe that this cleanliness needs to be maintained until the next wash or change of clothes. Sitting cross-legged in a variety of places, getting food on you, or wiping dirty hands on your hem contributes to the fact that after an hour, clean clothes become dirty. Ladies often use a long scarf - dupatta - for a variety of purposes. Including wiping the table.

And the sun also greatly affects the appearance of clothes. Its rays quickly burn out the colors and make the fabric dull and indistinct.

All premises undergo mandatory daily cleaning. It doesn’t matter here whether you are a Brahmin or not.

The morning in every family begins with the ladies or cleaners sweeping the entire house and wiping the floors with a wet rag. As with many things in India, quality is secondary. The main thing is to check the box. Indians sleepily wave a long thin broom, spreading dust around. They drag it around in circles with a dirty rag, leaving behind stains. Dust is often not wiped off at all.

All offices and public places are cleaned in the morning. Every trader or private entrepreneur who has at least a meter of land at his disposal will definitely start the day by waving a broom.

After cleaning, you can wash yourself, perform a small puja and light incense.

Such strict observance of cleanliness rituals directly coexists with an absolutely indifferent attitude towards what is “not mine.” It is considered natural to throw garbage directly over the fence, sweep it into a ditch or into the middle of the street. It’s clear for me, but what happens five meters away is someone else’s problem, but clearly not mine.

Just like with clothes, the culture of maintaining order is completely absent. I shot in the morning - the cleanliness plan for the day was completed. During the day, garbage is thrown wherever you like. It doesn't matter where the Indian is. Paper, a bag of chips, fruit skins, boxes, plastic easily and naturally fall straight down. On the floor in the house, on the ground on the street, at a party, in a restaurant, in the park, in the river. Not everyone does this, but very, very many do. They are sitting, eating in a restaurant, and the entire floor under them is covered in trash. And this doesn’t surprise anyone but me. The people left, the cleaner came and swept. Or he didn’t sweep it up and left it until the morning cleaning. Well, why can’t you leave trash on the table so that it’s less conspicuous or put trash cans? You won't find a trash bin in India during the day. You can walk for kilometers and not find one. You joyfully take your piece of paper to a trash can near some store. You are happy that you have made a contribution to the cleanliness of the planet. And this trash can will be dumped around the nearest corner during the next cleaning. It really bothers me when Indians litter nature. For example, they like to wash in the river, using shampoos and conditioners in disposable plastic bags. These bags deftly go into the water. Packets of chips, cigarette packets, and bottles are also flying there. On occasion, I discussed with Indians - at home you can throw garbage on the floor, since you will sweep it anyway. But here, on the lawn by the river, no one will clean it up. And if everyone leaves behind so much garbage, you will like to relax here later. The Indians just shrug their shoulders, look at each other - “this strange foreigner is at it again” - and disappear from the topic. They really will sit quite calmly on a picnic among the garbage. They won't even notice. And they will happily swim in the river with rubbish floating near the shore.

Of course the situation is getting better. Today, many Indians are thinking about cleanliness. “Natural” waste – banana skins, for example, quickly disappear or are eaten by animals and insects. Many Indians try not to dump paper waste in the bushes, but to burn it. More and more trash cans are appearing. In many cities they are beautiful, unusual, attractive - so that they catch the eye, with the inscriptions “Use me”. In Dharamsala, schoolchildren, students, and volunteers come out to clean the surrounding area. In Kerala, everywhere is much cleaner than the Indian average. There are also waste processing plants in the country. But, of course, the state still needs to work and work in order for the situation to change radically.

For the most part, Indians consider themselves to be a very pure nation. Because for them, the line between external purity and some kind of conceptual purity, the one that appears after performing certain actions, is very blurred. Some animals are considered dirty. People who eat meat. Some castes. Foreigners, because they don’t shower every morning and, worst of all, use toilet paper and not water, like Indians and many Asians. I didn’t use water that was purifying in every sense, which means it was dirty. And so he goes to the temple. The left hand is also considered dirty - it is used to perform “dirty” work and actions. Previously, food and sacred objects were never touched with the left hand. Now it happens differently. Most often, Indians eat only with their right hand, but can take food with their left if necessary. But many are very deftly controlled only with their right hand. For example, with only one hand, without the help of the left, they knead dough and prepare bread.

Publication 2018-04-13 Liked 13 Views 3733

What are they doing in India to make things cleaner?

Why is India so dirty? Where does so much garbage come from and why isn’t it removed? The answers are of interest to both those who have never been to India and those who regularly visit this amazing country. And for the Indian authorities, solving this problem is a priority.

The streets are dirty, but Indians take care of themselves

Garbage, dirt, sloppiness are attributes of India that immediately catch the eye. Almost everywhere in India is dirty. At the same time, Indians, regardless of their social status, carefully observe body hygiene and wear clean clothes. They do not emit unpleasant odors, their hair is clean and has the shine of coconut oil, and in India there are sources of water at every step.

However, the streets of cities and towns in India are literally littered with garbage. The Indians throw him at their feet, setting an example for the younger ones. They do not have a culture of throwing packaging, napkins and other used materials into trash bins. They are almost nowhere to be found in India. Both children and adults simply leave litter on the road. This does not bother even those who walk barefoot. There are several reasons why India is so dirty.

Three main reasons why India is dirty

The first reason why India is dirty is... Since ancient times, it has been the custom that only untouchables should remove garbage. Representatives of the four varnas - brahmanas, kshatriyas, vaishyas and sudras - should not engage in this, in their opinion, humiliating activity. After all, “servants” must clean up the trash after them. The untouchables are engaged in cleaning and cleansing the cities, but their labor is simply not enough for the full scale of the problem. Therefore, the system of class hierarchy in this case does not justify itself.

The second reason why India is dirty is associated with cows. Yes Yes. This is not a typo. Before the global food processing system entered the lives of Indians, all waste was environmental. They either rotted naturally, were burned, or the scraps were eaten by cows. This is where the habit of throwing everything underfoot came from - after all, a cow will happily eat banana skins or watermelon rinds. , there are many of them, and they used to make sure that the streets were not dirty. With the advent of plastic, glass and metal in food packaging, India's ecology has changed. The habit of throwing garbage anywhere has not disappeared, but cows do not eat this garbage, and it does not rot.

Thirdly, ballot boxes are constantly stolen due to poverty. There are no trash cans - the street is dirty. The number of beggars in India is fantastically high. These people will do anything to get a slice of bread. It cannot be said that theft for them is a deliberate act for the sake of profit. Simply by selling a piece of metal for scrap, they do not die of hunger and thirst.

What are they doing in India to make things cleaner?

The only available way to deal with garbage for Indians is fire. The streets become less dirty, but not for long. They regularly set fire to landfills, which smolder for hours, spreading toxic chemical carcinogens, stench and smoke throughout the area. The wind carries the ashes, and the burning procedure is repeated again and again.

The authorities have changed the concept of garbage collection in Bengaluru. In 2000, instead of street garbage containers, a door-to-door garbage collection method was introduced. Pollution of the environment became illegal, and violators began to be fined. In addition, trash cans have been returned to the streets. Moreover, they made them separate for different types of waste. The result was immediate: the city became cleaner and tidier.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a massive campaign to clean up India's filth, involving television, celebrities and his friends in cleaning up the streets. He promised that by 2019, the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, no one would say that India is very dirty.

A proper waste management system in cities and towns can have a significant impact on India's pollution and solve problems. The only thing that remains beyond the bounds of the authorities is the awareness and culture of every individual Indian. They will have to work hard to eradicate habits that have been instilled for centuries. They say they themselves know about it.

The Untouchables- the lowest caste in the hierarchy of India. The untouchables make up 16-17% of the country's population.

We bring to your attention the travel notes of two young people who spent two winters in a row in India and shared with us their vision of the darker sides of Indian reality...

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"So every good tree bears fruit
good, but a bad tree bears fruit
thin. A tree cannot bear goodness
bad fruit, neither does the tree bear bad fruit
good fruits. Every tree that does not bear
good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
So by their fruits you will know them."
Matthew 7:17-20

One less illusion...

Atmosphere

It took me two weeks to get used to the fact that I had to continuously walk around slops and dung heaps (of human and animal origin).

India is a monstrously dirty country. And even in the mountains, in those same sacred Himalayas, below 3000 meters, you can often find a perennial garbage dump. Hindus simply throw garbage from the mountains, and it covers the mountain about 20-30 meters down with a continuous stinking carpet. And even above 3000 meters, here and there there are plastic bottles, bags - the kind of garbage that will be there for years to come. And no one cares about this.

Environmental activists continue to distribute leaflets with calls to “Preserve nature in its pristine beauty,” but in reality nothing changes - every year garbage covers India more and more densely.

Small towns are a little less noisy, but the essence remains the same. All Indian provincial cities, with very rare exceptions, have the same appearance and it is impossible to live there. The food is completely unsuitable for consumption - the monstrous amount of hot spices completely drowns out the taste of any food.

Whether you eat chicken, or rice, or vegetables, it is absolutely impossible to distinguish one from the other. Sanitation standards are simply ignored, so food that has not undergone heat treatment can be deadly. One can only dream of familiar products - there are no supermarkets in India.

There are places that are popular with foreign tourists (the number of such places is not that large - 10-15), and there are special areas for foreigners. They are calmer, cleaner, and have good cafes with European cuisine. But they too are poisoned by dirt, beggars, devastation, painful attention to you - the whole Indian atmosphere from which it is impossible to hide anywhere.

The only place in India where, in my opinion, you can live peacefully for some time is Dharamsala. Tibetans are the only phenomenon in India that evokes my sincere sympathy. I perceive Tibetans as an amazing natural phenomenon. They are self-sufficient and invisible. I have never seen a Tibetan inviting me somewhere or trying to somehow attract my attention. It is extremely nice to see people who are focused on their lives. Their faces always express friendliness and calmness. Never once have I observed Tibetans displaying such negative emotions as irritation, aggression, hatred, impatience, and greed.

Search for truth

I am sure that the vast majority of them are ordinary beggars who earn their living in this way. In India it is profitable to be a sadhu - giving alms to a holy person means earning good karma. And almost all Hindus are very religious. But their religiosity does not evoke any sympathy - they simply blindly perform multiple rituals, which, perhaps, once had some meaning, but over the centuries have turned into an expression of infantility and stupidity. They worship dolls! And God forbid you approach this doll without taking off your shoes. In India, dolls are everywhere, and crowds of people come to worship them.

I was lucky enough to communicate with several people who were called yogis and masters. These were the most ordinary darkened people who knew mantras, yantras, Vedas, asanas, etc., and with the help of this knowledge they deceived people who came to them to “learn.” They want to earn money, and they act in the same way as any other businessmen - they scatter advertising leaflets, invite passing foreigners to temples and ashrams, hang up posters and signs.

Some of them cannot earn money in this way due to their position. For example, I watched the main pandit of a famous ashram in Rishikesh during a ritual ceremony, which is attended by a fairly large number of both Hindus and tourists every day.

I don’t know, maybe somewhere in the mountains and caves of India there are real seekers of truth, but my searches have led nowhere. In my opinion, at present, enlightenment in India is just a word, a wrapper for the most ordinary commerce and impressions. 5 thousand years ago, when the Vedas were created, everything was probably different, but today India causes rejection with its infantile religiosity and commercialization of everything related to the theme of enlightenment.

When I stopped looking for teachers and masters, I wanted to travel to contemplate nature. But this also turned out to be impossible. One fine day, traveling around India ceases to be a pleasant and interesting pastime.

The reason for this is that being in the company of Hindus is not for the faint of heart. If at first you manage to ignore them and get impressions from a new culture, new acquaintances, new information, then one fine day it becomes impossible to endure the company of Hindus.

Every time I go outside, I know that it will not be a pleasant, relaxed walk, it will be a continuous struggle for free space, for the right to be alone with myself. Absolutely every Indian pays attention to you. Each of them wants something from you.

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Read also on the topic:

• Human sacrifices, the ritual of sati and other monstrous religious customs of the country of “high spirituality”
• Did the Hindus invent a good religion?!- Deacon Mikhail Plotnikov
• Hinduism has caused a lot of evil- Elder Paisiy Svyatogorets
• A few words about the Vedas- Vitaly Pitanov

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Sexual attention

This is not at all the attention that is paid to a pretty girl somewhere in Europe. This is heavy, painful attention. When I pass by the Indians, and they all look at me point blank, every time I have the feeling that I was in the jungle and met huge anthropoid gorillas on the way, who immediately paid attention to me, and I don’t know what they want from me. I have no fear of them - I know that they are cowardly, and even if they have a great desire to attack me, they will not do this because they feel like second-class citizens, powerless compared to me. I don’t feel any aggression in them, but that doesn’t change anything.

There is another type of sexual attention that is not as gloomy as the first, but so annoying that you want to take a stick and drive away the noisy monkeys. The essence of this attention is that some Indian just sticks to you, constantly smiling and apologizing, begging you to take a photo with him, talk to him, look at him. No polite forms of refusal, as a rule, change anything. And only a tough and rather rude position can stop it from sticking. I think this is a kind of real mania - this is what sticky people look like. They are like drug addicts who are ready to undergo any humiliation in order to get a high.

And what else could men be like in a country where men and women are forbidden to hold hands on the street (not to mention anything more!), all even remotely erotic scenes are carefully cut out of all films, women bathe in saris and flawlessly mask all parts of the body that can somehow attract the attention of men?

This painful sexual attention, bombarding me daily and continuously, wherever I go, poisons my body. You can walk through a garbage dump and successfully practice, but one fine day your body cannot withstand the dirt and stench, it will become poisoned and begin to hurt.

Attention sellers

There are very few places in India where sellers sit calmly and peacefully in their shops and wait for customers. Usually they are unbearably intrusive - they shout from their shops, they almost grab your hands. If you look in their direction or try to explain that you don’t need anything in their store, this will inevitably entail even more persistent mental pressure. I have chosen a tough position for myself - I don’t look in their direction, I don’t react in any way to their greetings, shouts, calls. But is this really life - you’re walking down the street, the whole street is shouting something at you, you can’t freely look around so as not to meet the eyes of the screaming sellers and cause even more screams and requests?

I would like to pay special attention to itinerant sellers - this phenomenon can completely turn your vacation into a nightmare. I'm already used to the fact that they can follow me down the street and shove their goods in my face. I don’t pay attention to them, and if the seller doesn’t lag behind after 2-3 meters, I ask him to get out of my way with a short and sharp phrase, “Get away from me.” But I just can’t get used to the fact that when I’m sitting in an open restaurant and eating, the seller can stand next to me, not paying attention to anything, and persistently offer me to buy his product. I can't get used to the fact that I'm lying on the beach and every 10 minutes a seller comes up to me and demands that I open my eyes and look at his goods. If I am silent, he does not leave. I can drive him away again with a harsh phrase, but is it really possible to endure this - instead of enjoying the sun and ocean, be constantly ready to fight back, be harsh, rude? These people don't care what you think about them, and if you drive him away today, he will inevitably come tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in a week. He will come every day. And this makes the rest unbearable.

Attention of passers-by

Indians perceive foreigners as... well, I don’t know who.

Let me give you an illustrative story that an Australian told me. One quite wealthy and even wealthy Indian saw him throwing away used AA batteries and begged him to give them to him. The Australian was extremely surprised - why would non-functioning batteries be needed? The Hindu told him that what was valuable to him was that these batteries were from the West.

They often don't look like people. When I look into their eyes, I do not feel anything that could indicate human manifestations that are familiar to me - emotions, thoughts, desires. It seems they have only one perception - “you have to ask for money.” It's not even a desire, I don't know what it is. This is the life form of a single-celled creature, which in some incomprehensible way ended up in a body resembling a human one. They don't speak English, so talking to them is completely pointless. They can only be driven away by a sharp cry, so that they can feel the threat to their outrageously primitive existence.

Epilogue

India is a beautiful country. But what the Indians did to her cannot be expressed in any words. They mutilated everything they could reach. It will take centuries to destroy all the dirt in which India is drowning. It takes centuries for these people to reach the mental and psychic level at which an ordinary European now finds himself.

The atmosphere reigning here cannot but poison any person who has at least some clarity and love of freedom.

***

As for me, I will never come to India again.

The dream of a fairyland did not materialize even an inch. Well, one less illusion has become that India is the center of the spirituality of the world.

Dirty romantic fog of India

Racial discrimination

Or simply "racism". India is a country of institutionalized racial discrimination against foreigners. Yes, yes, specifically in relation to foreigners. And precisely legalized. In the photo gallery dedicated to Varanasi, I posted a photo of the government instructions, where it is written in black and white that Indians must pay 5 rupees for visiting architectural monuments of a certain class, and 100 rupees for foreigners. This resolution was published in the central press of India, so no one is hiding this fact.

It is also interesting to see the inscription on the tickets: “Ticket for foreigners.” In India very often, if not everywhere, a white man has to pay many times more than an Indian.

Traveling in India can be a nightmare for a white woman. In the popular resort of Goa, it is not uncommon for white women to report rape to the police. On the extremely crowded streets of Indian cities, Indian men and boys will try in every possible way to touch, as if by chance, any part of a white woman’s body, even to the point of openly grabbing the butt and other parts of the body.

It’s almost impossible to dodge - the crowd is very dense, and there are too many Indians - you can’t dodge them all. If you try to catch up with such an Indian and hit him in the neck, which is what I did in one of these situations, then you will be faced with bright and undisguised hatred, and the reaction of the society around you is unpredictable - some will suddenly begin to warmly and verbosely apologize for such behavior of their fellow tribesman, offer help, protection, ask to forget about this shameful fact and not be offended by India and the Hindus, while others may attack you like wild animals. Since the latter are always more active than the former, an attempt to protect a white woman from harassment can generally be considered dangerous. In the situation I am describing, the companions of that Indian bared their teeth, as monkeys do, began to yell at me and wave their arms, and although they never made an attempt to physically hit me back, I think that only because they felt my determination and ability to warm up all three of them, and because I wasn't too harsh in my reactions.

When a white woman walks down the street, almost all men stare at her SO point blank, openly, with some kind of bestial lust, that for an ordinary woman walking the streets is just continuous torture. Moreover, whole flocks of rickshaws, sellers of anything and just onlookers will continuously besiege white women with screams of the most varied nature, including those that can even cause indignation among the Hindus themselves - this has happened. Yes, please note that we are not talking about a single white woman, but about a white woman closely accompanied by a white man.

Drug addiction in India is widespread. Tens, if not hundreds of millions of people are drug addicts in the full sense of the word - they smoke marijuana, chew betel nut and whatever else, their eyes look like glass, and when you come into contact with them, it seems that their brain is completely atrophied. The apparent freedom of Indians from negative emotions, which so amazes the Russian people, is not such in every case - it’s just that many Indians are so deadened and lazy that even negative emotions do not manifest themselves. Of course, when you travel around India not in an AC carriage, but in an ordinary sleeper, not in a deluxe bus, but in a regular regular bus, you will easily notice that Indians, of course, have negative emotions, and quite a lot, they just don’t have them. manifest themselves by suppressing themselves, or manifest themselves in short bursts.

It cannot be emphasized enough that, in comparison with Russian people, Indians are an order of magnitude, two orders of magnitude less immersed in aggressive Negative Emotions, but oppressive Negative Emotions are widespread here - self-pity, sadness, melancholy, dullness, routine, etc.

India is a rather dangerous country both for the traveler and for the Indians themselves. There are a lot of people here - a billion, and the mental development of many of them, it seems to me, is not at a very high level compared to Europeans, including compared to Russians. Hindus and Muslims are in a constant state of low-intensity war, and from time to time they try to get Christians and Buddhists under them. There is no need to talk about any peaceful coexistence of many religions here - these are all fairy tales. They coexist here because they simply cannot do otherwise - they can’t kill everyone - they have to live together, but police cordons guarding neighboring Hindu and Muslim temples are an everyday thing. Look at the reports - 100 Muslims were killed there, 1000 Hindus were killed here... - look at the news feed at www.india.ru - you can find a lot of information of this kind there. In one village, fellow villagers gathered and burned a couple in love - they shouldn’t fall in love, they are from different castes, in another place they blew up a bus with 50 people and several temples, etc. If a dozen or two tourists disappear among a billion people, who will care? Death in India is a common thing, and a corpse floating peacefully along the Ganges arouses no one’s interest - well, the corpse, well, floats... and let it float. Has the tourist disappeared? It’s a pity, yes... Tourists in India disappear all the time, and in some places there is a targeted hunt for them, as, for example, in the poorest state of Bihar, where the popular Buddhist center of Bodh Gaya attracts tourists. The situation here is so complicated that the state authorities have even attempted to assign a police officer to every traveling tourist (at your own expense, of course). Local bandits block roads, slow down tourist buses and taxis, capture, rob, and sometimes kill tourists. Yes, this only happens from time to time, but I think that those who are captured, robbed, raped or killed will find little comfort in the fact that most tourists return home safely. In any case, the opinion of the Hindus themselves agrees on this - it is dangerous to travel on the roads of Bihar, so tourist buses were simply canceled, and from Varanasi to Bodhgaya one has to travel by a roundabout railway route through Gaya.

Walking in the dark in Indian cities is highly discouraged with rare exceptions - for example, this can be done with some caution in Dharamsala, Goa, Rishikesh, Kathmandu and Pokhara in Nepal, and darkness here comes at 5 pm in the winter season.

Right now, as I am writing this, a large crowd of wildly screaming people is rushing outside the window in the dark - they are either beating someone, or killing someone, but I would not want to accidentally end up there now. But this is the very center of the most tourist area of ​​the most cultural city of India - Varanasi.

At night, many, if not all 100% of offices and hotels and any other institutions, close their entrances with a kind of garage-type iron curtain - also not from a good life. You sit, say, on the Internet until 10 pm, return to your hotel, and run into a battened wall.

As a rule, there is a bell everywhere, but in one of the hotels this bell was located at such a height that only a tall European man could reach it, so my companion had to use rock climbing skills to get to it. (The average Indian is about 150 cm tall.) But this is the next topic - about the mess.

Mess

1) I buy a train ticket to Varanasi in the large Indian city of Lucknow. The cashier informs me that I will not be able to buy tickets for a sleeping car, but only for a general one, and already on the train itself I can pay extra from the conductor if there is a free seat in the sleeping car. It’s hard for me to explain what an Indian common carriage is - it’s impossible to do, for this you need to be Dante or Lermontov, well, let’s put it this way - people there sometimes literally walk over each other’s heads, since the first layer is filled with the bodies of passengers. There are no conductors on Indian carriages. They only appear from time to time and disappear somewhere. Therefore, of course, I undertake several more surveys, and am convinced that you cannot buy a ticket for a sleeping car - only for a general one and then pay extra. (There is almost comfort in a sleeping car - only 3-5 people will sit on your bunk - this is not an exaggeration - this is reality - from 3 to 5 people sit on the lower bunks, or even more). There is nothing to do - my companion gets into the queue for women (there are several queues for men, and one queue for women, since women in India are often in the position of domestic servants-concubines, and such emancipated women who are able to buy a ticket themselves are rare ). He turned out to be the inspector. He couldn’t put down any seats, but he said that the train leaves at 8:50, and even wrote the train number on the ticket. As for the carriage number, this detail was already excessive, and it was of little use - the fact is that carriage numbers on Indian trains are a subject of special concern. Not everyone manages to find this number on the carriage in the dark - I, for example, could not, when I was traveling by train to Lucknow - they helped me - it turned out that at the level just below the waist near the entrance to the carriage there was written S3 in barely noticeable chalk, which means sleeping car number 3. Of course, given this state of affairs, we arrived at the platform ahead of time - at 8 am. The train arrived just at 8 am, and we, having found a couple of free seats, gladly took them.

India is a country of fantastic, terrible chaos that defies any description. Travelers write about this with a certain amount of humor, but what kind of humor is that? If this were a kind of Disney Land, then yes, it would have its own charm. But this is not Disneyland, people live here, and they live here frankly poorly. Let me give you a couple of examples.

2) So, in Varanasi I need to exchange dollars for rupees.

I decided on principle to see the matter through to the end, and while we lived in Varanasi, every day I regularly went to 3-4 banks, where they fed me “breakfast”, and listened to more and more new explanations as to why they did not change money. Finally the moment of truth came - there was no festival on the street, all the phones were working, it was an ordinary weekday, and the bank employees had nothing to refer to, and all the banks refused to exchange me without any explanation at all - we don’t change and that’s it. They didn’t tell me this before - they referred to objective difficulties. It is also interesting that when asked “where can I exchange my dollars for rupees,” NOT ONE bank told me to go to the only exchange office that was a 2-minute walk away. They simply shrug their shoulders and smile imposingly and politely. Yes, everything is fine with this - everything is very polite, even with sympathy, without arrogant grins, etc. But in essence, isn’t this a barbaric attitude towards tourists? I ended my review with one nearby branch of Bank of India, where money was certainly changed. Sitting in a chair and watching how a bank employee was preparing to serve me, I thought about how difficult it is for tourists in India... and then I noticed a small sign that said that the bank accepts traveler's checks for exchange, and some other very rare papers, but does not accept cash in any currency. This is all the more surprising since any tourist knows that in India there are often very serious problems with withdrawing money from a credit card, and traveler’s checks are also not accepted everywhere, but cash is welcome. Can you imagine what a trap a visit to Varanasi, the largest “cultural” and excursion center of India, could turn into for tourists? By the way, on the faces of tourists you meet on the streets of Varanasi, you can only rarely notice a smile or the usual tourist laziness and serenity - more often you see bitterness, concern or loss. It is unlikely that at least 5% of these tourists will go to Varanasi again and recommend it to their friends... and after that the Indians say that they will earn so little, and the Europeans will earn so much, and that is why Europeans should pay more everywhere.. That's why they earn little, because they have chaos almost everywhere, and first of all - in their brains, disfigured by corruption, laziness, stupidity and drugs.

Garbage

India is a garbage dump country. There are places that are quite ennobled, but they are extremely rare. There are no words that could be used to describe the terrifying slaughter that reigns everywhere - on the streets, in public transport. I don’t know if Indians go to the toilet at home, but on the street they do it everywhere, without much hesitation, right among the whole crowd on the most central streets - he went to the wall and peed, and everything flowed in all directions. There are kids sitting here and pooping, there are cows shitting here, there are huge piles of garbage lying around, etc. It is interesting to watch the scenes on the Varanasi embankment - Hindus consider the Ganga a sacred river that must endure everything. Here they dump the remains of dead human bodies burned on the shore, cows shit right there, sewage is dumped here, and right there thousands of people take a bath, brush their teeth and rinse their mouths with this water, they wash themselves right there, they wash their clothes right there - all in one mash. It’s scary to even dip your finger into the river here.

Diseases

It is not surprising that the most evil diseases there are - cholera, typhoid, leprosy, malaria, HIV, etc. - are widespread in India. By 2000, India took pride of place in the world in terms of HIV incidence, and in 2010, 30 million HIV-infected people are projected. Drinking tap water in India is like throwing yourself under a train - a variety of diseases await you, ranging from some evil amoebas that can never be removed from the body, ending with typhus. Buying “pies” on the street, which are baked here at every turn, is also a possible path to typhus or dysentery.

Eating ice cream is the same. You can only eat in restaurants, and even then with reservations - do not take salads from fresh vegetables, etc.

Hindus are endlessly lazy. Infinitely lazy. They never seem to lift a finger to change anything in the world around them. For example, here’s a sketch: one guy on the bus gets up, grabs the handrail, and the bag hanging from his hand fits right onto the other guy’s face, so he has to throw his head back all the way, but this doesn’t help either.

But it doesn’t even occur to him to tell the first guy to move his hand 30 centimeters. He sits there with a bag in his face. And you see this very often. They say that there is something wrong with their culture, etc. I don’t think so - it seems to me that Indians are most like plants, and they are terribly lazy to live, regardless of the climate - in hot regions or in cool mountainous regions. They shit everywhere around them, they wear clothes that even a completely degraded homeless person would not dare to walk around in, their cities look like an atomic massacre, their houses are ruins in the full sense of the word. They have everything in snot, their airline Air India is at the bottom of the list of reliability of world airlines, their cars and buses are scrap metal that travels by some miracle, shaking and falling apart. The Hindus give me the impression of being a completely degenerate mass, having no vital energy. They breed and die, breed and die...

Almost any Indian who is at least in some way connected with commerce - he sells TVs in a fashion store or pies on the street - will certainly try to deceive you and sell his goods at three, five, 10 times more expensive than its price.

In common parlance, Indians are completely devoid of decency and punctuality in business transactions. Too many of their moves are aimed only at getting more money out of you. Having sufficient experience in dealing with Indians, I would not advise you to trust their word - if you make an advance payment at your hotel, you must take a receipt for receiving the money, if you are taking a taxi, you must look the taxi driver in the eye and say that the price is as follows - then, we’re going somewhere, and this price is not for one person, but for everyone, etc. If someone - even if it is an employee at your hotel - offers to help you with something, show you something, or just starts some kind of conversation with you - be 90% sure - he wants to make money from you - or what as if casually to take you to some store, or slip you a private money changer, or anything else.

The sight of so-called holy people in India makes me want to turn away and move away. Deceitful, feigned faces, a lot of paraphernalia - however, since this is designed for Indians, from a commercial point of view this is the most correct approach - many Indians are very curious in the style of Ellochka the cannibal - they react to everything shiny and colorful.

Stupidity

Hindus, unfortunately, for the most part (I emphasize - for the masses) are very stupid. With rare exceptions, they are unable, or simply unwilling, to think. It is very difficult to start a meaningful conversation with an Indian - at least I did not succeed.

Only a few of them were able to have their own point of view in a conversation with me, consider arguments, and draw conclusions. Probably, drugs and laziness make them this way.

From time to time you can meet an Indian with something meaningful written on his face, but almost always this same face expresses aloofness, isolation, almost gloominess. Maybe these are the few living people who are desperate to see at least something reasonable around them? Who knows...

Little girls

Hindus are terrible hypocrites. On the one hand (and perhaps this is precisely why) Hindu men are endlessly sexually preoccupied, on the other hand, eroticism is strictly prohibited here. In India, it is considered offensive to others if a boy and a girl walk down the street hugging each other. And if they kiss, it will be their last sexual act. Even Indian women swim in the sea completely wrapped in their clothes - it’s very unusual to look at this. For male homosexuality, they are sentenced to life imprisonment, and everything even remotely erotic is carefully cut out of all Western feature films.

According to the latest survey, Indian women prefer to marry virgins, that is, having sexual experience is negative - I think that this attitude towards sex leads to great sexual disappointments.

Prejudice

An entire book could be written on this topic. A huge number of gods, countless caste prohibitions (in India there are 36 castes, and each has 7 sublevels, although, as far as I understand, there are many points of view on the question - how many castes are there in India), sacred scriptures, and so on. It is objectively difficult for a Hindu to begin to think sincerely, because if he begins to think, he will immediately encounter walls of responsibilities, superstitions and prohibitions.

If you really want to visit India, then be sure to buy a Lonely Planet guide - it costs 20-30 dollars, but without it you can lose everything. Read carefully the guidebooks that I write myself and post on my website www.bodhi.ru. Read descriptions of other people who have experience traveling in India. And after all this, try to go to India not on your own, but in a group, accompanied by an experienced guide. As such a guide, I can recommend a person who calls himself Acha Baba www.achababa.tripod.com. Don’t be alarmed - he’s Russian, he’s been taking groups of tourists to India for many years, and he seems to know all the pitfalls, or almost everything, and with him you’ll stay alive and as happy as possible here. And such a trip with a guide will cost you less than traveling on your own. And please, don’t find fault with the guide’s work. Being a guide in India is a difficult profession.

Traveling alone means unnecessary expenses and continuous problem solving. In this case, choose several places and live there without sticking out. The most suitable places are Dharamsala, Rishikesh, northern Goa, Auroville in India, Pokhara and the nearby Himalayas in Nepal (lately the situation in Nepal has been rapidly deteriorating - the war with Maoist bandits has become too severe. It is possible that the Chinese will take over Nepal is taken over, just like Tibet was taken over (or India will do it), and then Nepal can be crossed off the list of tourist routes).

Perhaps it is the ancient culture, originality, smiling friendly people, bright colors, smells of spices, Goan beaches, Bollywood cinema and dancing on any occasion? We bring to your attention notes from a Chinese tourist about his two-month trip to India.

Every year, a huge number of foreigners come to the small Indian town of Bodh Gaya, famous for the fact that it was here, according to ancient legend, that enlightenment descended on Buddha 2500 years ago. The pockets and wallets of tourists are tightly stuffed with money that they are happy to spend, but what do they see in this town? Only those three constants are garbage, dirt and poverty. All city streets are littered with mountains of garbage and stink terribly. Wild boars, feral dogs, mountain goats and “sacred” cows constantly prowl in search of food. It is not surprising that local residents refrain from eating their meat, because these animals have a very unpleasant appearance and eat only slop.

Life in the Indian villages that I have visited is terrible and hopeless. Like their distant ancestors, Indian farmers prefer to use cow dung both as fertilizer and as their main source of fuel. For them, this is the most affordable source of energy in the countryside, an excellent alternative to more expensive wood logs. However, in India, cows filled all the streets and roads and, given the fact that animals have a habit of defecating wherever they please, local residents would simply choke in manure if they did not burn it. Cow dung can also be considered a kind of benefactor of the local ecology, because it saves trees that are not so common here from being cut down. More than once I have seen young women collecting cow dung from the road, pressing it with their bare hands and then hanging it to dry on the walls of their houses. The smell of excrement is everywhere, but for Indians it is natural and they do not pay attention to it. Gradually I came to terms with it too.

The city of Puri is a famous tourist destination on the east coast of India, a place where heaven and hell meet each other. One side of the city is occupied by luxury hotels and has access to beautiful sandy beaches. In another part of the city there is a poor fishing village. The flimsy thatched shacks of the locals look like small islands in a vast, stinking ocean of garbage, and it seems to me that this garbage has been here from the very beginning of time. I constantly catch myself thinking how hopeless poverty is in India.

The ancient city of Varanasi. The sacred Ganges River flows along its banks. Crowds of pilgrims flock from everywhere to take a ritual bath in its waters. The Ganges is terribly, terribly, terribly polluted, and I could talk for hours about all the different horrors I saw there. However, dirty water from the river is used for almost everything: for washing, for burying the dead, and for household needs (including cooking, brushing teeth and drinking). Decaying corpses of people and sacred animals float in the river waters, accompanied by flocks of flies and birds of prey, and people in boats no longer even notice the dead bodies. Burial in the Ganges River is an ancient tradition and Indians revere it. A kind of crematorium operates near the shore; heaps of corpses await fiery burial right on the ground, and the ashes are scattered right above the water.

Once I visited an Indian hospital, I realized how much I was mistaken about domestic medicine. It seemed to me that I simply ended up in a branch of hell on earth. Dirty reception areas and wards that have not seen repairs for many years. Huge crowds of people, a terrible stench and medical instruments from the last century. However, what shocked me most of all was the habit of Indians to defecate in public, and it doesn’t matter where you are: in a small village, or within a large city, anywhere you can witness such scenes. By the way, Indian men do this very openly, without even bothering to look for some kind of shelter during such a delicate procedure. And this is an integral part of their culture. Even in such a large city as Kolkata, I have seen on the streets of fashionable business centers how white-collar workers habitually avoid people defecating or urinating against the walls. Toilets in India are a separate topic for discussion. Toilet paper is considered an unnecessary luxury here; after defecation, Indians wipe themselves with their own fingers, rinsing them in a bucket of water specially prepared for this purpose.

Of course, it is extremely difficult for me to judge another culture. Indians have maintained their traditional way of life for thousands of years and live according to their own principles. But poverty in India and many other things that accompany it greatly shocked even me, a very unpretentious person. And I thought that I had seen a lot in my life. We can only hope that this country will certainly make progress and take on a new look in the near future. China has seen a lot of changes in just ten years, can’t India change too?”