Adopting Western Culture - The Dont's

If you are watching the recent happenings around the world you will notice that not a day goes by without a horrifying news. A civilian killed by cop, cops killed by civilians, riots, bombing on a festive day, bombing in airport, mad shooting on streets and airports. What is the common thread? Well it is all happening beyond the Asian borders. It is not from India or China. It is on the west, the culture we most certainly adore and want to copy everyday.

I feel we should never copy certain things Guns, Transport, Racism, Suburbia, Encroaching Nature, Debt etc,. from America. Without the guns we already have quite a bit of protests and riots that are set of by politicians in the name of caste. We have enough deadly weapons at our disposal that we do hear about many fights and killings. If we add guns to the mix no one can save us from the dreadful doom.

Second the transportation. Let's actually learn from the mistakes of US on this and  if we absolutely need to copy, lets copy from Europe. When the Europeans went to the US, they introduced railroads there too. Used it for passenger and goods transport, but somewhere along those lines they forgot the importance of it when they got the highway system. The cars and planes boomed, but railways for passenger transport deteriorated.

Today in the US it will take more time for you to get from point A to Point B with railways or bus than with your car. Cities like New York and Boston are some exceptions. But majority of the cities do not even have a local bus transport. They don't have taxies or autos like we do. So this makes it hard for people in suburbs to travel for work. Cities like LA have the reputation of worst traffic congestion as everyone took to the car. Some states do not even encourage car pooling.  In India on the other hand we have very good public transportation system.  But nowadays people use cars more than the city buses, trains and company vans. This leads to congestions of the roads and heavy air pollution. Lets take a step back and start Using public Transport. Lets not adopt the western ways here, especially when it is proving detrimental.

Racism in India comes out as casteism. Luckily we did not have African slaves, instead we made some of our own. This was way in the past and we may claim it is not there today. But look closely. We should respect every position people play. From a janitor to a professor, it is just that person's job.  Also we do know politicians pit us against each other using this, so lets be mindful of that. We can be proud of our heritage but no need to put it on display, the moment you do that you loose the respect for that heritage and yourself. There should be no more mention of "tolerance", it should be coexistence after all we are a secular country. There can be bosses and CEOs and political leaders from any caste or religion. If you hear anyone generalizing a caste or sect there, right there is the racist behavior. We should curb that and not encourage.

Suburbia is a phenomenon where the cities become just work sites and people flock to live in the outskirts close to the malls and shopping centers. This creates a void in the city streets and they never develop leading to homeless settle there and thugs to occupy it. In India this has not been a problem at all. But there is a different type of problem creeping up. We have IT giants occupy the city outskirts and they have big complexes built on marsh lands and natural preserves. US did a similar destruction of wildlife and forests to build suburbs and highway systems. Now they are screaming about global warming. Lets skip that step. Lets stop the companies from doing this and give back the land to the birds it belongs to. So many housing constructions and road projects in Chennai is making life a nightmare for long time residents and pollutes the environment. Infact we should think of developing towns. The manufacturing boom developed small towns all over the state. Similar to that IT companies should be dispersed across the state instead of just major cities. This will reduce everyone moving to Chennai and clog the roads. The entire state can see an uplift and share the load and wealth. 

Last but not the least is Debt. When I was 6 my mom got me a piggy bank. Anytime I ask for something big like a cycle or stereo set my parents always asked me if I saved for it. Savings and money management seem to be at the center of our culture. Even our financial systems are based on that. But off late i hear youngsters in India getting lured into the web of credit cards. Credit card purchase is not fancy, it is debt, same as borrowing. If you default a payment the interest goes up and the peace of mind goes down. You start owing more  to the bank. If we think we are being cool by spending more on frivolities think again. Only now countries like US are realizing this mistake and are trying hard to change that behavior. Once you get into a habit, it is hard to recover. So start planning your finances, do a budget based spending and teach your kids about savings. Do not let India go through a financial crisis.

These are only a few things I thought of, but there may be more. In short lets be smart and avoid whats not suitable for us and adopt only good things. Easier said I suppose! ☺