India

India was Christy’s most memorable country when she went on Semester at Sea in 1990 and it rates highly on our current voyage.  We experienced India as tourists in Agra/New Delhi, business people in Bangalore, and through the eyes of our expatriate friends in Mumbai.

India is a country of 1.2 Billion people with extremes of poverty and prosperity; pre-industrial and modern at the same time; and facing some of the world’s biggest opportunities and challenges at the same time.

New Delhi/Agra

Our previous travel prepared us well for the vibrant traffic, sights and sounds of India.  After flying from Chennai to New Delhi, we went to take the train to Agra.  After a roundabout path that took us to the train station, a chaotic auto-rickshaw ride and a chance encounter with an Indian travel agent who lives half-time in Vancouver, we found ourselves with a driver and car for the 5 hour car ride to see the Taj Mahal, in Agra.  The car ride was entertaining as we watched all the cows (which are sacred and roam freely), auto rickshaws, pedal and motorbikes, cars, trucks and pedestrians intermingle along the crowded streets.  At home we only use our horn at most once a month.  In India, hardly 10 seconds go by without blowing the car horn.   The distance to Agra was not far, but the traffic was awful coming out of New Delhi and the pollution from the traffic and trash fires gave Christy a hacking cough.

We visited the Taj Mahal in both the evening and at sunrise.  Its magnificence and grandeur are all the more impressive knowing it was built in 1653 by the Emperor Shah Jahn for his wife who died giving birth to their 14^th child.  20,000 people worked on the Taj for over 22 years.  Their creation was a beautiful sight to see and admire.   

Bangalore

Bangalore, the garden city of India, is the country’s Silicon Valley.  Most internationally known technology companies like Google and Dell are there.   We went to Bangalore to visit a Young President’s Organization contact of Christy’s.  Dinesh Puri, his wife Geeta, and his kids Uday and Ankita helped us with hotel arrangements, took us around town and hosted us for 3 amazing days.   Christy visited their medical company that makes pacemakers, the first implantable device being made in India.  She also visited GE Healthcare and another Indian device maker.  The Puri’s even threw a large party at their home so we could meet some of their YPO friends and other leaders in the community.  A highlight was playing golf at the Karnataka Golf Association Club where Thomas Friedman got his inspiration for his book title, “The World is Flat.”  

Mumbai

In Mumbai, we stayed with Brooks and Laura Entwistle and their 3 lovely daughters who are around Luke and Ryan’s ages.  Christy and Brooks, who runs Goldman Sachs India, are in the same class of Henry Crown Fellows from the Aspen Institute.    We saw a unique perspective of Mumbai though the Entwistle’s eyes. 

A highlight for the boys was visiting the expat school.  Luke got to join Kayla in 1^st grade for the day.  It was the day they celebrated Halloween, so Luke got to make Halloween crafts and be in a holiday parade.  That was followed by a Halloween party at the Entwistle’s house and then we went trick-or-treating at the teacher’s apartments. 

Mumbai is the financial hub of India.  It is the most densely populated city in the world with half the population living in slums that are interspersed around the city.  We toured the Dhavari Slum, the one featured in Slumdog Millionaire.  We expected to see a very sad situation.  Instead, our experience was quite the opposite.  The slum is a bustling community of entrepreneurs and families.  They are the recycling center for Mumbai and sort, clean, and melt down the materials.  They build their own chipping machines that cut up plastics.  Then they wash, dry, melt and extrude the plastics into new plastic pellets that they sell to manufacturers.  The same is true for metals, including an aluminum recycling operation! 

In other sections of the slum, we found potters, cookie makers, seamstresses, and ladies making papadams.  They even let the boys try rolling a papadam - the boys should keep their day jobs!  Although the homes were small and simple, most were made out of cement and were clean.  Narrow alleys with open sewers connected the homes and it was an adventure walking through the community. 

In contrast to the slum, we had lunch at the iconic Taj Hotel that was the site of the Mumbai terrorist attacks last year.  While he food was great, it was hard to imagine how 4 terrorists were able to kill so many people in the hotel.  It is mostly rebuilt and fully back in business. 

Overall our India visit was special because of the friends we visited and the new friends we made.  The Entwistle and Puri families made us very welcome in India.  It is a country with warm, friendly people who are striving for a better life.  They have made amazing advances but now they must tackle their remaining challenges of sustainability (water, energy, pollution), building an infrastructure that can keep up with the exploding population, and living peacefully next to Pakistan.