Several weeks after my arrival in India, I have finally found a reliable enough internet connection and sufficient bandwidth to begin this online documentation. Although without internet access, I have been recording my experiences here and hope that through this blog you may share in my experiences and lessons.
Since I landed in Cochin International Airport on May 19, I been flooded with monumental questions about India's culture that, too often, I have found do not have clear answers. India has proven its ability to continuously shock me each day in its rich, bold infusion of culture in everyday life. However, more and more I see an imitation, or what many Indians refer to as "ape-ing," of Western ideas and traditions that are serving to dilute the robust fabric of the Indian subcontinent. Much of these concerns have come from my conversations with individuals in India, both young and old. Men have begun wearing ties to work, even though the climate would strictly dictate such excessive clothing as frivolous. Developers have now begun stripping the land of beautiful coconut tree groves to build suburban-style "cookie-cutter" developments. Newly constructed buildings are sealed and air-conditioned with no access to nature in regions where natural ventilation strategies and an open, breathing building style has allowed people to live there, very comfortably, for hundreds, even thousands of years. And why have these changes begun? I hope to shed some light on that question while I am here.
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