Thread:Arima no megane/@comment-25787298-20160921170135/@comment-27247962-20161206152128

I think it's a good thing, Sid. You can hammer away on me, i'm not that arrogant to deny you that right. And i'm glad to see there's still a great fire present inside you. You don't sigh as if it's just another bothersome thing.

I understand that a foreigner telling you 'India is great', doesn't sound convincing. I'm certain my guy isn't an exception, but I feel like you need to make a seperate category when it comes to foreigners. You've got the traveller and the tourist. If the tourist says it, then i'm completely on your boat, because a tourist only comes to your country with the exact things in mind that he wants to visit, so he picks out the pride of India. It's the culture shock that makes tourists say: "India is great". But a traveller is different, a traveller doesn't know what he'll get to witness, he can see the bad things just as well as what might make India great. A traveller is capable of going further then the surface. 'My guy' for example stayed with a rich family in India, as well as the poor. He was fortunate enough to be present on a marriage and experience the culture on a personal lvl. Just as living with those poor people gave him more knowledge about the contrasting side of India. And he still considered India great. What you have to know is that he started his journey in South-America and India was one of is last stop-points. He visited almost every country in South-America on the West seaside (side of Peru), kept following the seaside until he arrived at the border of Mexico-U.S.A. Travelled through U.S.A, Canada, Alaska to Australia, New Zealand. Next up Phillipines, Singapore. Then Vietnam, Cambodja, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Bangladesh & India eventually.

I'm guessing those last countries slowly adjusted him for when he entered India. But even so, I think he's perfectly capable to compare the state of a country based on everywhere he's already been.

But he doesn't disagree, as I do not. It's still a different thing to stay 3months in a country, compared to your whole life and i'm sure he saw more of India's beauty then it's bad points.

But you'd be naïve to think other countries don't have issues as well.

And on that note i'd say you can at least be a little proud when people from other countries can go home with a good feeling after having visited your country, rather then one of disgust. It doesn't change the issues present, but it should be comforting to know India has the tools to change these issues themselves. Why do I say it like that, because tourists and travellers still feel more comfortable when a country is as luxuriously developed as theirs. The state of a country, how developed it is, decides in many cases how comfortable a foreigner leaves it. With this you can assume that India is developed enough to work on those issues & they can always ask for help from other countries if they so please.

Compared to Africa or countries like Honduras, a foreigner will have a very uncomfortable stay, when not prepared for what they can expect there. India isn't exactly the first country that comes to mind, when you'd use the word 'primitive' or 'formless'.

But when I say all this and I hear you speaking, I start to hesitate. The way you position yourself towards your own country doesn't bode well. Maybe if you'd give some examples of the issues, it can give me a more concrete image of what it is to actually live in India for years.