Do Indian culture and personal values still exist in India?

This is not a Western/Eastern, rather an urban-suburban, or big city anonymous, small village homogenous socio-cultural demographics.

Your neighbors, and your doorman in a Co-op board, or Condo in NYC knows more than the IRS knows of you. Entry into a one bedroom in a coop requires an interview, with your socio-economic-educational, your family life, your potential pets, visitors and reference check to be considered. While rentals in big cities are pretty much anonymous.

If you live in Podunktown, Iowa; from the time you step into a supermarket, to school you visit, people want to know ! What church you will join, what faith you belong to, what team you support, what charities you will give, where you intend to volunteer and how you might vote. It is out in the open, if you don't like it; don't move there. Or rather they'll make you feel unwelcome.

Live in a rental in Bandra, or Vasant Vihar and no one except your landlady and your kirana shop guy knows of you. Communities in insular homogenous societies tend to in the name of "community and family values" probe into your personal life.

Is the manufacturing of the world, for the world, by the industries of the world moving to China because they have high-tech manufacturing ? 5 T-shirts for 10$ in the streets of New York, start as One dozen t-shirts for 100,000 dong in the wholesale markets on Sai Gon.


Still looking..

OTH, Uncle Google just told me where to get culture and personal values in India..It is called Fusion Beach Hotel or Illusion Boutique...

I don't see any problem with generalising, it would be hard to survive without it. You make decisions based on your overall experience, not based on possible alternatives that could exist in principle.

If you don't bump into black swans very often, you generalise that they don't exist. I agree that it is possible that they exist, and in abundance, but they prefer to keep to their nests, or they are prevented from interacting because their society is structured in a way that everyone always move around in boxes, or they hide when seeing people with strange accents and skin color. It is unfair to blame my generalisation if there are no Black Swans in my experience.

I found the 'West' (North America and Europe) very alienating, and I find India less so. I agree with you that Indians can be very nosy, but I will take that anyday over the alienation. At least one person I know who was born and lived most of her life in the West feels the same way, so there are people who make the same generalisation on the other side of the divide as well.

For the record, I did not advocate that everyone should move to India based on my generalisation. I just stated my experiences, and my perspective on my experiences, in response to the OP's query. I also said that I could list lots of negative experiences, and the interactions I value in India have nothing to do with any specific culture.

So did I- and artificial, but that had more to do with the general ambience (for want of a better word) than the people.

More than that, I didn't ever feel that I belonged there, or that it could be home. But then, I felt that way in most other countries that were not in the West too.

Did you see the movie "I Am Legend" ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by capt_mahajan So did I- and artificial, but that had more to do with the general ambience (for want of a better word) than the people.

More than that, I didn't ever feel that I belonged there, or that it could be home. But then, I felt that way in most other countries that were not in the West too.

That's interesting. I found that over time, you can get to be a stakeholder in almost any society/ setting. In the US at least, the inner workings of local schools, townships, cities, etc.. where you can invest time and become a stakeholder, and hence a agent of change... are very transparent. The IT revolution in the last 25 years has made things more transparent and easier for people to participate in. I suspect the same is the case in India, so even as an outsider you can become a 'giver', and a stakeholder.

Nope, hardly see any.

Edit, Boston123, sure one can. But sometimes, at the outset, one doesn't want to. And like I said, it wasn't the people- who I believe are more or less the same everywhere. More the culture, the feel of the place.... and more a question of it being alien rather than good or bad.

If you were talking about London, especially the more expensive parts, I'd agree --- on the basis of over three decades experience of living there. Trying to extrapolate this to even fifty miles away from Hyde Park Corner is way, way wrong, trying to extrapolate it to different countries across continents and oceans is, perhaps, confusing generalising with ignorance.

Sure, but the way you put it, it sounded like you were trying to say that India was in some way morally superior to 'the West'. You are from India and you prefer the way things are done here, fair enough. I just wanted to point out that Westerners might actually like some things you dislike. One man's alienation is another man's freedom etc.