First thoughts?  Lewis Anderson from Bexley in Kent gets to grips with India during 'phase 1' ...

Cows on the motorway, 50p meals, rickshaws that wil happily accommodate 7 people... India is an amazing place. Since landing we've had a few lectures from teachers at the University of Pune (which has 580,000 students), on things like performing arts, the economy, customs, religion & etiquettes. The most passionate words came from the vice-chancellor, who told us of the 'monster' 'plaguing' India: the caste system. He called it the 'greatest scam ever', and although discrimination according to caste is illegal, he told us how it still permeates everyday life: yet he hopes that globalisation and the opening up of India to the world will finally chase it out once and for all: we all agree.
Globalisation is powerfully apparent here, bringing both positives and negatives. I'm still working out my stance, but it seems that on the whole opportunities are being created, while traditional culture is not only being protected, but being prized and emphasised. I hope the eventual result will be a happy meeting of East and West. The main challenge is to ensure everyone benefits: between the rich and poor lies a huge chasm, but with better education one day this should improve.

In a few days I'll be going to the Taj Mahal, before Kolkata, where (so our Indian contact tells us) there is a professional rugby team I might be able to go and meet. Quite literally, something surprising occurs here every 10 minutes. The only constant is the heat, and the impenetrable white of the clouds.

22nd July 2008

Visited a call centre yesterday: a very professional and modern set-up, right in the middle and gated off from the landscape of poverty in which it lies: the type of juxtaposition we are seeing all the time between the relatively rich and poor. Many of the people I've spoken to say the great divide is not between rich and poor, but between those who can and those who cannot speak English: I have to agree. It really does seem to be the key to any kind of prosperity in this country.

The call centre itself demonstrated this: a spacious, air-conditioned, five story building packed full of top graduates, hired not necessarily for their degrees, but their grasp of English. I asked about what it took to actually get to be on the floor dealing with Brits: a lot of training, covering regional accents, idioms, the latest phrases, and of course how to deal with those of us who get angry! Visiting a Delhi University also emphasised our language's importance: all higher education in this country is conducted in English: if you don't begin learning it relatively early, you're unlikely to be well off for the rest of your life. It all makes me eager to get on to the school in Kolkata next week where I can actually help teach English, though I know the real problem is not here, where they'll learn English with or without me, but where children simply don't go to school.

On a more positive note, we saw the Taj Mahal today, and it exceeded all expectations: this building is breathtaking. Clearly painstakingly imagined and constructed, it is a work of absolute majesty in every sense: no expense has been spared, and you can only wonder at what it would have been to see Shah Jahan's dream completed: an identical tomb for himself (the standing one is his wife's) in black across the river, with all the obsessively symmetrical detail that accompanies and enhances the first. There is good reason for this one monument being the icon of such a massive and diverse land.

A little later, on the train ride home, I happened to be sitting next to an Indian who introduced himself as Dinesh: the owner of a multinational confectionary business. His English wasn't great, and though I had to tell him three times that I wasn't in fact married, it was a fun chat, and I'm wondering if I'll be able to get some free samples...

22th July 2008