A Week In India

Emperor Akbar's Tomb in Sikandra

Just arrived back in Malaysia this morning..... you know what? I felt a strong urge to kiss the ground at KLIA and offer a thank you prayer to God. The trip to India made me realise that we are indeed fortunate to be born here in Malaysia! And yet we still gripe on about small stuff. Man, what a thankless lot we are! Shame on us!

Imagine this.....
1. 80% of India's population live below the poverty line
2. Whole families live by the roadside inside huts made of nothing but old discarded boxes as walls and cloth as roof (and this I witness myself in Delhi, the capital city of India)
3. Cows, goats, pigs, dogs roams freely in the city, mingling with traffic
4. Dungs (from humans, cows, goats, pigs, dogs) + spits + garbage can be found anywhere, especially on the road and by the streetside (better watch out where you step, man!)
5. Electricity is not reliable at all (during our meeting, the power cuts can be as frequent as 10 times a day in Delhi!)
6. Water? Don't even think of drinking the tap water (boiled or not) - you'll get diarrhea for days!
7. Children begs for money on the streets - problem is, if you give a kid some money, herds of them come and surrounds you.....

Despite all this, I actually enjoyed my brief spell in India. With the right leadership, they can be on par with other countries. They have natural resources and people (but they need to be trained first) to achieve this.

One thing that I really respect though is that they are polite. Eventhough most of them are poor, they did not stoop down to steal from others. For example, I went for Friday prayers and left my leather shoes at the mosque entrance. After prayers ended, I am relieved (and quite surprised too!) that nobody even touches the shoes. If this were KL National Mosque, I'll end up walking barefooted after prayers!