Seeing a Bit of the Flattening World

I'm reading a book called "The World is Flat" right now. It's about how globalization is flattening the world or, in other words, leveling the playing field for people who have a hard time getting a foothold in the global economy when it's dominated by western-born multinational corporations. As a sign of this flattening trend, the author opens the book talking about call center jobs being outsourced to some of India's supercities. This weekend, our class took a trip to Pune (pronounced "Poo-nuh" or "Poo-nay," it's up to you), one of these supercities, and it was, let me tell you, one wild ride.




Witnessing urban india firsthand was the highlight of the trip for me. There aren't really any flashy tourist spots in Pune, so went spent most of the two days exploring the city in rickshaws and eating at cool restaurants. If you've read some of my earlier posts, you'll know that Indian drivers have a style all their own, but I saw that times-10 this weekend. Drivers converge on spotlightless intersections at high speeds and from every direction. It's a race for the center of the intersection where everyone but the winner has to hit the brakes and wait their turn to cross. On every highway, two or three lanes are made to fit five or six lanes cars lined up side to side. When locals need to cross the street, they hold out a stiff arm to traffic and do it. Since this is the only way to cross a street we had to do it too, shuddering each time at an oncoming army of buses, economy cars, and rickshaws. Amazingly though, I didn't see one accident, or even one agitated driver. I would imagine that someone in the states who would readily flip another driver the bird for not using their blinker, might mellow out a bit after spending a day or two navigating Pune.

Anyway, lots more happened in Pune, but I can't write it all. Coolest thing though: I went to the Palace of Aga Khan, where Mohandas Ghandi was imprisoned for two years. His wife as well as one of his closest confidants died there. The palace is now a museum dedicated to Ghandi surrounded by beautiful gardens and landscaping. Since I just finished reading his autobiography last week, it was awesome standing where he, in writing, inspired the Indian people to claim their freedom. Ghandi, one might say, is the man.

Today we had a guest lecturer--a woman from Brooklyn College's MPH program. She led a discussion about nationalized health care systems and whether or not they can support sustainable health care solutions. It was great because today, for the first time since I've been here, my English major was relevant to the discussion. When the lecturer bought up the need we have to study the ethnographies, or cultural roots, of developing communities in order to introduce sustainable health programs in them, a bell rung in my brain. The week before I came here I was sitting in my Postmodern lit class when the professor started into the idea that the literary world is transitioning out of the Postmodern thinking and into a new area that looks at the cultures and religious traditions of marignalized groups. This point of doing this is to find meaning in the literature they produce. See, since the 60's, English departments and the scholars in them have been trying to give a voice to authors of traditionally silenced groups (women, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Jewish writers and so on) by including their writing in the curriculum--essentially showing that we value their unique perspectives. Unfortunately this postmodern movement has gathered together all of these fragmented perspectives but come up with no cohesive way to make meaning of it all. Until recently. The "auto-ethnography" is a new literary form which allows writers from these subaltern groups to write about their lives, but in the context of their culture and religion. This allows readers and critics to have a better shot at making sense of the wide range of perspectives Postmodernism has to deal with. Anyway, that's what the whole discussion was about today: understanding people by studying their cultures and religion. Wow, enough of that blabbing.

We also talked about whether or not federal governments even have the ability to plan sustainable health systems. So as not to bore you with another rant like you endured in the last paragraph, let me assure that they can't. The health care world needs motivated leaders and willing volunteers who will consider local issues and local needs and involve communities in health improvement programs, not more federally mandated, top-down, money wasting, unequitable legislation. Well, not as much as we're seeing in the US at least. What I just wrote is huge oversimplification because I'm in a rush.

We also went to CRHP's farm yesterday. Being there made me want to grow a garden. Seriously. Here are some pics.



This is me being a giant.



This is on the back of a bullock cart. At this point I was holding on for my dear life.



This is me eating a tomato like a man of the land.

Anyway, I have to cut this short because class is coming up in a few minutes. Thanks for reading. Love, bryce