Friday, February 13, 2009

one plus, one minus

Use of plastic irritated me in India for it creates a non biodegradable waste & I am all for greenstorming n stuff, but seeing the amount of plastic waste in Dubai, that seems too little. This is worrying. I keep trying to use and waste as less as possible though.

But if I forget that for a while, the shopping experience here is pleasant. I mean, in India nobody has time to exchange a smile, forget anything more. I am writing as it comes to my mind, and coming to think of it, they do have time to stare at you or give u an odd frown at times for reason known only to their god. I dont mean to generalise, this is out of experience. But here, when I go buying the veggies or grocery, the staff greets me with a smile (no, you are wrong if you think that the staff must be a male! Even females do so). If I have to wait even for 10 seconds at a counter, they apologise and are so helpful in general. The other day I was looking at different kind of green leafy veg's & was picking whatever i thought i would experiment with. I didnt have a basket or polythene bag in my hand so this guy comes and gives me 2 small bags. I thanked him with a smile & got back to my business, moving to the pulse section looking for peanuts. Another fellow comes and asks me if I m done with the vegetables. He took them from my hand, got them weighed and returned the bags to me with price tags on them. 

Felt nice but to be honest I couldnt casually take this much of kindness, simply coz I have never been used to it. Even the bus driver here has patience to greet me when I board one. Small things but this is wow!

I by no means am comparing the two countries, perceptions are built by experiences and I am just sharing mine. Good and Bad exists everywhere I guess.

3 comments:

Shruti Narayanan said...

I dont know in which country u r comparing India with.. but al I would say is even in India things are not 'that bad'. Yeah ppl dont have enuf time to greet every tom dick n harry they meet on the way, but then i guess in ur grocery shop example its coz of extra staff there which is never the case in India.

Anonymous said...

Shruti: Try travelling in DTC/ Blueline Buses , Go to Bank of Yamuna River , go to Allahabad and see people throwing all kinds of plastics in name of religious sentiments . Try negotiating with auto waals in bangalore.

As an Indian I love my country and am proud to born here but there are few negatives that we need to accept and improve in place of just ranting about the positives only.

And the nice Grocery Store ppl greeting all tom dick and harry were indians and they were only 3 of them. We can do this in foreign land but not in our owe is what saddens me.
I believe thats why the topic was 1 Plus 1 Minus

Reflections said...

Yes there is a marked difference & after sometime we get used to this & find it very difficult to adjust back in India:-).
I love my country but have to admit courtesy is a rare thing there....once upon a time I yearned to get back but now I'm hesitant....got used to this life I guess;-P