It is really exciting to be abroad again for the first time in six years. (not counting Montreal, which is a wonderful city with wonderful bagels)
My first two days in India have been slow but thoughtful. I’ve gotten some time to walk halfway around Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad. I hope I will get some time to explore the city while I’m here- most of my time will be spent in the countryside and suburbs north of the city now to investigate greenhouses produced by Kheyti.
I’m currently reading “Uninhabitable Earth” and I feel like one narrative I’d like to explore is if farming technology/improvements can outrun climate change and drought conditions. The province of Telangana is expected to be hotter and dryer this summer, the same for India as a whole. It is expected to be over 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the majority of my stay here.
Today I learned the importance of having an international phone. Last night before I walked around the lake to see the sunset, I hid my credit card and cash inside my breast pocket, and this was such a clever move that even I myself couldn’t find these the very next day when I went out to buy outlet adaptors. I had to walk back two miles in the humidity. But I did get to see a family of feral pigs eating garbage outside the hotel.
My surface-level impression since arriving from the airport is that much of this city is as dirty and ramshackle as the poorest parts of Chicago, between the garbage and crumbling concrete buildings, and messy narrow winding streets, and highway free-for-alls. But amidst all this you have well dressed people taking selfies on their smart phones and families enjoying time on the lakeside parks, boutiques and restaurants crammed together, it’s just a very different dynamic and I’m glad to see that.
The garbage and litter everywhere is a bit disheartening; not that American cities don’t have their fair share of crapola lining the streets but that’s the point, this feels like an unfortunate import and side-effect of “development”; an overwhelming and ubiquitous landscape of plastic where it shouldn’t be.
Detritus fills Lake Hussain Sagar and piles up on the shoreline. Every few hundred meters there’s a sign for some green group that is tasked with maintaining the lake environment, asking people to help keep the lake clean. They seem to have been responsible for placing trees along the lakeside path, but the planters are also full of garbage.
On my walk yesterday I picked up some bottle water for the equivalent of 29 cents, in a place where it’s a necessity, and wondered why we tolerate paying ten or twenty times that amount in a country where it’s mostly a luxury (or the water in the tap is coming from the same place).
Much more to come, including specific captions for some of the photos.-Aaron
Culture Time 