Lets think ‘Quality’ and not ‘Quantity’ of life in India

I have always wondered how our Prime Minister feels when he lands in India from so many of his foreign trips. As I always land with a love for my country but a very distant hope that it will ever offer us the quality of life that exists abroad. After a holiday in Europe this May, well like every other Indian, you come back wondering whether we will ever move away from fighting for our basic facilities to actually living a quality life.

Population is the root of all our living problems – crowded trains, queues, small houses, no living space, even the very few public gardens we have will always be crowded, increasing traffic. Result - We Indians don’t walk even when destinations are walkable. I remember always walking to the Bandra station which is just a 12 minute walk from home, right from college to 10 years back. Now this station has been voted the worst of all and you don’t even want to go there. With pavements filled with slums or broken or filled with hawkers, walking is a bad option anywhere.

That slowly leads majority of us to opt for our own vehicle. Trains are packed like sardines, buses take too long to arrive and then take too long to reach the destination. Well I was about to write crowded buses as earlier we always had people hanging out of the buses, not anymore. Improvement? No most have moved to private transport. Rickshaws and taxis never want to go where you want to go. And well even if you think “Public transport’ there comes the Indian ‘Prestige issue’ which so loudly tells you “ Hey you travel by train or bus, you are a loser”. So hello to air-conditioned Ubers and Olas, apart from which, today’s younger generation of middle class know no transport (and come to think of it taxi is still a luxury abroad). Nowadays you don't hear the pennies in youngsters’ pockets as they are always full of notes!, as parents themselves admit they have laid the red carpet for them.

Well after we have worked out the most comfortable mode of transport for ourselves, we still may end up taking an hour or more for distances of 10 km or less. Then we come home so tired, that especially women in India hardly take time out to exercise. And again in India one rarely leaves office on time!!, that is at 5.30-6 pm. My female computer engineer friend told me the other day that she used to reach office at 10 am and work hard and leave at 6 pm exact. One day her boss called her and said this will not work, ours is not a 9 to 5 job, she was shocked. So if you arrive at work on time, leave on time, don’t waste time in between, work hard, complete your projects, you don’t take as many smoke breaks as others, it does not matter, you still are NOT WORKING HARD. The Indian boss mentality which never goes away. By the way that leads many women to actually rethink on working full time because full time is 12 hours!

So all these small things (small!!) adds up and leads us to a unhealthy country. I really don't know whether double digit GDP growth, in the absence of any living or city planning, will automatically transport us to better quality of life. Hence at times I am not even joyous when the government says we are to set to grow at double digits. As what is the extra money really going to bring us, the ability to pay for our hospital bills?

I was wondering whether I think these thoughts because I live in the most unplanned and crowded city of Mumbai. Well it could be better in Tier-1 and Tier 2 cities. But really no. Look at Pune. I mean cities want to build and build and build with no city planning whatsoever and accommodate more and more and more without really providing basic quality of life.

There should be a study to indicate how much dust Indians inhale everyday. Despite the normal flow of regular dust (why is there more here and always?) our construction methods continue to be old age, digging for days together and exposing the entire construction vicinity to dust for years together (recently senior age people living in a colony in western suburbs complained of breathing problems caused by a highway construction just outside where they live)

Well quality of life can be improved even by keeping an eye on how to boost tourism. Very evident while walking in Austria through spick and span 17th century buildings, surrounded by open no traffic zones, listening to lovely street music, enjoying coffee and drinks. The body and mind has lots of space to de-stress in major cities too unlike in India.

More importantly it brought to me how they promote tourism and at the same time have space to enjoy themselves. Really simple things, which while attracting tourism will also upgrade the quality of our infrastructure and consequently our lives. Like when I met the tourism secretary of Karnataka some months back, I was telling him how the Mysore Palace beats the Windsor Castle any day in its beauty and magnificence. While Windsor Castle sees queues of foreign tourists, at Mysore Palace we mostly see our own Indians. And he had a valid point to make. He said we don’t provide an ecosystem around our tourist spots. Like if someone comes and visits the Mysore Palace and spends three hours there, he then wants to relax, enjoy some drinks, do some shopping and there is absolutely nothing around the place. And that’s what Austria has done beautifully, small places with 13th to 17th century homes are surrounded by shops, street music and then it just becomes a tourist spot!!.

Imagine the culture we have and how much we can sell around a tourist spot in an organized fashion. Not in the present haphazard way of people touching foreigners and begging them to buy. Imagine good local street music playing around that place, organised shops selling Indian handicrafts and Indian food. We don’t really need to do much but a bit of tweaking that can bring more than double digit growth to India and also Indians can de-stress in their own culture in various cities.

Again looking at another aspect of quality of life - Here I also noticed how they have planned and how we are planning – their middle class houses are like what we have, just flats and small flats (the only thing is they have no security, everyone has the key to the main gate). What I want to point out here is that they have no amenities whatsoever, not even walking space in the building they live in. That’s because all the amenities are outside, walking paths, gardens, parking space etc. So they don’t really have to pay for maintenance of many facilities. Here we are going into redeveloped buildings which gives us swimming pool, walking tracks, gardens and we need to pay heavy maintenance for the same. Well in those countries it is the government who is giving you those facilities with the taxes you pay but here we pay taxes and also pay to upgrade our quality of life…. Well, well..

And of course not to forget the clean toilets everywhere. Most of them in Austria are to paid for its usage almost everywhere, even at the railway station – they actually have a counter where you pay and then enter the toilet. Well India has followed the same in some tourist destinations, but we need more revenue generating and clean toilets!

Well despite all of this what makes India attractive is its cohesiveness of human spirit, its culture, its colours, its food, its magnificent historical structures. Add to that our community culture which does not make us very individualistic (as yet) and not so lonely (as yet). Kudos to that but well we must improve the quality of our living otherwise we will be walking as half-dead human beings.