dear visa,
i started off this vanavaasam from the forum by being silly. hopefully that is cured now.
latter part, i was in chennai and just returned. celebrated pongal in all its aspects, one grand wedding, one sashti, thirupathi, thirumullaivoyal, two get togethers of old alumni at post chennai clubs, and everyday at the restaurants (all vegetarian
). plus a couple of land deals, where i am only in a support role. all of it in 2 weeks.
and this was supposed to be a trip without any agenda.
i am amazed to see the progress and developments in chennai, with each visit. and i visit atleast once a year if not more. had it been even a semblance of this 37 years ago, i could not have left india. however, the past has its reasons, and i think it is unrealistic to judge past actions based on current realities.
i am aware of the corruptions of the society. the moneys involved now appear to be huge. but judging by the wealth generated, it is my gut feeling, that the so called 'black money' as a percentage of all currencies, is just about the same. my dad paid 1,000 bribe fee to get my sister a B.Com seat then; now it is 50,000 rupees. paid 15 paise for 2 idlis which now costs 15 rupees. it is just that the value of the rupee has come drastically down.
i think numberswise, hopefully people also earn correspondingly more.
one thing that disturbed me, was this new 20 ruppee special paid que at kapali temple in mylapore. this is my neighbourhood temple which i visit everytime. i think before God, all of us should be equal. i wish they would remove the privileged que for the moneyed class. the temple was overflowing, there was a dance concert and the lights lit of saneeswaran were in the hundreds.
surprisingly, i did not see any beggars in front of the temple. even in chennai overall. i hope these were not driven away out of the city and kept out of sight by the powers that be. i felt my trip to be incomplete for not having the opportunity to shell out some rupee notes to the lepers and the infirmed aged. what few i saw, was when i was futtfutting about in autorickshaws, which i could not stop.
conveniences wise, india is now on par with the rest of the world. in my days of the 60s, anything 'foreign made' was blindly sought after. no longer such is true. i saw models of cameras and PCs, which, to the best of my knowledge, are not available even in Canada, but freely available in Chennai shops. all the more glory to indian commerce
let me stop here with this ramble.
incidentally, in the context of this thread, here is the etymology for the word 'foreign':
Middle English forein from Old French forain, from Vulgar Latin *forānus, from Latin forās, forīs (“outside (the doors)”). Displaced native Middle English elendish, ellendish "foreign" (from Old English elelendisc, compare Old English ellende "foreign", elland "foreign land"), Middle English eltheodi, eltheodish "foreign" (from Old English elþēodiġ, elþēodisc "foreign"), and non-native Middle English peregrin "foreign" (from Old French peregrin).
thank you for your kind enquiry. much appreciated.
