Reflections on India

After taking 11 flights, 2 long-distance buses and much local transport across Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand over a month, I have arrived back in New York City. I have been hibernating for the last week or so, trying to get over jet lag, return to my normal sleep schedule (this has been a woeful disaster), and taking care of family business. Here are some reflections on India ( will get to the other nations in later posts):

India

It is remarkably modern now. For the first time in six visits to India over my life, I did not get sick at all, despite having marked jet lag for the first few days. Granted, I was limited to Surat, self-proclaimed “the cleanest city in India.” Nearly every home had modern seat toilets and bidet shower, the exception being one roadside gas station in Maharashtra on my long road trip in the middle of the night from the Mumbai airport. This was not true at all on my last visit in 2012, although it was rapidly modernizing even then. Also, next to my uncle’s home in a relatively posh neighborhood of Surat (well, it was a barren dirt field when his father bought it in the early 1970s), you would see people driving bullock carts in 2012. Not anymore, now there’s a modern “Northern…