Hi. I'm Steven Deobald. I work for C42 Engineering in Bangalore.
After pondering a "life in India" blog for months, I was finally convinced after reading "A Dust Over India" -- an article short on perspective and long on assumption, which left me angry and frustrated for days after reading it. I considered authoring a response. It didn't take long to realize that my questions ("Why the hell did you go to Pizza Hut on what was obviously a very short trip to India?") and criticism ("You want to Agra to relax? Let me introduce you to The Google... it can assist you greatly when making decisions based on no facts whatsoever. See? Agra, as it turns out, is hell on earth.") would fall on deaf ears... if it fell on any ears at all. The visual of a horizontal listener is suddenly striking.
Anyway, once my childish anger subsided, I was reminded of Chimamanda Adichie's "The danger of a single story", one of my favourite TED talks. "A Dust Over India" is a single story. A short, uninformed story. It's not dishonest. It's not even necessary wrong. It simply lacks breadth.
There is much to learn about India. Too much for any one person. I won't write to give you the whole picture. I don't have it. I will write to give you a glimpse of the India I've seen.
Wish me luck.
After pondering a "life in India" blog for months, I was finally convinced after reading "A Dust Over India" -- an article short on perspective and long on assumption, which left me angry and frustrated for days after reading it. I considered authoring a response. It didn't take long to realize that my questions ("Why the hell did you go to Pizza Hut on what was obviously a very short trip to India?") and criticism ("You want to Agra to relax? Let me introduce you to The Google... it can assist you greatly when making decisions based on no facts whatsoever. See? Agra, as it turns out, is hell on earth.") would fall on deaf ears... if it fell on any ears at all. The visual of a horizontal listener is suddenly striking.
Anyway, once my childish anger subsided, I was reminded of Chimamanda Adichie's "The danger of a single story", one of my favourite TED talks. "A Dust Over India" is a single story. A short, uninformed story. It's not dishonest. It's not even necessary wrong. It simply lacks breadth.
There is much to learn about India. Too much for any one person. I won't write to give you the whole picture. I don't have it. I will write to give you a glimpse of the India I've seen.
Wish me luck.
