Myths about USA

United States of America, just the name of this country would put a grin on the faces of many Indians. I was exactly one of those kinds. I wanted to go to US, god knows for what reason. Or maybe it is a very common practice in my community and I picked up this liking towards US genetically. All this was a dream and at one point in time, I wanted to make this dream come true. So, I worked very hard, planned a lot and made a lot of sacrifice to achieve this. All my efforts and prayers paid off, when I was granted my US visa.

There were a lot of things I didn’t like about India. I was sure that those things would be ideal there and this very thought made happy. Also, in our society, if you are going to US, you get that special respect, from known and unknown people. Finally there came the day and I was on board in a flight that would take me to my dream country. Once I landed here, some things really needed me to give a second thought.

The first myth that we tend to develop is that our Airports are not of international standards and obviously in the United States any airport would beat the standard of the state-of-art new airports. If you believe so… you are wrong. Yes, the Los Angeles Airport (LAX) is much larger than the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) and offers more facilities, but all this comes at a price. For example: For getting a luggage cart at the BIA, a passenger pays Rs 0, while at the LAX each passenger pays a considerable sum of $3. Though it is not fair to convert $3 to its rupee equivalent, I would say, it is not a very small amount. Would an Indian passenger pay Rs. 75 for a luggage cart at our Airport? I am sure, no. So, is it fair to expect same services for no money? If at all the Airport authority decides to charge some amount for a service, our public would first criticize the authority for not being common-man friendly and would be more than happy to conclude that all the money that is being collected is being divided amongst the authorities. As you know that a common man in India would not use airport so often, is it unfair to charge an amount for a service. But, when the same is done in US, that is for the development of their nation, would be an obvious conclusion. May be the mistake lies within ourselves. May be we tend to give an over-positive thought towards the US and an over-negative thought towards our own country.

When people say, the roads in US are so clean and you will find no garbage in the community and look at our country, garbage everywhere, I have some questions for such people. From where does garbage come to our streets? It is only people like you and me must be cleaning our homes and disposing the garbage elsewhere so that it does not affect our homes, but we don’t care about our society. To this, people might raise a question, then how come people in US do not have this tendency? There is one simple reason to this… A fine of $100 to $600 is charged in the state of Georgia (where I live) for inappropriately disposing the garbage. People are bound to do their duties properly. And this is a habit which is developed right from the young age which carries on. But, if in our country we start charging a fine of Rs. 1000 to 5000 for inappropriately disposing garbage, how successful would it be. No government would try to implement this, as this would probably cost them their position and power. Again the question is who elects them? And how many people actually cast their vote? Here, one needs to mark his/her absentee for not casting their vote.

Here, it’s the election year and all the people are very keenly interested in it. Each citizen votes based on the debate that the two presidential candidates have. If you believed the previous two statements, you are wrong. More than half the people whom I have interacted with have little or no clue about their own political system (and people whom I have interacted with are all University students and can be considered as educated). They were surprised to know that President Bush is an alma mater of both Harvard and Yale University. So, there are ignorant people everywhere. Here people vote based on the skin-color while back home people vote based on the caste. Here color distinguishes while back home it’s the caste (most of us have same skin color)

American system is more efficient than ours. If you feel that processes are not cumbersome here, you probably are right. But US is a country, which is blessed with natural resources, has been a economic and social super power for over 6 decades now and has been independent since July 4th 1776. Look at us; we are independent country barely for 6 decades. The United States was developed during the colonial period while India was looted during the same British raj. If you want to compare Indians with people living here, compare them with the African-American community. Still I see that a lot of lower end jobs are done by them, while the whites still tend to lead a better life, barring few exceptions. This also goes on to show that there exists a lot of unequal distribution of wealth, which is very much the same with our country.

Finally let me quote some fact and figures which would give a better idea of my points. The total area of US is: 9,826,630 SQ KM while that India is: 3,287,590 SQ KM. It is clear that US is 3 times larger than us in terms of area. Our population is 105 crores while that of US is 35 crores. So, the US has 3 times less population compared to that of India. It means to say, less people and more land, which makes the administration and governing lot easier.

Let us remember that even our country is quite capable in many ways. It is just a matter of time, before we would stand out as the best country in the world!