Culture difference (West & India) my view......

Culture difference (West & India) my view......

I recently visited USA and that gave me a chance to see and experience the culture in the country believed to be a dreamland by most of the world. I was fortunate enough to share my apartment with one Korean and on American guy to experience the cultural diversity in detail.
I have been a part of the generation in India who are blamed to be influenced by the western culture be it our dressing, life style or anything one can think of. I also sometimes felt, we have become more materialistic especially after the 1991 post liberalization India. The main reason for me to believe the same was the reports in the media, listening to friends and elders. We have a habit of blaming our failures onto some or the other situations and the same happens when we see a shift in the mentality of Indian youths. They blame west for the problems that we face but my sincere question to them “Don’t we have other problems?” Why do we focus on the problems that seem to be created by western influence why don’t we look at the basic problem that we are facing? It seems to me to be nothing but the frustration and jealousness of the freedom or prosperity that we feel western countries are having. The elders blame the western influence for the same and I also thought the same as I dint know much about the country I was just over awed by the reading the stories of the US life style and economy and never tried to look at their culture. I came to this country for a very short duration of around 8 weeks but in some corner of my heart I had a desire of looking closely at the culture of this country, the time I landed in USA I realized the politeness, discipline and the courtesy they offer, everything is so systematic you really feel its an ideal world and believe me my friend this the real story. Every one respect each other and they have a sense of gratitude if you help them, and your social status does not matter to them. I will give an example of the bus drivers, when you get into the bus they will greet you and you also do the same, when you get down you thank them and they acknowledge the courtesy that you show towards them. I also saw the sense of equality and no job is supposed to be good or bad and you do whatever you can do by virtue of your education and expertise. The discipline that everyone follows here is also worth emulating, most importantly the road discipline, every one follows the lane system properly and they have a sense of respect towards the pedestrian and if you are crossing the road they will stop their vehicle and let you cross and that is more heartening when you consider the fact that most of the residents own their own transport. These few points stuck me as soon as I reached the place. I feel these are the things we should be emulating rather than cribbing about the negative influences.
In India we say we are following western culture when we do anything wrong but we fail to acknowledge the fact that we have so many good things to follow from west they why blame west if we have chosen to follow only the things that according to our Indian culture is improper like sex, divorce, dress style of the fairer sex, nuclear families and the lavish life style. I agree to the fact that here the laws are so strict that you really don’t want to be at the wrong side of the law but then its not the law but the enforcement of the law by who ever is responsible for enforcing the same. you don’t try to bribe because you know that any attempt in this regard would be futile and you could invite more trouble, in India the first thing that comes to our mind after we are caught in the wrong side of the law is to manage the person by any means, I am not saying that the 100% of our fellow country men are the same kind but the good guys are really in the minority. You meet an accident and you call the police and wait until they arrive in India we try to avoid the police as if they come that means unnecessary trouble, here the police will come and prepare the report and he will inform the insurance peoples about the damage unlike our country where in we inform the insurance company and claim more than the actual expense so that we can get more. One more good idea that we have here is SSN, everything that you do will be recorded against you SSN and the same would be available to every agency and they will know your history.
Most of the times I have seen the professionals in India cribbing about the overload of the work and even I felt the same but when I came here and saw the work culture I realized why do we take more time to finish some work, the answer is straight and its nothing but our inefficiency to manage time properly or to be more truthful our attitude of wasting time. I have seen every one making it a point to reach office by 8 AM the standard time for the office in India I see no fixed timings and that hurts the over all work culture and makes it difficult for others. Being a service based country there are times when we really can’t avoid to change the timings as we need to talk to the clients so we cant really help that but in my opinion only 10% of the total workforce really needs to interact with the client so what about rest 90%, why do they need to come in late and then stay till late.
I am not saying that every thing is perfect in this country but if we follow some of the good things our country will become a better place than it is now. Western countries follow the good things like yoga that we practice in India they don’t follow the corruption so they have chosen to follow what they feel is good and we have chosen to follow what is bad from them so it is a clear case of hypocrisy on our part.
Disclaimer: The views are my own and any one can have different views about the same.