As Team 2, Section 2 traveled around Shanghai, an interesting pattern emerged: everyone we spoke with was from somewhere else! It became clear that Shanghai today is what Ellis Island was in the early 1900’s – the opportunity for a better life. Yet, what as Westerner’s we believe is the “holy grail” of freedom, democracy, seems to be the farthest thing from the Chinese mind. After doing several interviews with Shanghai residents, maybe that’s ok too…
The title of this blog “In Search of India” is an allusion to “Discovery of India” by Jawaharlal Nehru (1st Prime Minister of India). He found it but I’m still searching. This is the last of the series.
It’s been a while since Part 3 was published. Catching up on Term 3 and catching breath happened in between. But since we’re heading into China soon, thought it should be done in a hurry before I work on the “video” and other stuff in between.
There were a lot of discussions during our Term 3 residency about India’s future. But the one thing that stayed with me was the quote from Hari Rajagopalachari (who I thought was the best speaker during out Delhi Residency) saying that India is like the bumble bee in the quote:
“Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know it, so it goes on flying anyway”