Erstellt am: 17. 5. 2014 - 11:28 Uhr

Elections 2014: The Many Faces of Modern India

As the Indian elections wind down, I've made a sort of pilgrimage to the city of Mumbai, where modern & traditional India intersect and clash. Here, I met a young fashion designer named Nandita, who told me about the paradoxes that compose India today.

Johnny Bliss, 2014

After more than two months travelling around the countryside of rural India and Bangladesh, I found myself experiencing a very different side of the rupee-coin, so to speak. In the name of progress, vast reflective skyscrapers grow like trees on the Mumbai coastline, ever bigger and more modern, as if to blot out the realities of both poverty and conservatism, which still hold court in much of the rest of the country.

After everything I'd experienced, I found it more-than-surreal to be sitting in a modern wireless café, nursing an iced latte in my hands... but this is where I'd arranged to meet the fashion designer Nandita, a well-travelled urban woman, who nevertheless has strong roots in the countryside; we met through a mutual friend based in London, who had enthusiastically insisted to me that Nandita would be the best interviewee ever!!1!

Johnny Bliss, 2014

All right then. But the interview almost did not happen, because traffic is Hell in Mumbai, and for nearly an hour she was circling the block, searching with increasing desperation, for a parking spot. She nearly gave up before the Gods intervened in her favour. In Mumbai, she would tell me later, there is no good infrastructure as far as public transport goes [...] and by the time they build new roads, the population is already doubled.

A soft-spoken woman, dressed business-casual, Nandita was initially very shy, but as our discussion progressed, she opened up and became increasingly elucidative on such topics as the caste system, arranged marriage, electoral corruption, and even waste management, in India.

Johnny Bliss, 2014

By the end of the interview, I may not have found the answers to many of the questions I had about India, but I did have a better idea about what my questions actually were, if that makes any sense.

Let me try that again: India is no easy place to understand. In some ways, the customs and culture are so alien to my western eyes, ears, and nose, that I wouldn't even know where to begin with asking questions, let alone searching for the answers to them.

So I guess my interview with Nandita helped me understand the important questions related to India better, and I hope it does the same for you.

Johnny Bliss, 2014

Tune in today to FM4 Reality Check, for a Saturday Special with me, with Hal Rock, and with the fashion designer Nandita, at 12 o'clock midday.

FM4 Reality Check

If you miss the program, you can still stream it via the Reality Check podcast or at fm4.ORF.at/7tage.