The Other Side

I spent tonight with the "other" side of India... "the middle class". Shopping, dinner and a brief stop by a "club". I only wish I would have had my camera with me to capture these images. The contrast to those that I captured the other day would be stunning.

Dinner
We went to an average, middle class restaurant... not fancy... this was the kind of place people take there families to, maybe once a month and for special occasions. Like all restaurants now the decor was overcast with the theme of Football (soccer) as India is quite fanatical about the sport. Everyone, everywere is watching and talking about the World Cup just as the US promotes the World Series and the Super Bowl. The restaurant served a variety of foods - Indian, Chinese and some continental. We had Indian. As always, it was better than the hotel's food - lighter and not so rich.

The Club
After dinner we walked down the street to a very modern 5 star hotel. The entrance and lobby were buzzing with activity... mostly well dressed young Indians coming and going to the club inside. We entered without cover charge to a crowded, smoking, dark space BOOMING with popular music from the west. It was amazing to see the thick crowd of people, shoulder to shoulder talking, drinking, smoking and bouncing to U2's "Where the Streets have No Name". Later a live band came on and performed hits from the 60's and 70's ... the Beatles, The Who, The Doors... They had an "all American" sound and the crowd loved them. All I could do was smile in awe.

Now the really amazing thing about this scene was the fact that all of these "young people" were smoking, drinking and listening to loud music and yet NO TWO PEOPLE were engaged in ANY physical contact of ANY kind. This would NEVER happen in America. How does it still happen in India?