Filthy pics from India...

Originally posted by dietsamcola
reply to post by Vitchilo

 

Indians are garbage.

you should be banned, MODS!

reply to post by izero


i would advise a few other places before Varanasi mate, Delhi is much tamer. the trick is to be friendly, but firm with touts, they prey on the timid.

Those images are disgusting.

Although thank you for sharing and making us aware. I knew conditions in India were very bad in the slums but i had no idea how bad it actually was. Those people bath and wash up in that water!!

Some governments are absolutley hopeless...

reply to post by sir_slide


Thanks - Varanasi worse then delhi? Ah well should be an experience then - I think we are just suffering a little bit of culture shock. My normal way of dealing with touts is to have a joke with them, seems to make it a little easier. Contemplating Rajasthan after Varanasi, but the urge to get down and check the beauty (and nice weather) of Kerala is growing.

reply to post by ypperst


While that is true, you have to remember that a small percentage of their over-populated cities equals way to many human beings living in such bad conditions no matter what the percentage is.

1 person is 1 too many to be subjected to that.

I complain about immigration policy from time to time and dont completly agree with it, however seeing images like in the OP brings it home. If i lived in that, i woulda wanna get the hell outta there no matter what the risk. anything would be better than that.

Our governments focus on the people coming here, but instead should focus on the reason why people are fleeing in the first place...what's the UN for, if not to sort stuff like this out and ensure it does not happen!


It's just unimaginable and very sad.


To the OP - i cant beleive you were eating whilst looking at the pics u clown...

Actually people want a clean toilet rather than a good cellphone, that is a necessity for daily life...

Before we get too haughty.... consider what the US would look like if we didnt hand our poor and/or lazy new apartments/housing, cell phones, money, medical, cell phones, food, and all of the other things that they are handed. Some trash what we give them and what they havent paid for.. can you even imagine how exactly those slum areas would look like and how those people would live if we didnt contimually tear down and rebuild everything they destroy??? We've rebuilt the projects in our area 5 times in 10 years.. they keep destroying it and we keep giving them brand new everything. Many CHOOSE to live this way and are generationally on welfare.. they choose to not work or better themselves. If they werent handed everything and we didnt continually clean their messes we'd have the exact same thing here.
Has anyone here heard of East St.Louis? If you believe that we are somehow more civilized than anyone else go look what has happened to that city even when they are given everything.One small example.

reply to post by izero


rajasthan is just great, pushkar, udaipur and jaisalmer being highlights. when you get to Varanasi avoid the main burning ghat area maybe, stay a km down or something, lots of cool places although shanti guesthouse has many foreigners and views (next to burning ghat). Good luck, and try the phan, very strong there.

i will be in kerala in a month or so, you MUST go to hampi while in the south, highly recommended, i saw some cool things amongst the stars there.

They really need to start one-child policy there too, India will go past China in population in next few years. That country is way too overpopulated, you know that place is breeding ground for diseases with China.

I don't get how people can live there

i thought those pics were just horrible. and it doesn't change when they leave India. the other day these Indian people that live in my apartment building just opened their door and threw a soiled diaper on the floor! in a common area of the building! it stayed there for six hours until one of them came out and brought it to the dumpster. and i live really far from the Ganges...

reply to post by sir_slide


Cheers mate sounds awesome. Looking forward to a beach chill out.. might even pick myself up a tabla or sitar or both, a *lassi* and some beers and see what happens

The comments posted by members here seriously make me so angry.
People can't AFFORD toilets.
People you see going to the toilet there are usually from the slums...or don't EVEN HAVE A HOME.

I should know because I've spent a large majority of my time in India in slums.

Usually people in slums can't even afford rickshaws, which are like 30p so how the hell are they meant to afford a mobile phone?
They can't.
Let's say they did...they use a mobile phone for work, for connections....not because they want to chit chat for fun.

What would you do? Spend your money on a way to survive...or spend it on a toilet?

And think about it...before England, America had toilets what did the people do?
The very same thing.
They THREW it out onto the streets.

Of course, the pollution in the rivers are just a by product of the overpopulation..
When you actually go to India...the cities...slums are usually found on the edges. The central parts are exactly like Central London and so on...it's civilised, they have better malls...and it's a dream living there.
Living on the edges, the suburbs though...yes can be dirty...but that's LEDC's for you.
They all have it.

What's more...these images are just from the CITIES.
Go out a few kilometres and you'll see beauty everywhere...you'll see diverse culture...it's amazing...

They usually pull the bodies out into the distance and it's considered a sign of luck and/or blessings when the body floats back. The fact that animals make meals off the dead is also supposedly a good thing. It's the circle of life for them. The dead give the gift of living by providing food and nourishing the water with their life's essence

The Hindus cremate their bodies...they burn them on logs..cause they believe in reincarnation...

reply to post by BlackPoison94


I recall reading an account written by a Indian Muslim visiting London before the era running water. He recounted how filthy the people were and how uncivilized. Vile Victorians.. they were vile but held up as the most civilized in the world! You have to chuckle at the revisionist history.. or youd weep.

It would do many of us some good if we started really researching history and realized that India had true civilized societies far before the anglos/Europeans did .

One note though, the bodies left out in public to decompose.. its a religious thing for some and its the way that particular religion is respected. The dead lay in state where they drop. This isnt to say that 100% of it is for that reason, but in the time we had spent in India, it was a culture shock, but if you go into it with an open mind and care to educate yourself.. India is truly an amazing place as are her people.

Blackpoison, one of the problems youll run into is that so many havent traveled outside of the borders or if they have they have not been in a position to or cared to immerse themselves in the culture of the place they are visiting. They also do not understand that India doesnt have a welfare system that hands people everything, builds homes and apartments for its poor or lazy, and doesnt provide everything down to cell phones to them as we do in the US. They have no clue what real poverty is because our "poor" here have opportunities that are incredible compared to other countries. Ive always admired the Indians for their work ethic and intelligence. Even the poor are driven.. much moreso than they are in the US. We also have little understanding of the Caste system.. and how that impacts the culture.. and how that colors what these pictures in this thread show.

as disgusting and putrid it is for me to even imagine someone bathing and even god forbid drinking the same water where people do their business in and hundreds if not thousands of rotting corpses float down. I have to wonder about these people and their immune systems. over hundreds and thousands of years of this activity they must be like roaches in the fact that they must be immune to its effects. The reason westerners like us get Delly belly if we eat the local food is because our pampered and pathetic excuse for an immune system is so spoiled with hygienic and sterile environments that even the slightest cold knocks us on our proverbial butts.

You think these guys living in all this filth use sanitary wipes or hygienic soap???? dont think so. and yet the indian population is exploding.... i think i read somewhere about a little theory called survival of the fittest??? odd are if the SHTF 90% of westerners will die simple because they are too weak and pathetic. We woulndt have the consistency to deal with hardship of a civilization collapse.

Just like bacteria that become resistant to penicillin these indians are becoming immune to bacteria.


having said all that there is no way in hell im going to inda. you can have it lol.

India is a nice example of a country trapped in demographic trap, and when compared with neighbouring China, illustrates the need for population control measures with graphic reality. If not for their one-child policy, China would look about the same today. Anyway, this is an eye opener for those claiming that overpopulation does not exist.

reply to post by ignorancenotbliss


That's one of the problems in a nutshell. They have absolutely no regard for common things/anything shared.

reply to post by BlackPoison94


Star for you, everyone in this thread should read your post and reflect a little. There is nothing easier than to judge others from behind a computer screen, in the comfort of their western homes.

We weren't born in overcrowded slums with no access to water and plumbing. Isn't it a little superficial to say "that's so yucky, I could never live like that"? You would, if you had no other choice. 1 in every 6 people on this planet were not so lucky, and live in slums.

And then there's the cultural and religious aspect. Different cultures have different ways of dealing with death. Tibetan Buddhists perform "sky burials", where the leave their dead ones naked on a mountain top, exposed to the elements and birds of prey. Not so different from the bodies floating on the Ganges, except for the risk of contamination. It's not lack of respect for the dead, it's just a different philosophy on death, and I certainly see some beauty in it.

I've never had an interest in India or Indian culture but I think I was irritated by many of the comments.

I think perhaps they are above many in their thinking as they are not afraid of the dead. I think many of us live in a Christianity-based culture where basically death is feared and a corpse is the last thing anyone wants to see. A body is a body regardless of it's state and a decaying corpse is a completely natural thing. Admittedly, while I was not particularly moved by those images, if I saw it in person, then yes, I am certain I would feel alot differently. If the river has religious and cultural significance I can understand how they would be unperturbed by the death and decay as I imagine they equate death with life. By facing death and drinking in death they defy it? Who knows.

I think the smell would be very bad but when exposed to something for long enough it probably goes largely unnoticed. I guess if you are brought up with these conditions and don't know any better, you can't fathom that it would seem wrong or bad to an outsider.

some filthy religious thing we got here..

Originally posted by wagtail

A detachment from material things/surroundings and physical gratification?
I for one, admire them greatly - the cultural focus on the advancement of the heart, mind and spirituality - something woven inseparably into the way they live on a daily basis - and reflected in our western eyes as a squalid, poverty stricken existence... perhaps there are some things greater then our current embodiment in this form...
perhaps, but I know I would struggle in those conditions...
and who am I to judge or question?
Some of the stuff we get up to behind closed doors in our so-called 'civilized' societies these days are wretched and just as bad if not worse!

I wish some of you quasi-hippies would be real for a second. I mean, pull the other one! It's not just Westerners who would be absolutely disgusted by this. Some of the most poverty stricken people on Earth would be absolutely shocked by the vile acts of the people and nature of the location.

To spin this as some sort of Western misunderstanding or materialism is laughable.

You should take a long hard look at yourself mate. It's people like you who are responsible for such prolonged suffering by trying to brush it off as Western misunderstanding.

Cultural focus on the advancement of the heart? My a/se! India is one of the most racist nations that ever existed. Not to mention the exploitation of the poor and massive slavery.

It's vile and disgusting. And if a bunch of Western Atheists behaved and lived in such conditions you'd rightly be concerned and condemn them.