I've been done reading Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation for about a week now. I still haven't posted a book review on KnowProSE.com yet simply because there's a lot that I had to think through. The book itself isn't complicated, but a good book makes one look around with new eyes - and Nilekani did not disappoint. Thus, to do a circumspect and thorough review I wanted to put that into context for the review. It would be questionable in the book review itself - but it's something I'm compelled to write about.

India

I'm part East Indian by way of some adventurous ancestors on my father's side who thought coming to Trinidad and Tobago was an opportunity, if even for a while, for them to better themselves. I have no idea why they made the decision; I could romanticize it somehow but I believe that better left to Bollywood - which I avoid. That said, I got exposed to Indian culture in the Trinidad and Tobago sense; when I left Trinidad and Tobago and went to an Indian restaraunt I was disappointed with everything except Tandoori chicken and aloo rotis. Oh, and naan. Love naan.

The idea here is that as a member of the diaspora, I'm almost as far removed from India as anyone else outside of India. Generations of slow shifts in East Indian culture conspired with an European mix to make my ancestry independent of a nation. I don't identify as an Indian but I don't deny it. Even so, India is an interesting area of the world - now a country - with a lot contributed and after a hiatus, more to contribute.

I've been re-reading Vince Poscente's The Age of Speed: Learning to Thrive in a More-Faster-Now World (2007) while juggling my time between virtual worlds, real world land management in an agricultural area, and dealing with third world bureaucracy in Trinidad and Tobago. It is interesting to read the book in these contexts, to say the least.

Consider - a few days ago I pulled off from a light in a Mazda 2.5L Turbo diesel 4x4, and a newer Toyota HiLux 3L 4x4 Turbo diesel pulled away from me as if I were standing still. The truth is that on Trinidad roads, it doesn't really matter because traffic and potholes tend to balance everything - some people think it is smart to lower their cars, but they grind to a halt at the slightest bump in the road. There is a balance that is struck with vehicles, and I'm more fond of a durable vehicle in Trinidad than a fast vehicle. But here was another durable vehicle that was faster (and had more low end torque). This prompted an animated discussion with a friend last night about the price of such vehicles. When it is all said and done, while I am managing the land I may well get such a vehicle because I can use the low end torque in 4x4 Low for getting around off the agricultural paths (with the right tires, of course) - but the first seduction was not that.

The first seduction was speed.

So I'm up late - probably as late as usual - but I spent a good portion of the evening running the pump so that it can fill the water tanks. In the richest country of the Caribbean, where I am sitting here writing and doing work with synthetic worlds ('virtual' worlds), where I do web programming and other things... here, I have to wait and see when water is provided on the main and make sure that the tanks are filled because... one never knows with certainty when one will have water on the mainline again.

A country where oil is pumped out of the ground, sold to Europe. A country where men, like those pictured, wander around like lost children to open and close valves on pipes placed under roads in the 1950s. The roads have been paved for every election that I can remember. After every repaving of the roads, the Water and Sewage Authority (WASA) comes by and excavates the new road so that they can replace pieces of the water pipes. Whether the water is potable is always a question. But we have water, unlike so many places in the world that do not. The desalination plant in South Trinidad produces 80% of the water for San Fernando, Trinidad - or so I am told.

Oil is pumped out of the ground in pipes.