Lakshya- This too shall pass...

[Lakshya]

Recently visited India. This was my 3rd trip in the last 1.5 years. I have to take a break for some time now. As usual, I got sick for a few days. I had a very hectic trip between multiple states and cities.

Visited Bombay after many years. Their skyline looks very impressive with new roads parallel to the sea. But surprisingly, now Bombay is also stuck with pollution, and you cannot see the skyline clearly even in the afternoon with full sunlight. Saw some celebrity homes like SRK, Salman, AB, Rekha, and a few others... I doubt they are living there. They have tasted the first world; they can't live at this shitty place. It's just their symbolic home. Everyone's home looks so dated and shabby (apart from Rekha's bungalow).

Actually, Adani's home in Ahmedabad looks like someone rich is living there. I was not even aware that Adani's home is so close to my own house in Ahmedabad. The only difference between his house and my house is that my entire 4-bedroom home can fit in his main gate.

But anyway, in the entire trip, I figured out that I don't think we can live in an apartment. My wife has an attachment to her own apartment, which is in the center of the city, but even this time she thought it was overwhelming with the main road, metro, Indian Railways, and the temple all around her apartment, and she cannot take it anymore. So, for the first time, she decided that if we come during retirement for a few months, we will stay in our gated community home. Luckily, I have not sold that independent house, and with a garden on all four sides, it looks very peaceful. It's also in a new suburb of the city, and all the apartments are on the main road, but it's a small island of homes in this concrete jungle. So, let's see how it goes.

Overall, the trip was good. Visited some places in the North. North India is dirty like hell. If you remove Delhi, I see UP and UK as the third world of India. I mean, Ahmedabad is not a Tier 1 city, but you can sense that Gujarat's infrastructure has progressed well compared to other North Indian states. Bombay is too big and chaotic, and not a single area (including Taj-Nariman Point, etc.) gives you any vibe of a first-world country. I think India will be stuck between the second and third world for eternity.

Oh, I think I am bashing India... Let me stop.

[JINSAKAI]

Welcome Back Sir !!

[Returning_Indian]

I have absolutely no idea why people don't clean outside of their houses. Shopkeepers/restaurants do not care of the area outside of their boundary walls. It's full of dust, plastic wrappers, cow potty, etc etc. Municipality is just busy with corruption and laziness and filled with incompetent natives. And people just throw stuff on streets without any care in the world. It's failure all around but most of all it's a failure of basic human need to live in clean environment. I think people in India have lost that sense of cleanliness and have basically become used to living in filth.

[Lakshya]

I have absolutely no idea why people don't clean outside of their houses. Shopkeepers/restaurants do not care of the area outside of their boundary walls. It's full of dust, plastic wrappers, cow potty, etc etc. Municipality is just busy with corruption and laziness and filled with incompetent natives. And people just throw stuff on streets without any care in the world. It's failure all around but most of all it's a failure of basic human need to live in clean environment. I think people in India have lost that sense of cleanliness and have basically become used to living in filth.

I have heard that Indore city is clean. Even my city, Ahmedabad, is relatively clean, where garbage pickup trucks come door-to-door to collect garbage, just like in the US. And I have seen Surat, which is even better than Ahmedabad. So, if there is political will, you can fix many problems. But that's not true for the rest of Gujarat and maybe for India. (I can't comment on the South, but the South is always relatively cleaner compared to the North.) Even when you see SRK's house in Bombay and just drive 3-4 minutes, you feel like you are in Africa! I mean, SRK is living almost next to a dumpster.

People are taking a bath in the Holy River Ganga right now, including the Prime Minister, not realizing that it is the #1 polluted river in the world today. My guess is that people have not seen cleanliness from childhood, so they have accepted living in filth for their entire lives. I mean, Bombay real estate is the most expensive in India and may be close to Tokyo. But what do you get once you get out of your apartment? The roads outside my home are far better than the roads outside Amitabh Bachchan's house.

Sometimes I wonder how people settle back home after living abroad for a long time. These are the basic things. Not sure what they miss in the West that they do this big trade-off.

[SAPPORO]

I have absolutely no idea why people don't clean outside of their houses. Shopkeepers/restaurants do not care of the area outside of their boundary walls. It's full of dust, plastic wrappers, cow potty, etc etc. Municipality is just busy with corruption and laziness and filled with incompetent natives. And people just throw stuff on streets without any care in the world. It's failure all around but most of all it's a failure of basic human need to live in clean environment. I think people in India have lost that sense of cleanliness and have basically become used to living in filth.

I have heard that Indore city is clean. Even my city, Ahmedabad, is relatively clean, where garbage pickup trucks come door-to-door to collect garbage, just like in the US. And I have seen Surat, which is even better than Ahmedabad. So, if there is political will, you can fix many problems. But that's not true for the rest of Gujarat and maybe for India. (I can't comment on the South, but the South is always relatively cleaner compared to the North.) Even when you see SRK's house in Bombay and just drive 3-4 minutes, you feel like you are in Africa! I mean, SRK is living almost next to a dumpster.

People are taking a bath in the Holy River Ganga right now, including the Prime Minister, not realizing that it is the #1 polluted river in the world today. My guess is that people have not seen cleanliness from childhood, so they have accepted living in filth for their entire lives. I mean, Bombay real estate is the most expensive in India and may be close to Tokyo. But what do you get once you get out of your apartment? The roads outside my home are far better than the roads outside Amitabh Bachchan's house.

Sometimes I wonder how people settle back home after living abroad for a long time. These are the basic things. Not sure what they miss in the West that they do this big trade-off.

Another way to look at it is the filth around justifies the price of the expensive RE, especially the 'gated' communities! A similar-sized apartment in a gated community a few meters away is at least 5 times the price of mine in Bangalore. All I have seen those gated community guards do is to ward off the stray dogs, maybe that's critical for the rich
I was quite impressed with cleanliness in Surat during my transit for a few hours on the way to Ahmedabad for the 2023 World cup final.

[Returning_Indian]

I have heard that Indore city is clean. Even my city, Ahmedabad, is relatively clean, where garbage pickup trucks come door-to-door to collect garbage, just like in the US. And I have seen Surat, which is even better than Ahmedabad. So, if there is political will, you can fix many problems. But that's not true for the rest of Gujarat and maybe for India. (I can't comment on the South, but the South is always relatively cleaner compared to the North.) Even when you see SRK's house in Bombay and just drive 3-4 minutes, you feel like you are in Africa! I mean, SRK is living almost next to a dumpster.

People are taking a bath in the Holy River Ganga right now, including the Prime Minister, not realizing that it is the #1 polluted river in the world today. My guess is that people have not seen cleanliness from childhood, so they have accepted living in filth for their entire lives. I mean, Bombay real estate is the most expensive in India and may be close to Tokyo. But what do you get once you get out of your apartment? The roads outside my home are far better than the roads outside Amitabh Bachchan's house.

Sometimes I wonder how people settle back home after living abroad for a long time. These are the basic things. Not sure what they miss in the West that they do this big trade-off.

I find Delhi to be much much cleaner than Gurgaon even though Gurgaon is much richer than Delhi in terms of tax collection and economy. But municipality of Gurgaon is filled with corrupt jats of Haryana. Probably from villages around. They lack basic sense of running a municipality. Some IAS sitting at the top comes with a vision of cleaning up Gurgaon and never accomplishes it. While Delhi is able to manage it relatively much better. And then there are people who just throw shit everywhere. Beer cans and chips packets are not walking themselves to side of the footpath. Then there are stray animals like cows and dogs and their dump. Ideally, municipality workers should clean streets on daily basis but for some reason they don't.

But God forbid you park your car somewhere you are not authorised and it will be towed away in a jiffy. So they can pick up cars and two wheelers but not trash.

Living in gated community does help as I don't have to go out. It's quite big society with one round around the towers to be little over 1km. Its self contained with pools, gym, tennis courts, badminton, temple, doctors clinic, store etc inside. School bus comes infront of the gate. Delivery people save me from going anywhere. Whenever I go out of society it's in car. From home to malls etc. So I don't encounter the dirt/trash physically but I still see it on streets while driving and that just bothers me. Sometimes I feel I should pick jhadu myself and start cleaning. There are areas in Gurgaon which are much cleaner and have lot more trees as they are around 20yr old areas. They have independent houses but it's too expensive to even think of going there. Each house is in range of 50-100cr. It's the newer areas where trees have not grown fully and system of cleaning is not set up yet. Unfortunately, in my budget I have to live in these areas.

Sometimes I wish someone should grab all these dogs and cows and leave them in the areas where Maenka and the supreme court judge who passed the ruling lives. Let them have all the love. There are people in our society who feed these strays, prepare clothing for them for winter, make videos if someone tries to shoo them and send it Maenka Gandhi organisation and file FIRs.

[nodegree]

...
They have independent houses but it's too expensive to even think of going there. Each house is in range of 50-100cr.
...

Who lives in those areas with that kind of money? 100cr for a Single Family Home is unfathomable.

[Returning_Indian]

...
They have independent houses but it's too expensive to even think of going there. Each house is in range of 50-100cr.
...

Who lives in those areas with that kind of money? 100cr for a Single Family Home is unfathomable.

virat kohli has a house there, for reference. But it's not a celebrity area. It's normal rich people of south Delhi who bought land there at the right time when Gurgaon was starting back in 2001. To be fair land parcel with each house is quite big around 1000 sq yard and they are four storey houses. And these areas are on famous golf course road, which is probably most filmed street after Marine drive. Don't know who buys now at these prices. But I guess there are wealthy people, one person bought a flat in Gurgaon for 190cr. And each flat in that society is over 100cr. I don't understand what they do to get this kind of money. I suppose they are not looking to FIRE.

My orthodentist has her clinic there. It's so well built and so luxurious with all the fancy equipments, lights etc. I don't think I have ever visited any such fancy dentist place in my life, around the world. Every month I have to go there with my son and it's the same dialog from my son saying, I wish we could live in those kothis. Makes me remind of those movies where some guy on cycle is riding with son on back seat and salivating the middle class neighbourhood and wishing how they could live there. Makes me feel like a presswala or autorickshawala.

Lakshya's house in Ahmedabad is probably in one such areas of the city, Navrangpura. And must be worth a lot.

[Lakshya]

...
They have independent houses but it's too expensive to even think of going there. Each house is in range of 50-100cr.
...

Who lives in those areas with that kind of money? 100cr for a Single Family Home is unfathomable.

virat kohli has a house there, for reference. But it's not a celebrity area. It's normal rich people of south Delhi who bought land there at the right time when Gurgaon was starting back in 2001. To be fair land parcel with each house is quite big around 1000 sq yard and they are four storey houses. And these areas are on famous golf course road, which is probably most filmed street after Marine drive. Don't know who buys now at these prices. But I guess there are wealthy people, one person bought a flat in Gurgaon for 190cr. And each flat in that society is over 100cr. I don't understand what they do to get this kind of money. I suppose they are not looking to FIRE.

My orthodentist has her clinic there. It's so well built and so luxurious with all the fancy equipments, lights etc. I don't think I have ever visited any such fancy dentist place in my life, around the world. Every month I have to go there with my son and it's the same dialog from my son saying, I wish we could live in those kothis. Makes me remind of those movies where some guy on cycle is riding with son on back seat and salivating the middle class neighbourhood and wishing how they could live there. Makes me feel like a presswala or autorickshawala.

Lakshya's house in Ahmedabad is probably in one such areas of the city, Navrangpura. And must be worth a lot.

Not my home, but a place I grew up, and my parents' house is not too far from Navrangpura. It's on Satellite Road. Both of my neighbours are ultra-rich. One is a well-known doctor, and the other is in the big sari business. This time, I saw that they have a total of seven cars for each house. So, a total of fourteen cars. Not a single car is Indian, and all are high-end luxury cars. Our parents' home is in the middle of these two houses. Forget about luxury cars, I only had some shitty old e-scooter of my nephew, who now moved to the US for higher studies and wasn't charging properly. If Lakshya had 100 crores of property, he would not be sitting in the US.

[Returning_Indian]

Who lives in those areas with that kind of money? 100cr for a Single Family Home is unfathomable.

virat kohli has a house there, for reference. But it's not a celebrity area. It's normal rich people of south Delhi who bought land there at the right time when Gurgaon was starting back in 2001. To be fair land parcel with each house is quite big around 1000 sq yard and they are four storey houses. And these areas are on famous golf course road, which is probably most filmed street after Marine drive. Don't know who buys now at these prices. But I guess there are wealthy people, one person bought a flat in Gurgaon for 190cr. And each flat in that society is over 100cr. I don't understand what they do to get this kind of money. I suppose they are not looking to FIRE.

My orthodentist has her clinic there. It's so well built and so luxurious with all the fancy equipments, lights etc. I don't think I have ever visited any such fancy dentist place in my life, around the world. Every month I have to go there with my son and it's the same dialog from my son saying, I wish we could live in those kothis. Makes me remind of those movies where some guy on cycle is riding with son on back seat and salivating the middle class neighbourhood and wishing how they could live there. Makes me feel like a presswala or autorickshawala.

Lakshya's house in Ahmedabad is probably in one such areas of the city, Navrangpura. And must be worth a lot.

Not my home, but a place I grew up, and my parents' house is not too far from Navrangpura. It's on Satellite Road. Both of my neighbours are ultra-rich. One is a well-known doctor, and the other is in the big sari business. This time, I saw that they have a total of seven cars for each house. So, a total of fourteen cars. Not a single car is Indian, and all are high-end luxury cars. Our parents' home is in the middle of these two houses. Forget about luxury cars, I only had some shitty old e-scooter of my nephew, who now moved to the US for higher studies and wasn't charging properly. If Lakshya had 100 crores of property, he would not be sitting in the US.

Ok ok. We understand you are 10cr short of 100. Such humble people these gujjus I tell you.