Homesick

Today I'm very homesick. I miss a lot of things about home...
I miss its organization, cleanliness, my car, cakes, cupcakes, ice cream, friends, family...but I think the thing I miss the most is honesty and the value of integrity.

The first few months, I really enjoyed feeling like I belong here...mainly b/c I'm brown, know their language and culture and they don't differentiate me from them. They have a good understanding of who I am, my religious culture, etc. I can find a place to pray anywhere without being questioned and I can wear a scarf without being stared down.

Today I realize that my people are where I came from...I am American and I love that. The values that we hold are generally moral. We have our quirks and problems and our criminals but we have a system set up to enforce a general feeling of trust, security and justice. I'm not saying it's perfect and that we have it down but I think we are ahead of a lot of the East which is why I think we are generally better off than the rest of the world.

Recently, we've come face to face with the bitter realities of India: dishonesty. Our driver, Bhaskar was a guy we thought was the greatest driver in the world. He was so helpful, would go out of his way to help us out. Nice person to talk to, and we thought he was trustworthy....but recently he's been acting up and it's disappointing and heartbreaking.

Last week, he asked us for a salary...saying his previous client used to give him a certain amount every month in addition to the salary he gets from the company. After doing a little research, we find out that his previous client was a tight fisted millionaire...

A few weekends back we were thinking about going to Kerala to check it out. We thought we'd ask him what he thought of it...and he denied ever going there. This weekend, he took a long weekend off to go there to climb a mountain (a religious rite apparently), he says he does this every year.

A couple days ago, we found out he's been tallying our mileage double of what we used. We got an email from the guy in charge of transportation, Asif had a talk with him and apparently he went way over and that type of mileage is impossible if you hardly use the car. He gets paid by mileage supposedly.

Yup, I hope the list won't go on...but I will keep listing b/c it's just interesting to me. I don't understand how these people work and why they do what they do. The economic gap is very apparent here... and Bangalore is increasingly expensive...but I still feel that that's no excuse to let oneself cheat another for his own benefit. Regardless of the situation, honesty brings success whether its monetary or even that peaceful sense of satisfaction that you're getting things right.

Hope we all tread that path...