This just in from my Anglo-Indian friend John:
"For a while I thought India was the same as Brazil. I was wrong. Yes they have the same exclusive shopping malls with tacky global brands but India is more cultural. It has soul and is fiercly proud of being a democracy. Also it's handling growth better.
"In one generation my family has moved from a mud hut in a village with no electricity, toilet or running water (and I have stayed there many many, times), a place that used to take two days to reach - 150 miles by foot, rickshaw, boat, crowded bus - to a big house in a place which is reachable in just three hours. My parents now have electricity, a palatial spanish-style four-storey house, en suite bathrooms, fridge, tv, phone, Internet. The town streets are cleaner and being regenerated.
"One generation ago there were only a handful of brand-name advertisers on radio and the buses (Colgate, Wills, Britannia biscuits). Now it's like the West. Most importantly, the country has managed to grow in this short period like no other nation."
Obviously, these kind of assessments will always be prone to emotion and subjectivity. But it's interesting nevertheless. Has Brazil got soul ? Is it fiercely proud of being a democracy ? Are the favelas being transformed into properly functioning towns and suburbs ?
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