I for Imperfection

Almost two years ago I moved to Paris. I thought it would have been the most inspiring place for a wannabe writer, but it turned out to be a little too wonderful to be written about. There is a mistake, I discovered, in the syllogism at the basis of my happiness: I love living in places that I find – at some level – perfect. I want to write. I can only write about imperfect places.
Well then, if Paris would do for the living part, Delhi is doing for the writing.

India is the land of imperfection. Everything, from small to large scale, is built in a way that isn’t quite right. On the floor of every room there is at least one tile that is not cut straight, the baseboard always is too short and leaves a empty inch in the corner, the steps are not of the same size, the broom handle is too short and forces you to bend your back to clean (causing rapid and severe ache), the hole they drill in your wall is – always, always! – too big for the light fixture, the mattress slightly too small for the bed. And so on, and so forth.

I’m actually being a bit unfair here, because not everything is like that. It is just everything that tries to be western that is not done quite right. Traditional stuff works fine, it has done so for centuries, and one should be happy to stick with it. The problem is that this New India thing is out there, with all the promises of western-like development that it carries along, and it is just very hard not to try and get what you are used to. It will – no exceptions here – turn to be just looking like what you are used to, and so you will constantly end up very, very disappointed.

I tried to understand the reason behind this incapacity of being exact when it comes to “westernized” stuff, and the only explanation I could think of has its roots way back when the Brits were still around.

When India was a colony, western stuff would somehow be cool, because it would belong to the boss, it would be what the boss liked, and everyone always wants what the boss likes. As the British finally let the country free, people kept liking what the old boss liked, and, now that they could, they begun making it by themselves for themselves.
Copying.

Which is way everything always looks like a counterfeit bag: the general shape is ok, and it looks authentic, but you can’t ask for refined details.