10 years ago I gave a presentation of my year in India

1. Namaste!
Namaste
My India
25.10.2002
Reetta Koski

2. I had heard about country which was calling me with its beuty

3. There’s nothing that can prepare you to face India..
There’s nothing that can prepare you to face India..

4. …it’ll blow your mind of anyway

5. India is huge concept with its
geograpichal size, clamour
and diversity.

6. Nothing in the country is ever what you expect, and the only thing
to expect is the unexpected which comes in many forms and will
always want to sit next to you.

7. Father of the Indian nation
Mahatma Gandhi
1869 - 1948
Spiritual and political leader and
humanitarian
Gandhi became one of the most respected spiritual and political leaders of
the 1900's. He helped free the Indian people from British rule through non-
violent resistance. Indian people called Gandhi Mahatma, meaning Great
Soul.
“Generations to come will scarce believe that such
a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood.”
- Albert Einstein about Gandhi

8. General information
- Capital city: New Delhi
- Republic since 1947
- Population: 1,014,003,817
- Population of cows: 200 million

9. - Religion: 80% Hindu, 14% Muslim, 2.4% Christian, 2% Sikh, 0.7% Buddhist, 0.5%
Jains, 0.4% other
- Languages : 18 officially recognized languages and over 340 regional dialects
- Literacy: 66% male, 38% female
Literacy

10. - More than one third of the population lives in poverty
- 95 % of marriages are arranged
- Rate of divorces 2%

11. First of all, you’re never alone in India
You’re never alone in India

12. Every minute 31 new Indians are born

13. In India there are more people than in South- and
North-America and Australia alltogether
Every seventh person on the earth is Indian

14. My India is made of….
...friendly and kind people who are
always ready to help you
Hospitality of Indian people is
something that western people
might be hard to understand and
accept

15. My India is made of…
… thousends of year old culture with its traditions
Kathakali is one of the oldest theatre
forms in the world. Dance drama has a
unique combination of literature, music,
painting, acting and dance.

16. Hindu wedding
Traditional
Hindu
wedding
ceremonies
can last for
several days
and involve
much ritual in
Sanskrit which
may be
understood
only by the
priest
conducting the
service.
A day before the wedding the garbha is celebrated. This celebration is full
of fun. Hundreds of people dance around leading singers.

17. My India is made of….
...spices
masala!
”No hurry, rice and
curry!”

18. My India is made of….
…colours
Holy color, tikka, which is
used in worship
Holi, the festival of colors,
when people throw colors on
the street

19. My India is made of…. religions and gods
There are over 330 million gods and
goddess in Hinduism.
In every Hindu home there is an
altar

20. My India is made of….
… monks and saddhus
Hanuman monk
Tibetan monks
Saddhus

21. Imagine what it would be to
dedicate your whole life to one
God. This Hanuman monk lived
in a small grave in mountains and
all he owned was those figures of
the Hanuman God.

22. My India is made of….
… beautiful, historical buildings with lot of details
Jain temple
Agra

23. Taj Mahal is said to be the most beautiful building in the world. Seat of
the Mugal Empire, by Shah Jehan for his wife (1630-1650)

24. My India is made of….
...laughing children full of joy of living
Nirav, 4-year-old boy
living in a temple
Village kids

25. My India is made of….
Traffic which includes rikshaws,
scooters, mopeds, cows, dogs,
camels, bycycles, goats and cars
moving to every directions And
the only rule is: Don’t look
back!
Rikshaws driving children
to school

26. Railwaystation in Mumbai
Trains are so full that part of the people are hunging outside of the train. You must
start preparing to get out at least 3 stations earlier.

27. Just in case that the railwaystation happens to catch fire…
….Three buckets of water and three buckets of sand

28. Beggars
Recycling the garbish..

29. Imagine after riding camel 20 km from the nearest road, in the
desert in the middle of nowhere, you find a village of 30 people
who prefers to live as tribal.
The house of a tribal family

30. Tribals
Tribals prefer staying isolated of the outside world. Their way of living is
very basic and simple and would appear to us as rather primitive. Children
do not go to school and the literacy level is therefore 0%.

31. Tribals don’t know much
about outside world. Because
they are unaware of their
basic human rights they are
easy target for exploitation. In
the tribal villages people are
’bonded labourers’ and
landlord takes everything out
of the village people.

32. Tribals
The entire family goes to field for agriculture labour, including children of 6 years on
For a day work (upto 12 hours) acriculture labour earns no more than INR 20-30 (0,6€).
Law prohibits bonded labour since 1976 and
provides minimum wage for agriculture labour but
it is rarely paid
Due to lack of information about social and
economical conditions of tribals, government
normally does not give them help in ways of
government schemes. But government not only
does make an effort to learn about them, but is
often unwilling to accept presented information as
well.

33. In India caste system has been prevailing since ages. It has divided Indian
society in several groups, which are, according to status in this system, treated
differently.

34. Caste system
Castesystem was banned in 1950,
but due to its religious base it it very
difficult to banish in a Hindu
dominated society. Nowadays in the
cities the castesystem may not be so
prevalent anymore, but one only has
to open the Matrimonial page of the
Sunday Times to know that it is still
there.

35. Religious violence
In addition to the conflict in Kashmir, religious violence between Hindus and
Muslims in the state of Gujarat has claimed more than 1000 lives since February
2002. People died on the streets, shops, restaurants and houses were burning and
we had curfew for a long time.
This muslim man lost his
business and there’s no
guarantee that he won’t
get anything back. His
shop used to be full of
colorful sarees.

36. Religious violence
Back to daily life after the
riots. Scenes from the old
city.
In this street there used to be ice
cream barlours and juice bars

37. Travelling around India
India varies a great deal from one state to another

38. Travelling around India
A man doing laundry waiting for the sheets to get dry in the
front of the lake palace in Jaipur

39. Travelling around India
The deserts of Jaisalmer

40. Travelling around India
Wildlife
Backwaters of Kerala

41. Travelling around India
From south to north, dream beaches in
Goa and snowpoints of Himalayan

42. Travelling around India Getting new experiences

43. Travelling around
India

44. I left part of my heart in Mac Loudgunj in the Mountains,
where Dalai Lama and a lot of Tibetan refugees live.

46. Trainee life
• Getting new friends, sharing, adapting
• Learning different cultures
• Parties, weekend trips

47. Trainee life
Friends all over the world

48. Trainee life
Cooking with trainee family
Socializing with local people

49. Trainee life
Weekend trips

50. Trainee life
... having a traineeship ; transfering your formal knowledge to real life, learning new
methods My NGO Quality Circle Forum of India

51. More you think you know about this country
you realize how less you actually know

52. Comparing India and Finland – Like day and night
The population of India is 200 times the population of Finland, but
the size of the country is only 10 times the size of Finland
We might consider Finland inequality, but in India it’s in whole new
dimension! The lunch of a rich person might cost the same than
casteless poor people spend on meals for the whole year. What is
the floor in Finland is often the roof in India, but it also can be
other way round- Finnish Jorma Ollila is nothing compared to
Indian maharadza.

53. Dil chata hai!

54. Some of the photos were take by
my favourite travelling buddy,
Renato and my room mates,
Poliana and Martin.
Thanks dudes! Avjo!
Chale chalo!