{"id":10876,"date":"2012-03-12T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2012\/03\/12\/india-s-new-american-style\/"},"modified":"2012-03-12T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-12T12:00:00","slug":"india-s-new-american-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2012\/03\/12\/india-s-new-american-style\/","title":{"rendered":"India&#8217;s New American Style"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Description: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/03\/11\/opinion\/sunday\/how-india-became-america.html?_r=1&#038;hp&#038;pagewanted=all&#038;gwh=9A55B51F47321EB39E24961A657CDDF1\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n<p>NEW YORK, March 9, 2012 (NY Times): Recently, both Starbucks and Amazon announced that they would be entering the Indian market. Amazon has already started a comparison shopping site; Starbucks plans to open its first outlet this summer.<\/p>\n<p>I grew up in rural India, the son of an Indian father and American mother. I spent many summers (and the occasional biting, shocking winter) in rural Minnesota. I always considered both countries home. In truth, though, the India and America of my youth were very far apart: cold war adversaries, America&#8217;s capitalist exuberance a sharp contrast to India&#8217;s austere socialism. For much of my life, my two homes were literally &#8212; but also culturally, socially and experientially &#8212; on opposite sides of the planet.<\/p>\n<p>All that began changing in the early 1990s, when India liberalized its economy. Since then, I&#8217;ve watched India&#8217;s transformation with exhilaration, but occasionally, and increasingly, with some anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>More than half a century ago, R. K. Narayan, that great chronicler of India in simpler times, wrote about his travels in America. &#8220;America and India are profoundly different in attitude and philosophy,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;Indian philosophy stresses austerity and unencumbered, uncomplicated day-to-day living. America&#8217;s emphasis, on the other hand, is on material acquisition and the limitless pursuit of prosperity.&#8221; By the time I decided to return to India for good, in 2003, Narayan&#8217;s observations felt outdated. A great reconciliation had taken place; my two homes were no longer so far apart.<\/p>\n<p>This reconciliation had both tangible and intangible manifestations. Something had changed in the very spirit of the country. India is infused with an energy, a can-do ambition and an entrepreneurial spirit that I can only describe as distinctly American. <\/p>\n<p>But other things have come to India, too: pollution, crime, and a feeling of anxiety for those, like me, who are torn between celebrating and lamenting its change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Description: Source NEW YORK, March 9, 2012 (NY Times): Recently, both Starbucks and Amazon announced that they would be entering,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}