Introduction
I recently visited India for Summer Break, and I wanted to share some of the most interesting facts I learned and some of the vibrant contrasts between India and America. I went to the cities of Chennai and Tuticorin, cities in the state of Tamil Nadu. I wanted to discuss demographics, transportation, and animal life.
Demographics
As you might know, there are around 329.5 million people in America, but this is a tiny number compared to India’s population of 1.38 billion. Due to there being so many people, the people who live in India are very diverse. Although Hindi and English are the official Indian languages, my grandpa tells me that over 21 languages are spoken in India. These languages range from Hindi to Malayalam to my mother tongue, Tamil. The state that I am visiting for the duration of my trip speaks Tamil – Tamil Nadu. Some of the most commonly practiced religions in India include Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc.
Transportation
I noticed that the main forms of transportation were the auto and the motorcycles. This was because of the chaos of the roads. Many people choose to ride in autos since the drivers often have a lot of experience and can easily navigate to basically any place. Due to the auto drivers’ experience, people can often feel safer driving in an auto than driving themselves. Autos are yellow car-like vehicles that can ride between 4 and 8 people depending on the design. There are actually multiple varying designs. For example, the autos in Chennai carry less people than autos in Tuticorin since the autos in Tuticorin often drive students to school. I have also found that motorcycles are quite common. There are actually fewer cars than motorcycles, and I have seen more bicycles than motorcycles. According to the World Atlas, India is 6th in the number of households to own a motorbike. I believe that these two-wheelers are most common because of the traffic. There is often a lot of traffic, and Indian natives have perfected the art of squeezing through the maze of vehicles. I have seen many people race through the traffic only to stop, and then they immediately try to backtrack for another route. Traffic truly is a game in India.
Final Thoughts
Although there were many other observations that I made while I was on my trip, the diversity and transportation were two of the biggest things that hit me like a brick. Indian culture and lifestyle is very different from ours here in America, mainly due to the larger population, which allows for everything I talked about here. Who knows, maybe more Americans would ride motorcycles if there were more people and less road laws?
