On a building site I see Indian women dressed in colourful saris who, driven on by a foreman, balance on their heads heaps of sand, cement and brick, heavy as lead, up to the next issuer of orders. And already the next pile of garbage: in the hope of rich booty a herd of cows stick their nostrils into the evil morass. In the middle of this, again a colourful sari – this time searching for something or other. Here it seems many are searching. And be it only after good Karma. Incredible India. On we go. Several cows later and richer for several succinct sensual stimuli, a large white arched gateway, similar to that of the Maharadja Palace from the monumental spectacle “The Tiger from Eshnapur” or “The Indian Monument” suddenly appears from nowhere. The text written over the palace archway informs me, that I have arrived: the SRM Institute for Science and Technology. And: that India combines all opposites in itself, that here the paradise can lie directly alongside purgatory. “For every single revelation which one meets concerning this gigantic and complicated country, the opposite can always also apply”, so says Joan Robinson from the University of Cambridge about this phenomenon.
Behind the archway begins what the western world actually only knows under the synonym “Bangalore”: the intelligence of India. Enormously motivated young people, mostly from the middle class – but nevertheless amounting to between 200 or 300 million people – studying at the 160 universities, 30 university equivalent establishments and 10 institutions of national significance, help to create the Indian boom. In this university, for example, there are faculties for all forms of natural science, engineering and economics. And: medicine. No wonder that the first AQUAMAX® wastewater treatment plant in India was, of all things, installed here. Ultimately, education and environmental awareness go together, they say. “This is the wrong way”, is the response as I ask on the campus which way leads to the wastewater treatment plant. In his best Indian English which, however, is barely made for my ear, an old man explains to me in a complicated manner that I must go around outside: back through the white archway, then right, next road right again and then straight on. The road turns out to be a sand path, the sand path to be a trap: never tread into an Indian puddle, it can be a metre deep. And the trousers ruined up to the hip. On the left, once again a building site with toiling women; on the right, again mountains of garbage, this time with children playing in it. Behind a group of simple huts, cobbled together out of wooden pegs and dried palm leaves. As I learned later, here live the building workers with their families.
In front of a multi-story building shell at the end of the sand path I recognised my companions who were waving in panic. Apparently I had taken longer than I should have. My wish to get to learn India in one go had somewhat deepened the wrinkles in their faces and had dulled the expression in their eyes. However, still friendly, “Do you like India?” “Yes, I do. It’s incredible.” Outside the monsoon season, that is between January and September, the water supplies in this region regularly come to a standstill. Precipitation and high temperatures here often allow more than just the plant world to collapse. The SRM University, a private institute with – for Indian conditions – not in- significant study fees, wanted to be protected against this and, even in dry periods, did not want to be without gorgeous displays of flowers and luscious green lawns. Only: practicable concepts for this are rare, worldwide.
