Lots of people

Monday, 7 May 2007 | Life in Asia

During my visit to India this week (second visit, many more to come) I had a meeting in a place called Ghaziabad. It was quite a ride from my hotel, but when travelling in a foreign country there is always something interesting in the scenery that passes by the car window. As was the case this time.

What struck me most is that during the hour and a half drive it seemed there was never more than perhaps a few hundred meters without houses. And I certainly (I checked) had left Delhi. I discussed this with the people I was visiting and they said I had landed in Ghaziabad, which was a very small village in their minds. Outside looked nothing like a village in my book, it was a crowded street full of honking cars, people walking, business being done, gossip exchanged, cows grazing the garbage, etc. Nothing like the quiet and serene idea I have when you think about a village. The word village takes on a whole new meaning when you look at these levels of activity, I guess you have to look at it in context.

And it all makes sense. People always go on about China having so many people, but India is almost as big (the difference is only 192 million people) with 1.1 billion people. The country is a lot smaller than China though, which means a lot more people per square kilometer. To be exact (I looked it up), India has about 3 times as many people per square kilometer than China. And when you figure that out, it starts making sense there are people everywhere you turn.