About my recent trip to Hubli (India)

I’m in Hubli, India, the second largest city in the state of Karnataka after Bangalore, with only 1.4 million inhabitants. The streets are partially unpaved, there are no sidewalks, traffic is disordered but moving, there are cows everywhere, many colors, kind people, and lots of children. A very new university is full of young people dreaming of futures in IT in big cities. The poverty after 20+ years since my first visit is still stunning, but I don’t see any more beggars. Start-up incubators proliferate like mushrooms. Everyone has a smartphone, even if the villages 30 km from the city center seem unchanged; there’s nothing by the sound of ringtones. As always, India gives me joy and anguish. India is improving, but it’s never enough to reassure me that it will become a great country with a large market. India’s GDP is more or less the same as Italy’s, but it has a population of 1.4 billion! How many irresolvable contradictions, I can never take stock of the situation when I come to India! Who knows if they’ll be able to create jobs for all these young people entering the market. They, however, believe it, they study hard, move fast, work hard, they chit chat but they’re punctual (I had never in my life seen a punctual Indian), and they are proud of the ground they’ve covered. But the fucking smartphones are all made in China!!!