On my trip to Vietnam , I visited Ho Chi Minh City and then flew to Da Nang, which lies in the center of Vietnam. Da Nang had been in the news for the last ten days. It faced one of the most severe typhoons in Vietnam, 1 week before Sudhanshu and I were about to arrive. As soon as we walked out of the Da Nang airport, signs of the damage were clearly visible. For a change, the only joyous thing we see is the hundreds of children dressed in their school uniform, white shirt and red checked shorts, not more than 5 years old, walking in a straight line outside. Their teachers are with them, and just like any other school teacher, they, too, are shouting, and these children are responding. We do not understand their language, but it sucks to be in line on the road and walk towards one of the most beautiful beaches in the country. A long pole with the Vietnam flag is facing me, which has survived the typhoon somehow. But there is a bitter silence in the city that both of us can feel. I...
The division of our society is explicitly visible in the products people living within it make. A train comes with coaches divided into upper-class air-conditioned private coaches to lower-class messy and sweaty ones where people rely on air from the door and windows. This means if the train is not moving, its "AC" is not working. Buses follow a similar pattern where there are air-conditioned, high-tech Volvo buses which are often looked upon by people sitting in a lower-grade bus with hopes and desires, and often followed by abuses such as "rich brats". These lower-class buses are termed "ordinary" in the government booking portal, glorifying the fact that you cannot expect something lavish here, or to just portray that the other bus is "extraordinary". Maybe "ordinary" is an alias used for a bus but signifying the current societal status of the people sitting in it. I become "ordinary" when I sit in an "ordinary" b...