A Dust Over India
Its the attitude. And its not because of 'jugaad' as quite a  few other comments make here. Its because of another attitude called 'chalta hai' attitude. Which simply means 'even <i>this</i> is Okay'.<p>The reason for this attitude, I think, is because of being one of the oldest civilizations. Which is a fact, and often it used as a ego-massage and as a strong point in several discussions.<p>The point to note is that <i>this building</i> was built thousands of years ago, and is in a natural state of decay.<p>On the other hand, a country like US being a country of migrants was forced to start everything on a relatively clean state. So sort of a natural call to action - to build their lives.<p>If one takes anecdotal examples of families one may know of, one will see that the best ones in the families move on to a different place. The laggards are left behind.<p>One idea, comes to me as I write this, is what if we just ask people from two nearby villages, to just move their huts and belongings to the other village, and vice versa. Will it bring about any change in the attitude?