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Jackie: I've done a lot of travelling in my life but there’s one country I have not visited and that’s India and I would really, really like to do so. So for this week's podcastsinenglish.com I'm really pleased to speak to Rosie… Hi, Rosie.
Rosie: Hi, Jackie
Jackie: …who lives and works in India.
Rosie: Indeed I do.
Jackie: Now, tell me when you first moved there.
Rosie: OK. Well I first moved there to live in 2006 but like you, I had always had a desire to… to visit India and I first visited India in 1985.
Jackie: Ok
Rosie: But as I say in 2006 I was fortunate enough with my work to go to Bangalore. My work was setting up a whole new venture with young Indian people so it’s been a fantastic five years to er… to do this project.
Jackie: So going to India to actually live there for a significant amount of time and to work there, what were your initial impressions then?
Rosie: Er… one of the very first impressions that er… that I got is the sheer noise…
Jackie: Noise
Rosie: …and the number of people…
Jackie: Right
Rosie: …just everywhere and I will confess, at first I just thought, I don't know how I can live with this and it's certainly something that visitors find very overwhelming…
Jackie: Yes, yes.
Rosie: …but the other impression, sensory impression, is colour. Women in their saris, the amazing clothes, the amazing vibrancy of colour. Colour is very important in India: cultural, spiritual, religious aspects but also just the joy of colour on the streets. So whereas the noise was very disturbing, the colour is… almost balances that.
Jackie: That makes up for it.
Rosie: Yes, yes.
Jackie: What do you find most difficult about living there?
Rosie: Well, in the city where I live, Bangalore, it’s in something like fifty years it went from a population of 600,000 to anything between nine or eleven million now, because you've got a lot of transient workers and its infrastructure that doesn't… er… that has not kept up with that number of people. So traffic, traffic is the worst and er… is the most difficult thing where I live from pollution aspects, from the time it takes to get a relatively short distance. But, you know, with that growth there should have been a similar growth in methods of transportation, public transportation. That is very difficult, it has a big effect on people's lives.
Jackie: I know that you enjoy living in India so on a more positive note what… what do you think the country has in its favour?
Rosie: The people.
Jackie: The people.
Rosie: The people. The most hospitable people I have ever known. I've lived in different places as you know Jackie, cos we lived together in Africa um… wherever you go it's the people but I will say Indian people are so generous in their hospitality, they’re so welcoming.
Jackie: Fantastic
Rosie: It's the people.
Jackie: Great. India, incredible India.
Rosie: Absolutely
Jackie: Thank you very much.
Rosie: Thank you, Jackie.
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