I started this blog series with an article about the unique experience of buying clothes in India https://ignitedds.com/app/pages/view/fmmrtskfn90 . A particularly jarring experience was th Bombay Market in Surat, Gujarat. Surat is the city that is the leading textile producer and vendor in India which is saying something... Indian textiles are a HUGE part of the Indian economy. There is a “wholesale” vendor market in Surat called Bombay Market.
Imagine a warehouse about double the size of your average Costco filled with 1000 different small clothing stores. Yes, you read that right…. One thousand. There are endless aisles of gullies with stores cramped on either side that you weave in and out of to visit each shop. So naturally the shops are TINY. The average shop is probably about a 500 sq foot room with three stories (they went up because up was the only place to go). The staircases to go from story to story pivot straight up and feel like climbing a sleep mountain that winds in on itself.
India is like this everywhere. The country is about five times the size of Texas with a billion + more people. The population density is 382 people per sq kilometer. By comparison, the population density of the USA is 33 people per sq km. There is little space and a lot of people vying for that space. The resources are limited, no matter which resource that is.
Electricity goes out for 8 hour increments because powering a billion people is a challenge. Drinking water is still not plumbed into all villages. Education is a resource that the wealthy get preferential access to. It made me realize just how much infrastructure I take for granted.
But in these 500 sq foot shops, a single foot is not wasted. The ground is layered with cushions and is the place we view the clothes, the place the bill is processed and the place where the owners do their inventory and paperwork. In a single room which is smaller than the average kitchen, they fit upwards of 20 customers who are shopping. The walls double as shelves and store their entire inventory, sky high to the ceiling which doubles as a floor to an addition. In India, the land of scarcity, nothing goes to waste.
How many times have I walked in to a potential dental practice and found it cramped? Or tossed something I have used a few times because it was not “usable” anymore? Too many to count. And, in the land of limited resources, I felt guilty. I was bowled over by this sense of using my means to do the most possible, for trying out of the box solutions to fix a scarcity issue.
So I ask you today, how far can you go with the resources you have now, no matter how short they seem? Because the resources you have now are treasures someone else yearns for.
Imagine a warehouse about double the size of your average Costco filled with 1000 different small clothing stores. Yes, you read that right…. One thousand. There are endless aisles of gullies with stores cramped on either side that you weave in and out of to visit each shop. So naturally the shops are TINY. The average shop is probably about a 500 sq foot room with three stories (they went up because up was the only place to go). The staircases to go from story to story pivot straight up and feel like climbing a sleep mountain that winds in on itself.
India is like this everywhere. The country is about five times the size of Texas with a billion + more people. The population density is 382 people per sq kilometer. By comparison, the population density of the USA is 33 people per sq km. There is little space and a lot of people vying for that space. The resources are limited, no matter which resource that is.
Electricity goes out for 8 hour increments because powering a billion people is a challenge. Drinking water is still not plumbed into all villages. Education is a resource that the wealthy get preferential access to. It made me realize just how much infrastructure I take for granted.
But in these 500 sq foot shops, a single foot is not wasted. The ground is layered with cushions and is the place we view the clothes, the place the bill is processed and the place where the owners do their inventory and paperwork. In a single room which is smaller than the average kitchen, they fit upwards of 20 customers who are shopping. The walls double as shelves and store their entire inventory, sky high to the ceiling which doubles as a floor to an addition. In India, the land of scarcity, nothing goes to waste.
How many times have I walked in to a potential dental practice and found it cramped? Or tossed something I have used a few times because it was not “usable” anymore? Too many to count. And, in the land of limited resources, I felt guilty. I was bowled over by this sense of using my means to do the most possible, for trying out of the box solutions to fix a scarcity issue.
So I ask you today, how far can you go with the resources you have now, no matter how short they seem? Because the resources you have now are treasures someone else yearns for.