Intro to India

I left for India on October 26. This date was chosen because my girlfriend has half of October and half of November off. In India that time period is known as Diwali, a big festival that celebrates string lights, fireworks, and train travel. This I figured out by the fact that all trains were booked, all storefronts were covered by lights on strings, and bright explosions would go off right by my face every time I went outside. And they're allowed to blow things up in people's faces because there are no rules in India. This is the first thing I noticed when traveling from the airport where my girlfriend Tori picked me up to the hotel in Bangalore where we were staying. On the road, cars did whatever they wanted, cutting people off was standard technique, speeding a necessity; I saw more than one motorcycle get up on the sidewalk to avoid a traffic jam. There are no streetlight, few street signs, and the biggest vehicle always has the right of way -which means that pedestrians yield to cars. They don't know how to use turn signals either. In a sane country, one signals for a lane change or a direction change at an intersection. In India, you use your turn signals when the road curves, as if warning the people behind that they can't go straight forever.
The next thing I noticed is the building and urban renewal practices of India. It goes to reason that when there is an obsolete building occupying valuable land in an overpopulated country that said building be either knocked down and replaced or renovated. Not so in India. They prefer to just move everything out of the building, and build a new one right next to it. So the visual effect in Bangalore where I first saw this trend is that you'll see a couple brand new, space age looking IT buildings, with air conditioning and big picture windows, right next to a concrete square, dyed brown from the pollution, windows knocked out and door bolted shut. The land management is baffling, and to think this country supports a billion people.
While we're on the topic of land, it is interesting to note that the soil in India is red; looks martian even. The reason for this is that there is an abundance of iron and aluminum oxides in the soil. Metal oxide contaminants are in many soil types, but they are especially noticeable when the soil has been leached of all nutrients, leaving the waste and unwanted oxides behind. It seems hard to believe that India can support as many people as it does with such poor soil. The two other major soil types are desert in the west and central region of Rajasthan, and mountain soil in the north. The main area of quality growing soil is, according to the soil map of India http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/india/soilsofindia.htm, in an area the size of Wisconsin and Minnesota in Maharashtra. Though I did once here a statistic that Iowa produces enough food to feed every person on earth. Indian's have done it after all, they have one billion people, and the food comes from somewhere.
I just wonder why. Why, when Indians see how overpopulated their country is, how difficult their living conditions are, how unsustainable their system is, do couples get together and say, "Well look at all these people. Lets have 50 kids."
Much of my Indian adventure was spent figuring out how India does it.