A Little Perspective?

There are many bad things about having friends who live, literally, in every corner of the world (US, Canada, UK, Sweden, S.Korea, Australia, Africa)

• Sending Christmas cards becomes a freaking expensive affair!
• I don't get to meet them very often (if at all).
• Time differences (Alva invariably wakes me up from deep sleep whenever she calls, I love you still :P)
  
• Its hard to always keep up with their lives.
  

But, on the flipside there are also good things:

• They send presents! (Sushi sent me cow socks and stuffy animal!!)
• They bring chocolates! (They just don't make good chocolate in India, except the home-made stuff from Ooty... mmmmdelicious!)
• You get to show-off how your post always has colourful stamps from different countries! :P
• International phone calls (receiving, not making -- too expensive for me and we're not yet that advanced in the fancy cheap phonecard business yet.)
• Perspective.

Yesterday, I went out to coffee and dinner with a good school-friend (Orville) who studies in Warrick University in the UK. I met him almost exactly after a year and it was so great catching up (and he brought chocolates and gifts from Sushi, another friend who lives in London)! Anyway, so we talked about a lot of things, caught up on what's been happening in our lives and I spent a lot of time complaining about the many many difficult things we have to face in Bombay every single day. You see, the last month has probably been the most difficult for us. It started with the terror-attacks on the 26th of last month which obviously shook us up and brought many many many questions to the forefront. Why did it happen? Why did it go on for so long? Why do our leaders seem so apathetic? Why were we not better prepared for this sort of thing?
Questions we've definitely asked before but after this it all sort of came gushing out, you know?
Anyway, so here I was complaining about all this to poor Orville who's just come for a few days holiday and then he says, "Well you know, no place is perfect, I mean every country has its problems."
Oh, I was almost... offended? Don't compare INDIA'S problems to the UK's!!! We have sooo many problems that you don't even know where to start, you have no IDEA!
And then he says, okay, so India might win in number of problems but there still ARE problems in other developed countries and he gives me some examples... Drug issues, Night crime, People who get PAID to go to school and yet the govt. struggles to actually get these people to go because they're simply not interested, Kids who have parents above 60 and 70 years old and no siblings and feel no emotional connection towards them or anyone really, Obesity.
I was stumped. Ok, so maybe the problems are not so obvious but they are there. But why? The problem is not with any particular type of government or corruption or whatever... Yes, they are part of the problem, but really the problems lies in mankind itself. Our own hearts. What else remains common between human beings all across the world? The manifestations of evil simply change with time, society, context, etc...
So maybe its time to stop complaining and pointing the finger. Maybe its time to introspect. Maybe its time to admit that there might in fact be a problem with ME and how I think about right/wrong, the purpose of life, and, dare I say it, God.

Perspective. I'd like to know what you think.

P.s. Am travelling to Nagpur today to spend the 10-day break at an uncle's place. Please pray for my dad, he fell down the stairs and hurt his foot and is now in a cast. He has to travel (to Nagpur from B'lore) on the 25th so he could really do with some prayer.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!