He’s deciding on new TV; others bathe in soup water

I’ve been complaining a lot lately, and indulge me if I define “lately” as including the period from the spring of 1971 up to and including last night when a friend phoned in the middle of “Chinatown.” Some people.

I realize friends get tired of hearing about my problems, but it just so happens that their constant pleading with me to shut up is another one of my complaints.

At the moment, though, I’m having some second thoughts. I’m feeling a weird wave of something that adults might call “perspective.” In other circles, it’s described as liberal guilt. I’m so guilty that when I tell people where I live, I quickly add that it’s “in the poor part of Newport Beach.” Which means the apartment complex was built in the ‘70s.

My reality checks have come from opposite sides of the globe. The first was a story by the Times’ David Kelly that described a mobile home park in Riverside County where wild dogs scavenge garbage piles and a 9-year-old bathes in water his mother uses to cook frijoles.

A few days ago, I was complaining because all six washing machines in the building nearest to me sat full for 30 minutes, forcing me to wait to do my laundry.

The second source of enlightenment came from my cousin, who was on business in Mumbai, India, and sent a series of dispatches to friends and relatives. The city, formerly known as Bombay, is considered emergent on the world scene but my cousin still had some sobering observations.

“Today I went to the firm where we are training people to assist us with the project. The distance from the hotel was about 15 miles. The drive took 1 1/2 hours but only because we left early to avoid traffic. Otherwise, the driving time is about three hours ... Drivers do anything they can to gain an inch, so following at 2 to 3 inches is common. There are no lanes marked ... Going over a curb or sidewalk to pass is no problem.”

The other night I groused when a bit of traffic resulted in me needing 80 minutes to drive from Orange County to Glendale, a 50-mile drive that normally takes an hour.

My biggest problem these days is deciding whether to switch from cable to satellite TV and, as part of that same vexing deliberation, whether to pop for a big-screen to replace my 27-incher.

As I mull that this weekend, here’s another observation from my cousin’s travels around Mumbai: “There are animals everywhere. Common to see dogs lying in areas by the road. I don’t know how they survive, but I’m told animals are sacred and you watch out for them. There are cows wandering through the streets.”

While I can walk to Fashion Island from my apartment, my cousin notes: “We saw several naked people. Not always children. Several relieving themselves.”

I complain to my apartment managers that rains have stained my ceiling.

Meanwhile over in Thermal, Kelly reported that in one stretch of 300 tightly packed trailers, “it’s often hard to tell an abandoned scrap heap from a home.”

Have you ever complained about a cab driver? My cousin writes: “Our driver pulled over near some marshy area that I took to be rice fields. I got the camera out and was ready to shoot when we saw that the driver was relieving himself at the side of the car.”

My cousin wrote later that a traveling companion says Mumbai has made tremendous strides in recent years. Like the country as a whole, it is striving to redefine itself.

Here at home, I’ve been complaining lately to friends about the direction America is taking and why nothing -- from institutions to the social order -- seems to function as well as it once did. These complaints come as I’m sitting in my rocker, looking out over a tranquil grassy area in the complex and trying to decide whether to watch TV, listen to a CD or take a walk to the ocean.

“One other thing,” my cousin writes to conclude one e-mail, “When the trains are full, it’s OK to sit on the roof. I asked our host if people ever fall off. They said deaths from this are reported daily.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.