A Paradise called the West!

Materialism is probably all that reflects from a title such as the one above. But the simple joys of materialism are in flesh and blood here and they are in plenty - in this part of the world!
Which makes me wonder what exactly is that which makes the West such a nice place to visit and make some people stay forever!
Is it those wonderful faces, eveready to smile, ready to forget their worries for a moment and make you forget yours!
Or is it the wonderfully unconstrained society, where you can eat and drink only as your tastes dictate and not as your religion does?
The second question's a bit too much thought! so let's do the first one.
When was the last time you saw a landlord smile at his dalit labourer or the chaste pujari at a lower caste devotee. Here, the chap who picks up garbage does, my tutor does, even the taxi driver smiles back. (well, may be he should after charging 10 pds for a trip that would cost 80 times less in Hyd!)
So are all these people happy in their jobs? and apparently none in India are, not the least my well paid supervisor at IIT Madras from whom I had a difficult time extracting a smile! (May be he had a good reason not to, having to supervise me perhaps!)
There are grumpy people everywhere, but there seem to be more at home than here. Why's that?
Is it because of all the thinking that we do each time we run into a person - figuring out his religion, his caste, his other not so nice characteristics that we have no time to think about smiling?
I'm sure people here think of equivalent stuff when they meet someone, but they let off a smile first and do all that later. A subtle difference that can make life a lot easier ?
So the next time you're not smiling when you meet someone, check what you're thinking about!

For all I know, It doesn't cost much to smile, so why don't we smile as much ?