So, time to kill and another
newsletter. Last I wrote, I had just come back to India from Sri Lanka. By the
way, I should give you a yoga warning, yoga is described from a first hand point
of view later in this e-mail.
After arriving in Chennai
(Madras), I headed straight out to Mahaballipurum, somewhere with interesting
temples and supposed to be quite chilled. I only saw a couple of temples from
the inside as the Indian government has recently started charging stupid prices
to go and see many of the sites here. This included a couple of the main
temples, however one can see them quite well from the outside without having to
pay the exorbitant ten US dollar fee to have a closer look. For no charge
however one could look at some impressive rock relief carvings, including a full
sized carving of an elephant. Whilst in Mahaballipurum I also met four
reasonable folk from Camden. Two of whom were heading off home and elsewhere,
but Charlie and Ivo (not a typo, that is how he spells his name) were heading to
Madras then further north, so I decided to tag along.
In Madras (recently had its name
changed to Chennai by the government, although there is no practical reason and
most of the locals still call it Madras), there was not much we wanted to do
whilst there, but one thing, was to visit MGR Film City. This is a complex where
for a nominal entry fee (fifteen rupees) one can walk around the complex and
sets and watch them filming there new blockbusters. When we got there they were
filming some kind of scene that involved a bloke with a small library in the
back of a rickshaw chatting with the rickshaw wallah and some other bloke in a
suit. That is about as much as we could work out of the plot. It was funny to
see how unprofessional the thing was, with a bunch of onlookers making noise
etc. even during the takes. We asked if we could be in the scene as extras, and
someone said we could, so the three of us repeatedly walked past in the
background of the shot as they did there couple of takes. That was my moment of
Indian cinema glory. No doubt some of the best agents will notice my scene
stealing performance and I'll be working for the major Hollywood studios in no
time, or then again maybe not.
From Madras we got a train for the twenty-four hour train journey to Bhubeneswar.
Then from there we went straight to Puri. Puri is not inundated with sights to
see, but is an excellent place to take it easy. Part of the reason for this
tranquillity is the fact that in Orissa, one of India's poorest states they have
government authorised "bang" shops. So, this means that weed is not
only legally available here, but cheap as well. This made our time there more
relaxed than it may otherwise have been. The days generally being very leisurely
sitting in the cafe on the beach, occasionally playing beach tennis but mostly
just taking it easy.
In Puri, I parted company with Charlie and Ivo. Not too upset to see the back of
Charlie as she turned out to be quite a demanding, self-opinionated princess. I
went to Bhubeneswar to get a train to Varanasi. I managed to book a direct one
for the following day, so spent the night taking it easy again, in a not very
exciting town. The following morning I went to get my train, but the bloody
communists had decided to hold a strike on all the railways in Orissa. This
meant that the train was cancelled and I had another boring day in Bhubeneswar.
The following day the train did go, but I was unable to get as comfortable a
berth for the eighteen hour journey as I had previously booked, it further
turned out that the berth I had, was to be shared with another fellow, not
bloody likely. I allowed him to sit at one end on the edge whilst I tried to
sleep. After a while of this he realised the floor would be more comfy, so left
me to my berth whilst he slept under the smelly feet and the constant movement
of vendors and police moving up and down the train. After an uncomfortable night
we arrived in Mughal Sarai, from where I needed to get a bus for the
comparatively short journey to Varanasi.
Once again I must warn you, yoga
is going to be mentioned. Varanasi (or Banares as it was previously known) is a
holy city and a pilgrimage centre. It is home to the famous burning ghats on the
Ganges and a number of temples. It is somewhere a lot of people don't like as
the alleyways by the riverside are crowded and filthy (even by Indian standards)
the water in the holy Ganges river is disgustingly polluted, there is a lot of
hassle from touts, but what many find most repulsive is the cremations at the
burning ghats.
Varanasi is as previously
mentioned a particularly holy site on the Ganges, pilgrims bathe in the river in
a number of proscribed locations, totally immersing themselves in the
horrendously polluted water (polluted with human, animal and industrial sewage).
It is also a particularly auspicious place for Hindus to be cremated and have
their ashes thrown, or if they died from a pox, leprosy, in pregnancy or infancy
they are simply tied to heavy weights and dropped in the middle of the river.
The process involved in the cremation is that the dressed and decorated body is
carried through the town on a stretcher with the pallbearers and attendants
chanting, Then the body is placed on top of a pile of wood. The male relative in
attendance has his head shaved and wears just a white dhoti. He then runs around
in circles several times and then lights the pyre. He then sits and waits whilst
his relative burns. It is a peculiar thing to watch, some of the bodies are
wrapped in bandages like a mummy, others simply wearing smart clothes. Some just
seem to be sitting there patiently whilst the fire burns all around them, on
some the flesh burns and contracts so that an arm may rise and appear to be
beckoning. Somehow though it did not (at least in my eyes) appear particularly
gruesome, but just another method of disposal.
Warning, Yoga is imminent.
Whilst in Varanasi, I decided to
take a short course in yoga. Whilst travelling I have tried a number of local
methods to try and relieve the back pain I suffer from. So, in India I decided
to give yoga a try, the theory being that at the least, some exercise would not
be a bad thing. With this in mind I went along to "The Banares School of
Yoga", explained my reasoning and had my first lesson. Pramod (the yogi) a
good humoured guy of thirty with some twelve years teaching experience took my
back problems into consideration whilst giving me exercises. The bit I really
appreciated however was that after whatever exercise, one has to take a couple
of minutes break, lying down relaxing, so after twenty seconds exercise you take
it easy for maybe two minutes, I quite liked and was quite good at that bit.
Many of the exercises he gave me over the course of the next few lessons (six in
total) were quite similar to those my physiotherapist had given me back home,
which I found a little reassuring. During the course of my instruction, I
created various problems for Pramod, my poor breathing preventing me doing some
of the breathing exercises, my dodgy back preventing me from doing others. We
also found that the ankles and hips I have twisted on this trip have still not
entirely recovered, adding further problems to his constructing me a well
rounded regimen. In the end he settled on a number of exercises that he says
will not only improve, possibly even eliminating my back problems, but should
improve my breathing problems and my ankles and hips should fully recover. So, I
have to try and do the exercises every day, we'll see what happens there, and
then in two to three months I will apparently me almost totally recovered from
all my ills. I am not entirely convinced, but like I said previously, some
exercise won't do me any harm.
From Varanasi, I came to Delhi in order to attend a Seder (Passover service)
which I did, but wasn't very good. Whilst here I will also try and get my
Bangladeshi and Burmese visas sorted, before heading east again.
____________________
Well, I'm about to leave this country so thought I should give you a final
newsletter from India, it seems to have gotten a bit longer than I first
expected, you are warned.
After spending a week in Delhi,
getting hold of my Bangladesh and Myanmar visas, I took off for Khajuraho.
Khajuraho is the site of some of
the most impressive temples in India. Dating back to the tenth century, with
extremely elaborate carvings, particularly famous are the tantric carvings.
These enact people in the process of tantric worship, basically screwing in
incredible positions. These types of carvings are not the most common in the
complex but definitely seem to hold the attention for a disproportionate length
of time. What was more worrying was the number of carvings of women fellating
horses, apparently something very common around the turn of the first
millennium. The quality of the carvings is generally of a very high degree, it
is also impressive that there has been so little weathering, considering that
the temples are from the tenth and eleventh centuries and the most common
material used was sandstone.
It was amusing when some of the
locals were asking me if I thought it was possible to do some of the acts
portrayed (they are generally under the misconception here that in the west we
get laid all the time because all the women are sluts, you can't blame them
really, in all the films or TV they see from the west (or the states generally)
people meet, five minutes later they kiss, ten minutes later they are at it like
rabbits, it could take them months to get a kiss here). The one that generally
found most impressive was a guy standing on his head whilst being supported by
two naked women holding his legs at right angles, whilst a third mounts him. The
locals asked me if I could do that, I said the biggest problem would be getting
the three women. They didn't appreciate why that would be difficult, it must be
nice to be so naive.
After having looked around the
temples, I met a couple of Dutch folk I had previously met on the bus to
Khajuraho. After talking for a while we decided to hire a jeep for a drive down
to Panna National Park, the next day. Apparently there had been regular
sightings of tigers there and I had made a resolution not to leave India until I
had seen a Tiger in the wild. So, before dawn the next day Richard and I set off
in a jeep to find a big pussycat (Jakoline had been feeling ill, so not joined
us). We got to the park and got our guide (a job creation scheme by the
government as most of them do nothing but sit there and often know less than the
clients about the wildlife). The driver was terrible despite repeatedly having
told him to slow down, he drove around the park at breakneck speed, giving us no
chance to see anything. When we stopped by a few other jeeps that had heard a
tiger he started shouting to another driver at the top of his voice. Everyone
else including the Indians tried to quiet him, but he refused to shut up,
ruining what was our best chance of seeing a tiger. Then he tried to leave the
park, despite the fact that we had only been there an hour and had agreed to be
there until midday. To our consternation, he and the guide went off to chat with
other drivers and guides for an hour before we managed to get them back in the
car and getting them to do another lap of the park, this time even quicker.
Thoroughly pissed off we let the driver leave the park as there was no hope of
seeing any wildlife under those circumstances. On the drive back to Khajuraho he
was driving like a lunatic and I told him to slow down a couple of times, then
he almost crashed into the back of a truck, saving us by skidding off the road.
I screamed at him to slow down and drive properly, he did the next best thing,
he drove as a reasonably good Indian driver for the rest of the journey. When we
got back we had a bite to eat and then went to speak to the tour agency with
whom we had booked the trip. We had only paid the deposit, but this we felt was
too much considering what we had suffered. After outlining our point for a
while, the operator consented to return some of the money. This was a truly
impressive feat, having money returned by an Indian, for poor service. Although
this was what we had hoped for, neither of us believed it would actually happen.
The following day I began the
journey to Bhandavgarh National Park, as according to reports, that was where I
had the best chance to see a tiger, it having the highest concentration. Both a
problem and benefit of Bhandavgarh however is its isolation. This is good
insofar as it protects the tiger's habitat better and also reduces the number of
tourists going to have a look. The problem is that it makes it a pain to get to.
It involved two days of travel using buses trains and jeeps. When I eventually
arrived I was determined that I wasn't leaving until I saw a tiger. Due to the
cost of the jeep, guide, entry, etc. I wanted to find someone else who was going
into the park. A driver found a couple of decent Swedes who had been there a
couple of days and agreed to go into the park once more. On their previous
forays they had seen a mother and her two cubs on each occasion. Apparently they
had been staying in the same place for the last few days as they had a kill on
which to feed. As this place was a little way from the road it had meant that
for the last bit they had needed to take an elephant ride to get up close. This
all sounded like good news so off we headed before sunrise the next day. When we
got to where the mother and cubs had been they had moved away, so the hunt was
on to find a tiger. After not long one of the mahouts (elephant driver) told us
that B2 an adult male was heading towards us. They use elephants to track tigers
as the elephants aren't threatened by the tigers and the tigers don’t feel
threatened by elephants, apparently the tiger doesn't even notice the people on
the elephants back (as long as they are quiet). All the other jeeps (there were
about eight in total, all the jeeps but ours contained only professional and
semi-professional photographers and film crews) started jockeying for position
to see B2. There were two elephants tracking / herding him towards us. He then
came out of the undergrowth and nonchalantly walked along twenty yards away from
the road. In good view of everyone, the jeep drivers then tried to keep pace
with B2 but they were all winding about and revving and getting in one another's
way. He is a very impressive creature about seven feet long (two metres) plus
tail. His colouring was not as orange as I had expected and towards his rear he
was a darkish brown. Most of the time he was walking along side the road so we
saw him mostly in profile, but occasionally he would turn towards us, and one
could see his white mane.
The jeeps kept moving and revving and at one point B2 looked at us with a
disdainful kind of well if you're going to make all that hullabaloo, I'm
leaving, and turned to go. The mahouts had pre-empted this though and blocked
his passage away from the road, so he gave another turn and started ambling
across the road and through the woods on the other side. Once he had disappeared
from sight the jeeps whizzed around to the road on the other side of that bit of
woodland, where he re-emerged and kept on strolling. This went on for some time,
he kept on walking in the same direction and the jeeps pursued him. At one
point, there was only one jeep in front of us he walked within a couple of feet
of their front bumper. He really didn't seem too concerned by all the attention.
He then went to a tree at the side of the road that grew out of the ground at a
forty-five degree angle and standing under it used it to scratch the top of his
head and nose, before moving on again. Eventually he went where the jeeps
couldn’t follow, but we had been watching and following him for about an hour.
We had been very lucky how co-operative he had been, but by the end my Swedish
companions and I were quite pleased he was able to get away from the hordes that
had been haranguing him. I had enjoyed my tiger viewing experience, but
couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him being badgered as he was. I
realise this is hypocritical as I was part of the group doing the badgering.
That afternoon I even went back to see if there were any more tigers to view,
but unfortunately we had a fruitless search.
It would be remiss to presume
that the tiger was the only wildlife we saw in the park, although it was
undoubtedly the reason for going and the most impressive. Amongst the other
wildlife we saw were a number of mammals and birds. The following list is
compiled from the names I was told by the guide, who on the afternoon trip in
particular was very good and pointed out a wide range of fauna. So, if you have
any kind of knowledge of these things and see some inaccuracy in the name, it
was either due to my misunderstanding of the guide or his inaccuracy.
The mammals included:
Common Langur - an ape with a
light grey fur and a pitch-black face, which makes it look like it is wearing a
mask. It walks with it’s tale arched over its back, with the tip almost
touching the top of its head.
Rhesus Macaque - an ape with
light brown fur and a red face, that looks perpetually embarrassed.
Mongoose - a large cute rodent,
good at killing snakes.
Spotted Deer - similar to deer
seen in Europe, the males possessing impressive antlers.
Sambar - A large chocolate brown
antelope.
Five-Striped Palm Squirrel - a
small squirrel with brown and yellow stripes on its back
Indian Pipistrelle - A small
bat. Hundreds of which were gathered in a cave within the park, when we walked
into the cave they started whizzing around us in circles, obviously agitated by
our presence.
The Birds included:
Magpie roller, Blue jay Indian
roller, Brown Piss Owl (with great searching eyes), Red Water Lapwing, Old
Bastard Kingfisher, Minah, Indian Tree Pie, Peafowl (saw a couple of peacocks
showing off for the mating ritual, also saw them fly which is in a peculiar
motion bobbing up and down through the air as though on a wave), Red Jungle Fowl
(Wild Chicken to you and me), Grey Hornbill, Dixon Vulture, Long Bill Vulture,
King Vulture, Green Bee Eater, Red Painted Bulbul, Blossom Headed Parakeet (very
attractive, similar to the sort of thing one sees on pirates shoulders), Blue
rock Pigeon, Malabar pied hornbill.
So, after having seen a fair
amount of wildlife that evening I went back to my hotel, where some musicians
had been employed to recount the Ramayana, a holy story. This was unexpected but
nice as I had thus far not had the opportunity to see one of these musical
recitations. The best thing however was that they did not do the full thing but
quit at about half past eleven. These recitals can take all day and night.
The next morning I left early to
get to the nearest train station (an hour away by bus) to get a train to
Bilaspur, in order to get a train to Calcutta, a process that took about
thirty-one hours in total. I should call it Kolkata, that being the official
name these days. The Indian government has spent unbelievable amounts of money
in recent years changing the names of some of the cities. Most of the time the
old names are still used by the locals and the new names are only used for
official purposes. Examples of these changes are (old name first) Bombay >
Mumbai, Madras > Chennai, Banares > Varanasi, Calcutta > Kolkata.
Nobody seems to know quite why the government is spending all this money on what
is essentially an unimportant exercise in comparison to where the money might be
spent.
Having heard negative reports of
Calcutta, I was surprised to find such a comparatively laid back, easygoing
city. Much more relaxed than any other major city I have been to in India. It is
also strange to see that they still have the very old style walking rickshaws.
The first time I have ever seen them in real-life. Everywhere else I have been
they have either cycle or auto rickshaws (tuk-tuks), here there are no cycle or
auto-rickshaws I have seen but hundreds of walking ones. They aren't any quicker
really than walking oneself, but one does get the chance to be lazy at least.
Since being here I have visited the Indian Museum (The House of Wonders, as
referred to by Kipling), an excellent museum by third world standards, with
collections that rival some of the worlds best museums. Unfortunately the
maintenance and presentation is not what it might otherwise be, but the
ethnological, anthropological and palaeontological exhibits are excellent.
There is an impressive
collection of exhibits detailing the history and pre-history of the
sub-continent. There are also zoological exhibits of a great range of species of
land, sea and air based animals from all over the world, with particular
emphasis on those from the sub-continent. There is a reasonable numismatic
collection and for some reason a small but fair Egyptian exhibit. It is a much
more comprehensive museum than any other I have seen in the third world.
As Calcutta was the capital of India until 1911, there are a number of
impressive buildings left by the British. The most impressive amongst these is
the Victoria Monument, a huge imposing marble building surrounded by ponds and
gardens, with statues inside and out. The weather vane on top is five metres
tall, weighing several tons. Inside is a very good exhibition of the history of
Calcutta. As the town only really existed due to the British East India Company,
the history is obviously rather entwined with the colonial rule in India. Unlike
many of these types of exhibits though, this one is very objective and even
pro-British in a number of instances, but becoming less so as it chronicles the
independence movement. As mentioned above, the building is very impressive and
the exhibits take one around the various rooms, with a statuary in the vast
cupola.
I also went to the Kali temple.
Kali is the patron goddess of Calcutta as well as being the goddess of
destruction and rebirth. The followers of Kali make ritual animal sacrifices at
least twice a day (using goats generally). It wasn’t long ago however that
human sacrifices were made to the goddess. This stopped one hundred and fifty
years ago, officially.
It is quite possible that it
continued until much more recently though.
Getting to the temple was very
easy, as Calcutta has the only metro system in South Asia, what is more it is
clean, cheap and efficient. Some times the Indians can really surprise one. Now
all that is left for me to do is sort out getting to Bangladesh, which shouldn't
be too difficult, except that there have been several Hartals (general strikes)
recently. That pretty much wraps up what I have been up to here.
Having first arrived in India in
November I am about to leave and as such I have been reflecting on my time spent
here. Leaving now is no bad thing, as I see it. I have spent quite a bit of time
here and seen a number of interesting things. However I feel it is definitely
time to move on, despite there being much more I could see. I have found that it
is difficult to generalise about somewhere as vast and varied as India, in many
ways it is a constant paradox. Most strikingly as Mark Twain put it India is
somewhere where all life is respected, apart from human¡±
There are a number of other peculiarities. This is somewhere, where life is
everywhere on and off the streets. It does not stop at the kerb, but people are
as likely to be walking, standing, and selling on the road as in a shop or on
the pavement. The same goes for the animals, particularly cows, which are
regularly lying down in the middle of major thoroughfares, railway / bus
stations, alleyways, etc. with the associated excreta.
The people here are also the
least spatially aware I have ever seen. Not just that they don’t have any
concept of personal space (an alien concept in most of the third world), but
that they don’t seem to appreciate that if the are carrying a bag or whatever
that it makes them wider, this means that one ends up getting hit by things
(bags, bikes, carts, elbows, etc.) on a regular basis, not that the people are
being malicious, they are just stupid in this regard and if one brings to there
attention the fact that they have just bashed you with whatever they smashed you
with, they will often apologise profusely, then do it to someone else. They are
no better behind the wheel of a car / bus / etc. and as there are no driving
tests administered, any loony can get to be a bus driver here and it generally
seems that only the loonies are.
It is somewhere where there are high standards of education, but for a select
few. Those who have grown up in the right background can earn degrees from
internationally respected institutions, many of them going overseas on
scholarships to improve their qualifications. However the majority of the
country is illiterate, with literacy rates improving in the last years for the
first time since its independence in 1947.
It has unbelievable natural
resources, much of the country that isn't used for human habitation is given
over to farming. On a typical train journey one is unlikely to see very much
unused land anywhere. Unfortunately many people can afford basic nourishment,
and people die of hunger everyday.
It is somewhere firmly rooted in
the past, with traditions and culture dictating the way of life. Change here is
extremely slow, even the administration of the railways is done to exactly the
same model as the British left at independence. Yet India is at the cutting edge
of the IT industry with many of the big players in IT having a large proportion
of their work done in India (according to recent statements, within the next
couple of years Microsoft expects to have over seventy percent of its
programming and processing done in India). It also has a huge proliferation of
internet cafes, even in small villages. Whereas in many other places I have been
the tourists have created the need for these places, here the locals seem to use
the places as much as the westerners, if not more so.
It is somewhere where the
superrich live in ancient palaces waited on hand and foot, but many people can
even find a shanty to live in, living and dieing on the sides of roads, in
fields etc. However the middle classes are expanding, particularly in the urban
centres.
It is one of world’s biggest
polluters, with Delhi being ranked as the second most polluting city in the
world. But just a few weeks ago legislation was finally enforced that meant that
all public vehicles (auto-rickshaws, taxis and buses) in Delhi must run on
non-polluting fuel, mostly CNG (compressed natural gas).
It is somewhere where many come
to find inner peace, despite the fact that the country has been at war for over
fifty years.
The locals here can drive one to
the point of insanity by all asking the same questions (What is your good name?
Where are you coming from? Is sir married? No, why not? Does sir have children?
What is your profession?) interrupting conversations to ask these infuriating
questions, waking one up to ask these pathetic questions, generally being a
nuisance just to ask the same ridiculously mundane questions. Several times I
have considered having cards printed with the information on, but decided not to
bother as many of these interviewers wouldn’t even be able to read them. The
only slight amusement I could derive from this unrelenting barrage was coming up
with more varied identities. My favourite being Don Juan Sanchez Villalobos
Ramirez, a professional assassin from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. For those who
understood the answer it often left them confused, unfortunately however most
don’t understand the answers whatever they are but merely ask the questions to
be able to associate with a white man. This meant that my role-playing lost its
novelty value quite quickly. The other thing the locals can do which can be
particularly distracting is the stare. This is what it sounds like, but more so.
These people have the most incredible attention spans, I have had people stare
at me non-stop for more than fourteen hours, I didn’t even see the guy blink.
It wasn't just that he was staring at the same spot in the air, he was staring
at me, because if I moved so would his gaze. This is a regular thing and it is
strange how one actually becomes used to it, but I still don’t know what is so
interesting. The most disconcerting however is when waking up on the train with
a small crowd all staring intently in to ones face, it’s quite an unnerving
thing to wake up, rub ones eyes and see half a dozen eyes staring into yours.
Basically privacy is a non-existent concept here, even in one's hotel room, the
staff may come by regularly to check all is well that nothing more is needed
etc. Then, they fail to understand that what is most wanted is to be left alone.
I don’t want it to all seem
negative, the locals can be extremely hospitable and generous to the occidental,
merely because of the colour of our skin. If we have a mind to (which I often
do) we can abuse the superior station our pigmentation puts us in, in their
eyes. This means that I never have to stand on buses here, can often push
straight through a queue, can get waiters and the like to go down the road and
get me something from another establishment because I don’t like theirs or
they don't have it and I am too lazy to go myself. Other travellers sometimes
look at me agog when I abuse this power, but then do so themselves once they see
how easy it is.
The travellers here are often of
the politically correct sanctimonious type who will rant on about the disgusting
abuses of child labour in the third world and why they are boycotting XYZ
company, whilst at the same type dictating their breakfast order to the nine
year old kitchen hand, who obviously isn't child labour, he enjoys his job and
gets to learn more English making us toast than he would in school anyway.
India has become a bit of a
status symbol for travellers. There are apparently millions of occidental
tourists on the Indian sub-continent at any given time, nobody really knows how
many (the French embassy alone estimates over quarter of a million Frenchmen are
on the Indian sub-continent legally, there are still more here illegally). A lot
of these travellers make statements implying that only the real hardcore
traveller can endure and even enjoy India, obviously this is bullshit. The
problem is though that many people come to India to prove they can do it, to be
able to go home and tell stories of the depravities. I have met tourists who
have been India for months and have had a terrible time, the only reason they
can come up with for not having left is that they wanted to prove they could do
it. I have also met travellers who have become so immersed in the Indian way of
life, they have lost all perspective both on who they are and what they are
seeing. Some who have been here for years because of the easy availability of
cheap drugs, who have lost any idea of where they are from and don’t feel that
they can ever return to their homes and families.
The most amusing and often
scariest of occidental travellers in India are those who come for spiritual
enlightenment. This has created a huge industry of charlatan gurus, swamis and
yogis. The problem being that the more genuine holy men here keep to themselves
and often refuse to talk to anyone, particularly westerners in search of
enlightenment. This leaves the majority of westerners chasing this wisdom with
mainly fakes and charlatans to choose from. Perhaps this is a cynical view, but
for greater insight read Gita Mehta Karma Cola - an amusing but insightful book
filled with stories of westerners coming to find the truth and wisdom and going
away sometimes poorer, sometimes weirder, sometimes wiser, sometimes crazier and
unfortunately sometimes dead. Jung said of westerners in India that they can
truly understand the philosophies and culture of India as occidentals who
thought they were living in India were in fact living in bottles of western air,
protected from India by objectivity, causality and all the other apparatus of
the west - This makes it nigh on impossible for the occidental to be able to
take on the Indian way of life and belief. Unfortunately there are too many
instances of people going insane in the attempt. Most of the western embassies
in India employ doctors whose sole function is to keep the recently demented
company for the time it takes to repatriate and hospitalise them. These are
however the small number who either find their embassy or are taken there, many
just end up losing their minds in obscure anonymity. This has actually created a
secondary tourist attraction, observation of the “freaks”. In a similar vein
as in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury or Kathmandu's Freak Street.
All these things make the
experience of India more intense than anywhere else I have so far been. It is
not so unbelievably cheap as it used to be, I have been to cheaper places. The
people are catching up with the tourists more and more, learning to exploit them
to as great a degree as possible. This is probably only fair as in the past it
was much more one sided, now the locals are getting a bit more out of the
arrangement.
In my conclusion of India, I
have really enjoyed it, although at times I have been incensed to the point of
distraction. It is definitely time to move on as it has got to the point where I
am becoming less and less tolerant of the circumstances in which I find myself.
So ends the diatribe.
Congratulations if you made it through it all with me, further congratulations
if you have any idea what I was talking about.
My understanding is that there
is very limited internet access in Bangladesh and none in Myanmar (my next stop
after Bangladesh), so please don’t be offended if you don’t hear from me for
some time.
As always, take care and keep in
touch. Raph
P.S. Just in case you don’t know what the subject header is about, here's the
answer, not a bad bit of prose either:
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful
symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the
fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy
heart?
And, when thy heart began to
beat,
What dread hand and what dread
feet?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their
spears,
And water'd heaven with their
tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make
thee?
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
- William Blake (1757-1827)
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