Chronicles Of The Return

I saw Aurangzeb, the ‘the world conquering emperor’ sitting at the feet of Baba Shah Muzaffar weaving a skullcap, his head bowed low.

A harsh, dry February wind blew up from Kanyakumari, over the Wayanands.

“Master,” Aurangzeb said, “I have conquered the Deccan and sent the infidel fleeing in the four directions.”

Aurangzeb’s men had slaughtered a hundred thousand souls.

To this Baba lifted his gray gaze.

“But you have not conquered yourself.”

A correspondent from India chimes in on my criticisms of the rail system in India. Full disclosure he writes on more topics than this, but I want to address his one idea on the trains in India specifically, as it is a meme I encounter about the online booking system in India that is, well, rather infuriating. He writes:

a) I travel regularly by train and it never takes more than 5 minutes to book a confirmed ticket online.

This is all fine and well. I applaud the ease with which middle class Indians, all 120 million of them, can use the internet to make online reservations.

But really, we’re forgetting the other 880 million Indians who do not have internet access, much less know what it is. This is a bogus excuse.

Does the farmer in Orissa who needs travel 300 miles to go to a family wedding, or somesuch, have access to the internet?

Does the woman who lives in a small Kerala town, with several children, and no internet access, have the whereabouts to visit her son in the army halfway across the country?

Or do they both have to stand in interminably long lines at the train station, fighting off huge crowds for a day or longer, just to get their tickets?

If you have ever traveled in India you know the answer to this, even if you life in a middle class cocoon of privilege and servants.

The last few weeks have been tough. I’ve been battling a recurrent infection, one that seems to crop up once a year. It’s pretty dreadful. By the time it is in full swing I am lethargic, full of malaise and generally feeling sorry for myself. I told myself, last time it occurred, that I would go to the doctor immediately once the symptoms appeared. Due to America’s horrible health-care system I had to wait two weeks to see a specialist, which was more than enough time for the symptoms to worsen. I walked into the doctor’s office with a significant gait in my left leg. He looked at me and shook his head. “Why didn’t you come earlier,” he asked.

“Had to wait for approval from my HMO. Took a week. You were booked the next week,” I said.

The doctor looked at me kindly and said, “next time call me and I’ll prescribe you something before you come in, okay?”

He’s certainly one of the best doctors I’ve ever interacted with. He has an exceptional bedside manner, listens to everything I tell him, queries me fully, often time spending upwards of thirty minutes with me. For a doctor that’s priceless.

The prescription is for a heavy anti-biotic. The kind where you spend 10 minutes in the sun and it leaves you feeling like you’ve crossed the Taklamakan without water.

As a side note, I’ve read on several occasions that ‘Taklamakan’ means ‘goes in, doesn’t come out,’ in an ancient Chinese, or possible Tokharian dialect. Having flown over the Taklamakan several times and circumambulated its edges, I have to say that I agree.

One May when my father and I were in Dun Huang, the last great oasis before the Taklamakan, I got to thinking about Xuanzang, a 7th century Buddhist monk who sneaked his way past the T’ang guards at the Jade Gate, into the Taklamakan. He then proceeded to cross it, disproving its meaning as a toponym, but no matter. He then crossed the Tien Shan, chilled at a Buddhist monastery in Samarkand–just a few years before the Arabs irrupted into Central Asia, and then did a backwards dogleg into Afghanistan and India where he spent a decade plus collecting Buddhist manuscripts to take back to China.

Buddhism was not new to China, but it’s safe to say its roots were nothing compared to those which dug deep after Xuanzang’s return to Chang’an, the capital of the T’ang empire. What course might Chinese Buddhism taken were it not for Xuanzang’s efforts at travel, discovery and exploration? And what course might my life have taken had I not been exposed to Chan Buddhism in China in 1999?

This diminutive monk spent his remaining days translating the Buddhist corpus is a spartan monastery cell, eschewing all glory and worldly goods and his good works echo down the centuries to my own time and my own debt of gratitude to him.

Now that’s a character with character. Central Asia is littered with them, from the monstrous Timur–aka Tamerlane, who left a trail of human skulls from Damascus to India–to the poignant Omar Khayyam.

I tend to think about people like Xuanzang and Polo and ibn Battutah when I am feeling sorry for myself. Sometimes it works: I feel better, realizing my pedestrian concerns, minor ailments and the general discontent I feel with my post-modern life do get the better of me.

But sometimes it fails: I want to be Polo, or Rabban Sauma, Wilfred Thesiger, people who lived a full life so far away from home. People who made the world their home, citizens of this great and tragic blue ball spinning off into eternity.

And then I get a text message and the world comes roaring right back at me.

Edmond writes in from India:

Dear Sean Paul Kelley,

let me tell you, india is the only place with all its faults, the soul finds its freedom, its peace & joy.
being home to a billion beats , this country has huge resources & beyond. can they be typified under a single banner?

i agree when you say, this is a dirty place, electrical grid is surely a joke, there are many other concerns which india faces today.

but that doesn’t mean people out here aren’t interested . we are. to every enemy there is a friend. to all corrupt people, there are good people. its all round the corner, just a glance away.

i wudnt want to call you the spoilt kid of the west, but when you compare, why is there so many broken families? divorce rules the roost. depression takes its toll. at a young age , students are into bad company?

i bet, this is far far better in India. night life is the only thing in most mindset in westerners.
the govt here is lack lustre, more appropriate corrupted, but change wont happen in a day right?

we can always look at the bright side of things, if we want too. its all in the state of mind.

” Here are some amazing facts that will make you more proud to be an Indian. Read on …
India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta. India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.

Sanskrit is the mother of all the European languages. Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software, according to a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987.

The World’s first university was established in Takshila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects there. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago. Today Ayurveda is fast regaining its rightful place in our
civilization.India was the richest country on earth until the British invaded in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus was attracted by India’s wealth.

Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. Time taken by earth to orbit the sun in the 5th century - 365.258756484 days. The art of navigation was born in the river Sindh 6000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from Sanskrit ‘Nou’.

The value of “pi” was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century long before the European mathematicians. According to the Gemological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source for diamonds to the world.

Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10**53(10 to the power of 53) with specific names as early as 5000 BCE during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera 10**12(10 to the power of 12).

Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India medicine. Detailed knowledge of anatomy, embryology, digestion, metabolism, physiology, etiology, genetics and immunity is also found in many ancient Indian texts.

USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century old suspicion in the world scientific community, that the pioneer of wireless communication was Prof. Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted complicated surgeries like cesareans, cataract

, artificial limbs, fractures, urinary stones and even plastic surgery

and brain surgery. Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India. Over 125 surgical equipment were used. Deep knowledge of anatomy, physiology, etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics and immunity is also found in many texts.

The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.

Chess (Shataranja or AshtaPada) was invented in India. When many cultures were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindh Valley, known as the Indus Valley Civilization.

The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC. Spiritual science, Yoga and most of the religions were found in India and the teachings spread all over the world by Indian Mystics and the Saints.

The World’s First Granite Temple is the Brihadeswara temple at Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu. The shikhara is made from a single ‘ 80-tonne ‘ piece of granite. Also, this magnificient temple was built in just five years, (between 1004 AD and 1009 AD) during the reign of Rajaraja Chola

India is…….the Largest democracy in the world, the 6th largest country in the world AND one of the most ancient and living civilizations (at least 10, 000 years old).
The game of snakes & ladders was created by the 13th century poet saint Gyandev. It was originally called ‘Mokshapat.’ The ladders in the game represented virtues and the snakes indicated vices. The game was played with cowrie shells and dices. Later through time, the game underwent several modifications but the meaning is the same i.e good deeds take us to heaven and evil to a cycle of re-births.”

there is so much, & so much more. but is it the blind side??
why are the people there  so racists? did the people there create human or God did? where do you compare culture? & traditions?

moreover, how can you help to make this country what it can be? people like mother Theresa came here, did their best, many more are doing it. this can only change with time. the west only robbed india & went back. if not for the independence movement, we would still be slaves.

i can go on and on, but intend to stop here. i would want to here from you.

Dear sean, this is just my opinion, no offences, i just disagreed on some issues but respect your right to say.

do you want to make a trip to this country again ? would be happy to meet you. await your reply
yours in friendship,
rgrds,
Edmond

First and foremost, thank you Edmond for writing in. I’ve received countless letters from Indian expats and residents. Most of them have been similar in temperament to yours in that they highlight the ancient glories of India as a way of pointing towards the future.

That may be so, but in a former life I was an asset manager and one key principle we learned was ‘past performance is no guarantee of future results.’

Just look at America! What began as an auspicious experiment in Enlightenment Political Theory, progressed , after our Civil War and Progressive Era to the Vanguard of the West is now sinking under the combined weight of greed and anti-intellectualism run amok. We, like you, cannot rest on our laurels. When we do, we betray our fundamental principles.

But, I should really, rather respond to your specific arguments, or historical anecdotes, such as they are:

a.) Sanskrit, while an amazing language and one that has facilitated a great many intellectual awakenings in the East and West, is not the Indo-European mother tongue. As you and I both know, the Aryans who invaded Hindustan around 2,000BCE brought with them a proto-Sanskrit closely related to Avestan and the Anatolian ancestral tongues.

b.) I was unaware of the university at Takshila, but this doesn’t surprise me. India has a very long and distinguished history of learning.

c.) Aryuveda: yes, indeed. India has given much to the world and the West ignores its gifts mostly due to ignorance and arrogance.

d.) Columbus and the wealth of the Indies: this is indisputable, if largely forgotten in the West as well. Columbus believed the earth was a globe–another idea I believe that has its genesis in a fusion of Greek and Indian knowledge–and sailed West in the (false) belief that he would reach India.

e.) Higher Math, Algebra and Zero: Zero, as a concept came from India and it was a concept the West resisted for centuries. The higher math examples you offer I can’t speak to, as I am no mathematician or historian of math, except I can say, with certainty, that algebra did not come from India. Algebra was a Perso-Arab development that came from the region between the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers in what is present-day Uzbekistan: Kwarazm.

But that’s really not what’s important. What’s key here is that India, as you document, has given the world many great things. This is not, nor was it ever, in dispute by me. My purpose, in arguing the way I did in “Reflections on India” was not to take away form what India had given the world, but to ask: how does India plan to follow up on its previous accomplishments. Also, I wrote it as a tonic to much of the hype here in the West about how India is the next ‘big thing.’ And all the nonsense about ‘how easy it is to do business in India.’

While what I wrote was addressed to my India friends in particular, it was meant as a wake-up call to Western businessmen and women about the difficulties they will face doing business in India. There is a lot of myth-making about India here in the West, especially by people like Tom Friedman. It needs to be countered. If India and the United States are going to have a global partnership of sorts, as looks increasingly likely, well, then we need to understand each other better, not just our strengths, but our weaknesses, as well.

Would you not agree?

My post ‘Reflections On India’ has generated a great deal of email. More email than anything I have every written, as a matter of fact. Most of the emails have been positive, in one way or another. I’d say the ratio is about 35-1 positive to negative.

In the post I was very harsh on India; however, what I wrote seems to have struck a chord. I’ve been moved by the honest replies I’ve gotten and look forward to meeting many new friends when the chance comes. But today I received my first hate email via Facebook.

The title was simple and eloquent: “Go Fuck Yourself.”

The body of the email was equally simple: “Motherfucker.”

Now, aside from the fact that I have dated women who are mothers from time to time, I don’t think this is what my interlocutor meant. I was tempted to tell him, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” But I didn’t and I replied thusly:

“That’s quite an intelligent reply. I’ll be sure an add that one to my next response post.
However, if you would like to try again and actually offer substantive points to debate, instead of insults, I’d be happy to discuss this with you.
Regards,
Sean Paul”

In closing, I’d like to take this opportunity to point my new friend to this New York Times story validating everything I ever said about India’s rail lines.

It can’t all be negative, however. So, I offer this wonderful photo as evidence that there are things in India you simply will never see anywhere else in the world.

SB writes:

You clearly lack understanding and find India an easy target.

You say, “In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians.”

When you have a large population that lives in poverty, you immediate concerns are not the environment. Maslows theory is well known. And as far the pollution is concerned, the West pollutes far more than what India does. I guess what you really meant was sanitation.

My lack of understanding? Perhaps, as I am not omniscient, but I often find when someone uses, “you lack understanding” as an opener it means they’re just unwilling to listen. As I said, I may lack understanding, but I do not lack the will to understand. So, perhaps we can move this conversation forward and in good faith I offer a few corrections on my end.

Yes, there is a difference between sanitation and pollution. Many of the issues I address are, more properly, understood under the heading of sanitation. India’s very real air-pollution in cities aside, let’s focus on sanitation, as I’ve since been corrected many times, not only about the difference between the two, but also the fact that India’s carbon footprint, per capita, is one of the lowest in the world. I am also aware that the Indian conception of purity and cleanliness is much different than that in the West. It is a cultural issue. My point about sanitation is this: if Indians desire more investment from the West, this is something Indians need to address from a purely self-interested, pragmatic calculation. I’ll say it again: this is India’s choice, and as I have made clear, I respect India’s choices.

I’d also add, in India’s favor the fact that the wildlife in India is almost the most diverse and rich in the world, outside of Africa it certainly is. The lack of hardcore, industrial pollution in India is one of two reasons for this bounty. The other is the simple fact that most Indian’s are vegetarians of a sort, and the wildlife is much safer than in a place like China. This is to be applauded by all peoples, not just the self-righteous environmentalists of the West, in our increasingly small world

You say: “Infrastructure is poor. I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US I guess.”

The West did not build all its infrastructure in one day. And when you have two hostile nuclear armed neighbors, you are forced to spend on defense.

No doubt this is true. However, China, which has a population larger than India’s, and started from a baseline GDP per capita similar to India’s created world-class infrastructure in less than 40 years. India is twenty years along in its reform effort and not even remotely close to where the Chinese were in a comparable stage. And China had the same excuse of nuclear armed neighbors: Russia and the US bases in Japan. You can use this excuse all you want, but it is a crutch, just like the one the US uses on the ‘War on Terror.’ It’s a false choice: either we invest in our own people and live up to our own ideals, as democracies, or we don’t. The US falls far, far short of its ideals, actually betraying them far too often for my taste. But having ‘bad neighbors’ or ‘people who hate our freedoms’ is a lame excuse. Nothing more.

You say, “The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in status.”

The British too had servants in the 19th century while the Americans had their slaves.

The likes of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson talked about right to freedom but never gave it to their black slaves. In fact racism against blacks continued till as late 1960’s and 70’s. That’s 200 years after they got independence. But those years did not have media scrutiny and internet.There are large number of illegal migrants in US and Europe who actually work as servants at homes.

I don’t dispute any of this. I’ll only say the following two things. One, you can lecture me on racism when a Dalit is prime-minister of India. Until then, I have an African-American president, and while I criticize him frequently, I am proud of that my country has largely, but not perfectly, moved past race. This is one ideal we have lived up to as a society. Not without pain and suffering, but we have made very real progress.

Second: Russia, Great Britain, France and the US all did away with slavery and involuntary servitude in the 19th century. When are you going to do the same? When does the reality of building an economy on the sweat of another man or woman’s labor become too much? And this is not about guilt, historical or otherwise, as guilt is too easy to project. It is about mobilizing the best capital you have in India: all of your people, men and women.

You say, “And I’ve seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia, have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does”

No doubt that India has its problems. But you never mentioned its strengths. India has democracy. It is perhaps the only instance where democracy has worked despite widespread poverty.

India cannot throw away slumdwellers like China does. For Beijing Olympics, large number of people were simply thrown out.

China has massive pollution. Most people, including those in cities actually drink polluted water.

India has its problems and at least for the next 20 years, many of these shall continue. But it is our democracy that gives us hope. Ours is an extremely complicated society. We have defied the basic definition of a nation state - which talks about people bound by common culture, language and religion. We have created our own definition. That’s India.

No doubt India has its strengths, some of which I have identified above. There are more. And I will write about them at length sometime soon, when I wind down a few writing projects I am engaged in currently. As I have said before in other forums: my primary aim in my ‘India Critique’ is to impart some realism about the hurdles Western businessmen will face if they choose to invest in India. A myth is being built around the ‘emergence of India’ and I think that myth needs to be demystified. I’m a realist. I see the opportunities in India. But I see them with open eyes, not rose colored glasses.

Do you agree? Disagree with the author’s opnion? Then leave a comment!

Further commentary on India can be found here. Reader responses to this story can be found here and here. Please contact me via Facebook (you can message me via Facebook even if you don’t have an account) if you would like to respond. My only request is that you be polite and not call me names.

I received this email yesterday from a friend in India in response to my post entitled, “Reflections on India” and I just had to post it. It encapsulates in a way I never could, all that is India, in all of her glorious complexity. Not only is it a beautiful email, it contains something that I’ve never been explain to people: the music of Indian English. If you’ve never heard Indian-English spoken in India, you are missing something:

At first, I wanted to stab you and snatch your purse, but then I realized I cant do that. Cause you don’t have a purse, your a man! err.. Yeah I read your name after I read the write up, call me careless err.. you already did hehe, sorry I’m sounding so cocky but I’m just a lad trying to grow a French beard for quite some time now.

I must say, it’s an impressive write, I’d relish it with a tinge of lemon in root beer if I were in any other country (I dont know how root beer tastes with lemon) but as it is, I’m an Indian (with no motives to kill you)

Its good to know that you’ve seen almost all of India and better, came up with so few problems. Makes me think.. is 4 your favorite number? Cause I can be sure that there are a few thousand more problems in India. Your observations and explanations are really nice and pictures. pollution, lack of infrastructure , corruption etc etc are indeed very Indian. But India is not a city built in an Age Of Empires game. Millions of people divided on probably more lines than there are people have just one thing in common, we are Indians. Conservative, primitive, careless, hypocritical or whatever suits the mood, and have been a part of this ever growing world with due attention and equal consideration. Everyone is cared for, people care for themselves, selfish as one might call it, but I see it to be as an effort to promote and make place for personal interests. Simply, its like the millions of crazy school clubs that the kids in the US come up with. Only here, its grown ups fighting for rights and also end up getting free publicity. These are the games Indians play, its actually a book, called Games Indians play, nice and funny. You should read it.

I read this other book called Keep off the grass, a book by a second generation Indian who made about half a million dollars working on wall street. The book starts with his feel of wanting to know his roots, and he comes down to India for an MBA. His experiences of India are quite similar to yours and he knows nothing of his mission of soul or root search. By the end, he begins to read a few books by Ruskin Bond and relates himself to Mr. Bond. He feels that Mr. Bond would be able to clear out a few things and plans a visit.

The protagonist asks “why did you leave London? Why did you settle down in India?” To which Mr. Bond said “hmm.. well, it always had to be India, it couldnt be anywhere else, I guess. I belong here. No publishing deal or pound advances in the UK could change that.”

He paused, “you know I read a joke in the newspaper this morning. If Brooke Shields marries Ruskin Bond she would become Brooke Bond. Silly, I know, but well, I almost fell down laughing. Could I ever appreciate that in London or anywhere else in the world? Belonging, thats what it is about. You cant be happy if you cant be whole. Does that make sense?

The protagonist, Samrat Ratan decides to do away with the life his parents chose and settles down in India.

You are right, I am careless, actually carefree, carefree of what you have to say about me. I want to change, I know it would only do good, but things are not in my hands, I cant go out overnight and tell people not to wear green socks, cause then people would first ask me why, then tell me that i didnt have the right to say, then that they like green socks and there are people who would ask me what socks are.. I hope you get my point.

I do not have numbers, nor do I know more to be able to speak to you. But India is not a book, not a word, not a country. Its a feel. I like to call myself a world citizen, but there’s only one place I call home. Sentimental fool I might sound, but that again, is Indian! It’s a place where we offer milk to snakes, touch and worship a cow thats blocking traffic. My dad doesnt fight with the father of a kid who beat me up, nor have I learnt his credit card numbers by heart. But I have people to go home to. The inability of the government to provide me with amenities is replaced by the care and comfort of my home. change this, and I would cease to be me.

~Shree

Well said.

———-

Do you agree? Disagree with the author’s opnion? Then leave a comment!

Further commentary on India can be found here. Reader responses to this story can be found here and here. Please contact me via Facebook (you can message me via Facebook even if you don’t have an account) if you would like to respond. My only request is that you be polite and not call me names.

The day before yesterday I received yet another email about my recent writings on India. Kim, the author, has graciously agreed to let me post the letter in toto. He makes some excellent points about India and my perception of the country, or rather, he points out some of the faults in my perception of the country. Here it is:

Sadly, embarrassedly true.

BUT—and here’s where you are quite myopic—you’re judging India from a narrow American point of view. You equate cleanliness, good infrastructure, lack of bureaucracy, etc, with progressiveness. And, from some perspectives, you may be right. But that’s just material/industrial progressiveness (on the other side of which is a myriad of damaging problems—fractured communities, gaps between haves and have-nots, an exploited environment, etc.). And that’s not the entire story.

First, it’s not true that Indians don’t care or are complacent, as if that were a cultural genetic problem. The majority of us do care. Hindu philosophy preaches cleanliness next to godliness. The problem is that the task appears too gargantuan to handle in the middle of our attempts to survive. Anyone who has lived in India (as opposed to visiting India) knows that it’s like going to war everyday as we fight our way from dawn to dusk—dealing with traffic, bureaucracy, overcrowded workplaces, poor salaries (so you feel unappreciated), rising prices, etc. It is mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting. This isn’t an excuse. It simply means that this is the kind of society most of us were born into—we inherited it. It’s easy to praise the British legacy of railways and bridges and forget that they ignored rural India (which is the largest part of the country). That lack of emphasis created a massive influx into the major cities, thus exacerbating and even causing most of the problems.

In the U.S, for example, you could live quite comfortably in a town of 50,000 to 100,000—good universities (therefore decent fine arts performances, global speakers, and other educative programming), car dealerships, malls, Thai restaurants, parks and recreation events, good doctors, hospitals, etc. In India, that’s little better than a village and everyone wants to get the hell out of Dodge and head to Mumbai or any of the other metropoli!

In other words, it isn’t easy to find an incentive to clear up the mess, which would take a herculean effort (no exaggeration)!

BUT—we should make that herculean effort, no question. And the largest impediment to that is the lack of education. For all the Nobel Laureates, scientists, philosophers, etc. that India has produced the sad fact is that millions of Indians are impoverished and uneducated. Here are some depressing statistics from a few years ago:

average number of students per teacher: 220
- people partaking of higher education: 1 person out of every 14,000
- number of pupils at the City Montessori school in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, 2002:
26,312 pupils (world record) [GBoWR]
- number of Indians going as students to Britain: 17,000 per year
- number of Indians going as students to the US: 14,000 per year

people below poverty line: about 260 million (acc. to AB Vajpayee feb 04)
- poor living in India: one quarter of the world’s poor [BBC Aug 04]
- people living on less than 1 Euro per day (50-55 Rs) 2004: about 30 % of population
- * number of people in India living on less than 50 pence per day: about 300 million
[BBC News Night, Oct 2006]
- number of people living in slums: 150 million [BBC 15 sep 2004]
- people in Mumbai living in shanty towns, open spaces, or on pavements: 50% of
Mumbai’s population [BBC, Nov 2005]
- world’s largest slum: located in Mumbai; Dharavi, 432 acres
- number of inhabited buildings declared as dangerous or dilapidated in Mumbai:
19,000 [BBC; Sep 2005]
- number of children in India who die before the age of 5: 63 out of 1000 according
to UN report [BBC; Sep 2005]
- children under 3 years of age in Orissa severely malnourished: 21 % (Feb 04, acc to
National Family Health Survey); or 3.8 % (acc. to data collected by the state)
- tribal children below the age of six who have died of malnourishment-related causes
in 15 districts of Maharashtra: 9,000 (between Apr 2003 and May 2004)
- number of street children in Delhi: 150,000 estimate [BBC; Sep 2005]

Now, before you think this is an excuse (and before you suggest that these problems were caused by complacency), I’d like to inform you that it isn’t easy to locate the sources responsible for these facts. It is also a fact that India is trying. There have been significant improvements to the numbers of people being offered education opportunities, but it is difficult to overcome centuries of tradition and ignorance. We had recycling systems among ALL levels of society (most of them because it was profitable to do so) long before the term became popular. We have three times the number of people in less than a third of the space than in the U.S., but guess which country has caused more harm (BY FAR) to the environment??! So although America’s streets may be cleaner, relatively speaking, its greenhouse gases and carbon footprints have rendered the environment less clean than almost any other country (and this despite the smog of Mumbai and other cities). There are free hospitals and comparatively low healthcare costs in India, which isn’t true in the U.S. And which country has exploited sweatshop opportunities in so-called third world countries (thus adding to the problems—young women and children should be in school, not seduced into low-paying sweatshops just so Americans can wear Nikes)??? You see, there are many ways to define the causes of the so-called “mess.”

All this isn’t to suggest that the British are solely responsible for the situation, but it does contextualize the problem, whereas your gut-reaction betrays a lack of deeper understanding and sounds like the analysis of a freshman social psychologist! You claim you’ve been there, done it. What—a few weeks or months (whatever) in a subcontinent as vast, complex, and vibrant as India and you feel empowered to make snap judgments?! We who have spent lifetimes in India still don’t understand much of it. And, yes, we’re embarrassed by the mess. You would argue that then we should have done something about it. But India is still a young nation, barely 60 years old as an independent republic. It will take time, patience, and education to reverse the situation. And, yes, it will not happen in your lifetime—of that I too am certain. As if that’s some kind of hallowed benchmark—your lifetime!!

Why do Americans want everything NOW? And in the drive to acquire it “now,” American societies care little about the long-term effects—witness the economic, cultural, and environmental mess. Everything they do suggests that they think of Time as an opponent to be attacked, diced into slices, and controlled so they can apportion and assign tasks to every minute of the day–the American work ethic, they say. It seems to be different in countries with ancient cultures–they have a more friendly perspective of Time, are more willing to meander along with it. They don’t see it in terms of hours and minutes or even days; after billions of yesterdays they know there’s always another tomorrow. It is no accident that Americans have the least national holidays of any country, less vacation time than most, and are constantly fiddling with Daylight Saving Time like children afraid of the dark!

But India will emerge from the age of Kali. How do I know? Because, despite your derisive characterizations of it, there is a renewed sense of vigor and energy in the country, which will continue to grow because the pride of Indians is growing now that the world community is taking notice. Whether or not you believe it, India is a world player if only for the fact that the world community thinks it is. Once you raise the level of expectations, people rise to meet it—any kindergarten teacher will tell you that! It isn’t a coincidence that the Kerala you praise so much also has the highest literacy rate in the country. And that’s how I know—because eventually the next few generations of Indians will become better educated and they will eventually carry India into a new society.

There is something else, which is the other side of the story that I referred to at the beginning. As in all things Indian there are two sides to every coin—tradition, which can sometimes be an impediment to new ideas, can also be a unifying foundation for change. Indian societies (one almost has to use the plural in India for it is many things all at once) are built on a firm base of mythology, religion, and community. Sometimes they cause fissures but eventually they shift back into solidity. These force fields invigorate the national conscience (and collective unconscious) because they are cultural bonds; people feel connected to one another—uneasily sometimes, but connected all the same. There’s strength in numbers and in the knowledge that we are not alone.

American societies draw their strength from pride in individual pursuits, which is why Americans treasure privacy among all other things. Once their tenuous communal moorings are cut they become alienated, lost, and disaffected; probably why you left your business behind to wander the world in search of cultures to criticize!

And, of this I am certain—it will take India less than 100 years. In 225 years as a nation the U.S. is doing what? Fighting wars on several fronts; endangering the environment more than any other nation; existing complacently while more than 40 million people have no health insurance; claiming improvements in race relations in the midst of hundreds of examples to the contrary every day, as if the presence of a black president is a magic wand to dispel decades of appaling racial hatred! Is this what you call “America living up to its ideals?” These are American ideals? Greed which has caused its financial systems to run amok? Arrogance that it can build other nations into its false image of democracy (where elections are stolen and career politicians use cheap fear-mongering tactics to hold on to power and where a political party gloats because it now has the one vote that will allow it to be an obstructionist)? These are American ideals? Where homelessness and poverty lurk in the fringes of the richest society in the world? It’s just a façade, Mr. Kelley, this so-called ideal state that you feel gives you the right to criticize others.

So Mr. Sean Paul Kelley, in response to your disingenuous invitation to call you “a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that,” I will do precisely that!

Kim and I had a nice chat and I’ll post my reply soon.

I got an email from someone very upset with the things I have said about India. Here’s the email in question, my reply is below:

Mr Kelley: I would appreciate it if you could let me know how long you spent in India and if you made any friends there. Looking at the photos of your trip you obviously enjoyed it-Lions of Gir, Rajasthan an’ all that but your observations as per your subsequent writings showed that you did not really like India or Indians.. To me you are like the ‘alternate’ who goes to Kolkata, looks around for a hotel for $4 a night, eats at the roadside eatery, gets hash cheaply, dresses like an Indian with Kurta and/or Dhoti and then heads off to Benares or Rishikesh or wherever for a ‘Spiritual Experience’ After the great trip, which is duly notched up against a claim that will be made in the future “I have been ‘Everywhere’ etc” . On your return to America, after seeing emaciated rickshaw pullers, it would have been comforting to see the well fed obese compatriots and was time to jot down those memories, while still fresh, of observations like the ’shitty’ hotel you stayed in (no mention of room price) lack of hot water-rats-cockroaches-pavement dwellers-corruption - on and on and on ad nauseam.

You did mention that you stayed at the Taj-that would’ve set you back maybe $500 a night but you then said that you didn’t like ‘outside’ the Taj because of the rubbish, smells etc. I’m sure a well travelled man like you would be aware that if only one fifth of the third world’s population could enjoy the same sanitary conditions that we do that there would be no fresh water available for drinking. You, having travelled to 47 countries, no doubt are aware of the achievements and shortcomings of each of them. I note also that you tell us that you are a ‘good public speaker’ and are available for hire. During your India trip you would have picked up little gems for your talks like; a birth takes place every 1.25 seconds-20 people are killed in road accidents every hour-40 per week die in rail accidents-snakebites 4000 a year-43% of NASA staff are Indians-about the same at Microsoft-Indian input with the LHC considerable-have nuclear capability-and many people pee and shit in the streets.

India is not only Mumbai, Kolkata or Delhi-it is Leh, Ladakh, Arunachal, Nagaland, Assam Meghalaya-the great rivers, the Brahmaputra, Luhit,Siang, Bhorelli-places you haven’t been and as long as you have your narrow, negative views are as well being left off your travel itinerary. Stick to the poorer areas of the big cities, you seem to gather more material there for your ‘insights’ We are all aware of this country’s strengths and weaknesses-two minute wonders like yourself, Shand and others make observations are largely uninformed and negative. I’m tired spouting off on this subject-I hope that your last visit to India was literally just that.

Sincerely,

LB

LB,

I appreciate you taking the time to write me on a subject you obviously care very much about. I will do my best to answer your questions honestly and fully.

Time spent in India? I have visited India three times, for a total of about five months travel in the country. I’ve visited the majority of Indian States, but alas, never made it to Calcutta.

There is no doubt that I am hard on India in my criticisms. But the reason I am hard on India is because India is one of those countries that is larger than itself. In a sense, India is an idea, and that idea was born out of the Independence Struggle and Gandhi’s high ideals. I happen to think India is not living up to those ideals, not at home and not abroad. And that is why I am exceptionally hard on India. Of course, I am equally hard on America–as even the most cursory examination of my writings would reveal. I would encourage you to dig around in the archives and see for yourself.

As for being an ‘alternate’ there is certainly an element of truth to this. Although, I did not visited Benares or Rishikesh. I did not visit an Ashram whilst in India and I did not visit the country for a spiritual experience. That was never my intention. While in India, which again, even a cursory glance at my archives would reveal, I did make friends–and I had friends in India already before my visit, my travels were not solely limited to slumming. I spend time with a very wealthy family in Calicut and saw how both halves lived. I spent time with an MP on a previous trip–a MP from a reactionary Hindu party, I hasten to add. And I spent lots of time on my first two trips with Indian Muslims. I’ve sat in the sand with a Sadhu talking about Indian politics and conversed with an Indian Mulsim sufi on the meaning of life. I chatted with an Indian farmer about his crop and the faliing Monsoons and dined in a five star restaurant with a ‘gentleman farmer’ discussing the verities of the cardamom crop. And yes, I witnessed first hand the squalor and casual brutality of the urban poor, time and time again. All of these are the sum of India. Not its poverty and certainly not its squalor.

But the filfth and lack of infrastructure simply cannot be denied as a serious obstacle to economic growth. And my discussions with people and study of the Indian budget make it clear that large scale infrastructure development is not in the cards. This is a tremendous pity for India. It will also keep India underdeveloped.

I’m certain you are mistaken about me staying in the Taj. It would have set me back $500 a night and that was very clearly $500 a night I didn’t have to spend. I’ve seen the Taj in Bombay. And I probably wrote about seeing it, but I certainly never stayed in it. Not sure where you got that idea, again, look in my Indian archives and see for yourself.

I appreciate you sharing the ‘little gems’ such as: “a birth takes place every 1.25 seconds-20 people are killed in road accidents every hour-40 per week die in rail accidents-snakebites 4000 a year-43% of NASA staff are Indians-about the same at Microsoft.” I was roughly aware of these facts. The question I would put to you is this: what have all those educated Indians brought back to India? Again, this is one of my most severe beefs with India. Indians and India’s cheerleaders, love to throw quotes like these around. But never answer the quesiton that with all this education, all this international experience, why is India still one of the lowest countries when it comes to human development? Why hasn’t this changed? And why isn’t it changing?

India has a idea of itself. But like America it doesn’t live up to those ideals. And isn’t it right and good of we citizens of the world to hold nations of high ideals up to those selfsame principles? Is it not right to hold their feet to the fire, so to speak?

I eagerly await your response.

It was a gorgeous day today. After three days of drizzle and heavy rain and 35* cold the morning dawned with promise. The clouds were thin and wispy, scuttling across the sky. Just beginning to break up with hints of blue here and there, with enough silver and gray in the clouds to remind one that it was still winter. But by noon all had dissipated. Nothing but blue skies and sunshine.

I’m sipping a warm, smokey scotch, re-working portions of the manuscript tonight, trying feverishly to complete the India portion before I head back to cubicle-land Tuesday.

Last night I had a long conversation with a writer friend about India and it helped put into perspective much of what transpired there. I’ve certainly been hard on India in many of my latest posts. But I think it’s important to note that I’m not so much hard on India as trying to correct the huge mis-perception corporate and political folks in America have about the place. A few days ago I alluded to some of the good things that happened to me in India and felt like sharing.

There is no place on the planet where culture is so raw, in your face and real. India, if it is anything at all, is its culture. And that’s what makes the place so rich in paradox and so attractive. I did, after all, visit the place three times. And after writing fifty pages on the country I have a strange desire to return–but only to Kerala. If I never see the Gangetic Plain ever again, I am okay with that. And yet . . .

There is an unspeakable attraction to India. No where in the world are the colors as vibrant, the fruits and vegetables as colorful (and poisonous), and the characters as diverse as they are in India. India, in many ways, encompasses the world. The Chinese have often spoken of their country as the Middle Kingdom, with the implication that all that is the world is in China. But that’s not the case. There is a lot of diversity in China, but not like there is in India. The last forty years of economic growth in China have homogenized vast swathes of the country. China isn’t as diverse today as it was the first time I visited in 1995. White tile and blue glass windowed high rises litter the country. A certain uniformity is a work. But not in India.

In India anything goes. In the West, (and in the Far East) we tend to hide, lock up or punish societal deviancy. And I use a small ‘d’ here. I am not talking about sexual deviancy, although that is a part of it. I’m talking about non-conforming deviancy; people who deviate from the societal norm.

For example: cross-dressers in India have a cultural role to play. They show up at weddings and children’s birthdays as entertainment. They are paid–more like bribed to leave. And yet, I talked with several Indians who said, “it’s horrible luck if they don’t show up.” But here’s the thing: once you are a cross dresser, once that choice is made, you can never go back to any other kind of life. India institutionalizes its deviancy. It doesn’t physically lock its deviants away, but it does lock them into a societal role, where they have a larger purpose in the chaos that is daily life in India. They are accepted. And tolerated. (Of course there are always exceptions.)

Another example is potheads. Marijuana and hash are illegal in India. Unless you buy it from a government sponsored shop. For foreigners its okay. And the only Indian allowed to purchase it legally are the multiplicity of sadhus wandering around the country. Again, for everyday Indians: no go. But if you are a Holy Man? It’s understood. So, if you are a pothead, in essence, you are a holy man. And your deviance from the norm of society is institutionalized. Order is restored.

These are but two small examples of the larger cultural and societal role of the caste system. There are serious problems with the caste system. Is India addressing it? Yes. But India is probably the most cultural static place on the planet. Culture changes very, very slowly in India. There is no judgement in this. It is what it is. It’s also what makes India an amazing and infuriating place. The modern world is colliding with India and the Indians are just as bewildered as the foreigners are who visit there.

Of course, I didn’t go to India for spiritourism. I discussed this with a friend a while back. I’m sitting in my favorite coffee shop a few weeks ago when Reyes showed up.

“Whatcha writing, white-boy?” Reyes asks me.

“I’m writing a story about how filthy and poor India is and why you don’t want to visit,” I said.

“You are always complaining about India. Didn’t you derive at least some spiritual benefit from the place? I mean, you’re Buddhist, right?” he said, wiggling his pug nose in disgust. His brown eyes were bloodshot after a long night of tequila, Tecate and football.

“Indians are Hindhu, you ugly Mexican. And No,” I said. “I didn’t go to India to find myself spiritually or to hang out in an ashram or learn the meaning of life or any of that nonsense.”

“Why did you go, then?” He asked.

“Cuz it was there.”

And that is why I went. It was on the way. It was either cross the Bay of Bengal on the Tiger Breeze and up through Central Asia, or go through China and Russia. Of course it worked out differently, but I did go to India because it was on the way.

But, something strange, even kind of spiritual happened to me while I was there. It was a subtle development, if anything can be subtle in India. I learned new things about myself.

As I said to my friend last night when asked, “what did you take away from India?”

“I learned that I have a deep, deep, deep well of patience. I have more patience than I ever thought I had. All kinds of craziness can be going on around me, all kinds of annoyances, all kinds of expectations can be dashed, and at least 95% of the time I was completely calm,” I said.

“Oh, listen, I am not mother Theresa, nor do I have the patience of a Buddha, okay? I did have a few India moments. That happens to everyone. But I learned very quickly that there was nothing I could do to change any of what was happening. No matter how much I pouted, moaned, yelled, snapped at people, nothing changed. I had to accept life for what it was. For that very moment.”

I smiled. Took another sip of my drink, and continued, “And there was another gift: I gave up on the world. I came to the conclusion that the fabric of the cosmos was going to be just fine without me. Without my worries, without my complaints. No matter what I thought, the world would continue to spin on its axis, the sun would rise and the moon would set. The waves would crash and the birds would chirp. The monkeys would howl and jabber all night. Dogs would bark. Drivers would pull in front of me. Politicians would lie. Life would go on. My job in life now was simply to observe.”

To observe. Or, as my Zen master would say, “Attention!”

The music is fading and it’s growing late. The melted ice spoils the taste of good scotch. The ashtray overflows.

But good things happened to me in India. And for that, I am grateful.