Amiram Hayardeny's My China Experience

Some Observations, Thoughts and Discussion Points from India

Observations and Discussion Points

Those who read the business section of the daily newspaper recognize the name “Tata”.  But visiting here you understand what Tata really is for India.  Like “Ford Country”, Rajahsthan is Tata Country.  Almost every bus is Tata, and every truck, and every second car, and phone.  Tea, coffee, sugar and salt.  Hotels and cell phone carrier.  Tata is everywhere.  Tata is pervasive.

Milk is collected and distributed here the old fashioned way.  Farmers have a choice to sell to government dairy collection agencies around the countryside, or to come into town with their milk jars installed on their motorcycles and sell it privately for a higher price.  Some have agreements with urban families for the daily delivery of fresh milk.  My wife and I saw it, and reminisced about the neighborhood milkman who would bring milk to our doorsteps when we were growing up.  My daughter had some trouble understanding the concept of milk being sold outside the supermarket.  We moved on to kerosene distribution, back then with a horse, a container and a bell.  People would come down, get their kerosene and go home to heat their small houses.  After reminiscing for a while, we both agreed that supermarket milk and air conditioning are better.  Kerosene and milkmen are good for nostalgia.

Apparently the Indian government made a mistake in assessing the country's incredible growth.  It is obvious now, that not enough electricity is produced to provide the demand.  Therefore, the brownout system is employed.  In some places, electricity isn't available for four hours a day.  Every day.  In some places, more.  We've been to many places that have their own generators, so they can support their customers and their places of business.  Teaches you a lesson.  We take electric power for granted.  Should we?

Discussion: Religion vs. Organized Religion
Undoubtedly, religion is good for some.  It serves as a helping hand at times of need, and guidance at other times.  It provides a guideline for good living, and a framework for conducting one's life – birth and death, marriage and divorce, initiation and termination.  It provides ground rules for personal conduct, honesty, integrity and even how to conduct business, give charity, and many may other things.  In fact, to be religious, is to be comfortable in what one does.  People who lack the belief must confront decisions without guidelines and frameworks.  But this isn't the point I'm trying to make.  Religion, on a personal level is good.  Religion on a professional level, on commercial level, in my mind is less desirable.  In virtually all my encounters with commercial religion, I was disappointed.  Heaven and hell aren't for sale.  Well being and good karma, in my mind aren't for sale.  Health isn't for sale.  But people are very superstitious.  If someone tells them that if they do something (money is usually involved) they or their loved ones will become healthy, happy, prosperous, they do it without hesitation.  Who wouldn't shell out money to ensure his karma, his family's?
In my mind, everyone who offers good karma, health, happiness for money is a charlatan.  No offense meant.

Discussion: What's the fascination with India?

Traveling through India, I've seen quite a few western people dressed up in traditional outfits, with a real or fake look of enlightenment, or nirvana on their faces.  Growing up I knew a ping-pong champion who became a Harry Krishna follower.  And I have no intention of going into the airport scene in the seventies and eighties where it would be quite common to be presented with a flower, some writings, and a hand.  Nice people, always smiling

So what's the fascination of the west by eastern religions, medicine, way of life?

Let me take a wild guess.  It's called yearning.  Longing for something that we can't experience locally, that is not available at the store, that we didn't grow up with, that will never be part of our lives.  Longing for what's been missing in our lives.  Our lives are filled with large and small conveniences that we take for granted.  Electricity, running water, centralized sewer system, food, clothing, entertainment, communication systems, the list is long, very long.

There are also some disappointments.  Large and small.  We sometimes look at our lives as “shallow”, “meaningless”.  We sometimes look at the government as clueless, and at ourselves as having no control over our lives and fate.  Medicine is sometimes helpless, and our own western religions are sometimes looked at as greedy, aggressive and self promoting.

India, and other eastern religions can provide us with things that are missing from our lives.  It can actually give us something we can only dream about.  It's called back to basics.  But in a real sense.  Some of us try to accomplish it back home.  Go for a weekend at some resort that promises whole wheat bread, fully vegetarian meals, and mud baths.  For which, of course, we pay a lot.  But it isn't even close.  In fact, it isn't even far...

In India, you can experience living as people lived two thousand years ago.  Next to the river, which provides water for washing and cleaning and cleansing.  No electricity, for real, not the occasional brownout.  Wearing basic clothes, eating basic foods, avoiding the rat race altogether.  Same with the religions.  Basic.  River, flowers, chanting.

I have been telling Dorit that I would love to stay at an ashram for six months, doing nothing but Yoga, meditation, reading old scripts and the main thing: shutting my big mouth for a while.  Dorit always said that I was full of it.  That I won't survive a day.  She was wrong.  I won't survive an hour.  When we went to visit an Ashram in Rishikesh, my first and only question was if they have WiFi...

In Haridware I understood that I don't connect to the river, flower, chanting scene and I certainly don't connect to the poverty, illiteracy, dirt, blunt aggressiveness that comes with it.  In Rishikesh I understood that there are many faces in India.  Most are welcoming, smiling and very hospitable.

I chose the picture on the right to symbolize India for me.  I saw this guy sitting outside an Ashram in Rishikesh.  He welcomed us with two hands pointing at us from his chest, and gave us a big smile.  We kept going, and then I turned around.  He was still smiling.  I approached and asked to take his photo.  He agreed.  I also took a couple of photos of him with the kids.  But look at the guy.  He's simple, basically dressed, yet happy and content.

Is this what everyone is looking for when they are coming to India?  It looks like a long journey indeed.

Posted at 07:11PM Feb 13, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[0]