My mind is so full of the sights and tastes and smells and textures and sounds of INDIA! It is the most beautiful contradiction I’ve ever experienced. On the one hand, India is a lush and lavish land filled with natural resources, live stock, agriculture and technology. On the other hand, India is filled with poverty, misfortune, disaster and calamity. During the short time we were there, there was a bombing on a hospital and a 6 point plus earthquake that rocked the northern region of Sikkim; the worst ever since the 30’s. Sadly, the earthquake left over 80 people dead.
India is the largest democracy in the world with a race of people exceeded in population only by the Chinese. Our guide told us 1 in every 3 persons is Chinese and 1 in every 6 persons is Indian. Wow! With all those people the contradictions continue. India is bursting with art and culture. Many families preserve a craft and pass it down from generation to generation. For example, ancestors of the artisans that built the Taj Mahal out of world famous Agra marble still produce high quality (not to mention high priced) marble crafts even today. The secret of each detail is encapsulated in the minds of the decedents, never written only orated from father to son. One such secret is that of the “glue” that holds the semi-precious gemstones in the marble. This adhesive is heated only once and used to affix the stones in the painstakingly carved out designs. Once heated, it can never be re-heated and it never loosens or fails. It stays “forever”. This is the same process that was used on the Taj Mahal.
Agra Marble
However, just next door to the marvelous marble store there is trash piled as high as you can see. A skeleton thin market owner, making below pennies as a wage, sweeps dust back and forth with his make shift broom. If you look again you realize a naked child with a distended belly clinging to his mother’s hip as she reaches out a dirty palm for a hand out. Oh, the contradictions!
Beautiful Indian Children (posing for money)
There is an obsolete caste system that is still in place, but has more recently been “modified” with somewhat of an “affirmative action” type regulation that sluggishly works toward bridging the great divide between the rich and sorrowfully poor. There are very little “middle class” to speak of, just “the have and the have nots”.
Then there are five star hotels and magnificent malls and elegant restaurants and sumptuous fabrics. Each face you get the pleasure of looking into is a beautiful work of art. Among all the palaces and mosques with their architectural magnificence one site was quite funny in its multitude of contradictions. On one city block, in Agra, Delhi or Jaipur, one could witness a camel pulling a cart, a cow basking in the warm sunlight, a water buffalo walking from his water hole, a rickshaw (bicycle taxi) pulling a young couple, a mom and baby on the back of a motor cycle (without helmets), a snake charmer, a bazaar and a Mercedes-Benz. Wow…again!
Rickshaw
Local Camel
The Metropolitan Hotel, Delhi, India (our hotel)
Contemporary life struggles to emerge from the ancient culture. The country is, after all, quite a young nation, with just 63 short years passed since attaining its independence from the British. We were, however, very delighted to experience all of India’s aspects. It made us grateful for America. It also made us pray that the ideals, values and opportunity this great country has to offer will always be available to its citizens. God bless India and God bless America!
There is more to come…stay tuned!
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