Posts Tagged ‘Culture’

Gopi’s father is a well educated Sadar.  A substantial landowner with economic means.  He refuses iced water and refuses a fan in his room.  He can afford air conditioning, but it is not even a consideration.  Even the fan is not a consideration. He lives with the elements in his own room.  Attended by 5 servents. The main servant, his personal cook and personal attendent, has been with him for 36 years.   Kashore is his name and his wife and newly married son and wife, attend Nanak Singhji and all his needs.  He has three homes including the home at the farm where he cooks with methane gas created from cow dung.  He has been doing that for many years.

This same Sadarji, purchased a new diesel SUV when he already has a small mini van and a small car for his personal use.  He purchase the new diesel SUV so that Gopi and I would be comfortable when we came to India.  The contrast of operation, need, and comfort defies understanding.  Only culture and contrasting values offer any explaination.  This Sadarji (Sikh gentleman-landholder-farmer) is 93 years old and is in perfect health.  His diet is excellent and would be praised by our standards.  In fact, his food is not processed and mostly grown on his own farm or purchased from markets that grow locally.

While in India, I have eaten better and naturally healthier than most in America.  Our two guests, one from Australia and one from the United States have said they do not know how they will adjust to American food once we return.  Our food has almost no flavor compared to what we are experiencing.  One one of our last visits, the teenaged daughter of one of our friends was asked by her parents, “Elise, why are you eating so much here when at home you barely touch you food?”  Her response was simple and indirect, “Well, I guess it is because it tastes soooo… good and the food at home is bland in comparison.”  I know the mother of this teenaged daughter and her mother is Greek and an excellent cook.  The simple fact is that, at least in this home the preparations are simple and tasteful.  Healthy and fresh.  Do not think that if you all run to an Indian restaurant that you will be experiencing Indian food.  Home cooked Indian food from fresh locally grow vegatables is not the same thing.  Hard to explain, but true.  Taste is worth the effort to eat locally grown food where ever you live.

If we all lived like Gopi’s father, the planet would be heading in the right direction.  Good heart and mostly conservative uses of energy and resouces without effort or suffering.

I am in India and as many have experienced, India is a place with great consienciousness and awareness, as well as a blind lack of civic sense and third world inefficiency disfunction.  In short, a land of paradoxes.  It is not merely over popluation and poverty that creates what appears as the unfortunate aspect of India, it is a culture deeply rooted in domination by the Maharajas and the British Raj.  They are a newly formed democracy that sees it’s new freedom as an opportunity as an opportuity to expereince what they consider what those previously in charge experienced.  In some cases and perhaps many cases the view of what the previously in charge were experiencing is being seen as what a child must see when viewing the parent.  The freedom without the understanding of the responsibility.

Corruption was prevelant with the British Raj and over indulgence was present with the Maharajas, but it is taken to new heights with the newly found political democracy.  My comments relate to public facilities and civic conscience and I do not propose to discuss business and politics in general.  Only, how it relates to cleanliness and conservation.

Here is what is being experienced, from my view, while I am in India, on this visit:

Massive rolling power outages beyond what has previously been experienced.  The outages are due to the lack of supply and the fact that public officials have likely stolen funds that were intended for increased power supply.  In some cases, during this heat spell, in some major cities, power may only be on for a few hours a day.  Temperatures approach 114 degrees.  HVAC is not always prevelant anyway, but even the fans cease to function.   How they survive is a testiment to the hardy nature of the Indian population.  The ability to endure may be their major and foremest asset.

In a modern city like Chandigarh, a city designed by the same architect planner that designed Paris, water shortages are also massive.  Water is turned on for only 2 hours a day in some cases.  The city was designed for only a few people compared to how many live there.  Water abounds underground and the plants and trees thrive, however, water for human use is in short supply with no real solution for the future.

I discussed the shortages of water and power with a local resident and the answer was “yes it is a problem”  and “she did not know what the dismal future would hold.”  It appears that they all patiently wait for the inevitible distruction of humanity because there seems to be no alternative other than to await whatever comes.  Patience and endurance, again appear in the Indian consciousness.

Filth abounds and trash is everywhere.  Cleanliness is a concept that, though there, is not expressed in the same way as America, Japan, or Germany.  Mexico and the latin countries do not compare with the Scandinavian or Germanic countries, but India is without compare for filth and simply throwing trash indescriminaty on the ground.  It is a sign of power or something.

So that is the bad and now for the good:

As simple as the packaging in the “Daily Needs” Ducans.  What is used to package goods is folded news papers.  Folded in a way to make a bag.  They do not hold up when wet, but they work until you are out of the store and a carrying bag is always brought to the Ducan to carry goods.  We are just now getting in to bringing our own bag to the market.

Many Indians, even those with means, take what is called a bucket bath.  Buckets are provided in the showers and a bucket of water if filled (sometimes two) and one squats or sits on a small stool and bathes using a small container.  This water, in many cases runs out of the building (gray water) and waters plants.

Air Conditioning is not prevalent because of cost, but also because the people just endure heat as a sign of strength.  Comforts are not demanded like in America and though our friends indulge our need for comfort, they themselves do not demand comfort.  I have experienced kitchen workers with a fan near buy working in the heat and without a great deal of ventilation and not even considering the requirement of turning on the fan.  Not air conditioning, but just turning on the fan.  When it is hot, it is merely hot and when cold, it is merely cold.

A famous Sufi poet once wrote metaphorically that sorrow and joy were walking and talking by a calm and sparkling lake when they were observed from the opposite bank of the lake by two hunters.  One hunter asked the other if he saw the two figures walking along the lake and the other hunter said he saw only one.  they argued and never agreed with each other as to the question if there was only one or if they were two.  You see, each one had a view very different from the other.  Joy and Sorrow are just aspects of the whole of live and one can not exist without the other as a comparison.  Joy and Sorrow both exist and do not exist just as heat and cold both exist and do not exist.  For the Indians that do not seek comfort, as do we, heat and cold are just experiences.  Neither separate nor the same.  Neither endured nor enjoyed becasue they are just part of the day.

We can not imagine their view and I am constantly remarking on how nice it is in the evening and how warm it is in the day.  They accept that I must speak of it because I am an American, but they quite honestly do not understand all the fuss and wasted time in comparison.  The weather just is.

In summary:  It would appear that what is leading America and down the road to excessive use of our planets resources and to being a major contributor to climate change is our demand for comfort and our inability to endure and our inability to let things just be.  Neither hot or cold, but just as it is without comparison to comfort.  You see the Indians are not uncomfortable so they are not seeking comfort.  We constantly complain and they either endure or just accept.  Generalizations all, but truth just the same.

Quite a contrast of our consciousness leading us to wanting to do something about the planet and yet the same consciousness is viewing everything as uncomfortable and needing modification to be comfortable.  OUr consciouness is both working as a cause and a solution.  Interesting.

India on the other hand is not seeking comfort at every turn while their lack of consciousness causes them to ignore their abuse of the planet.

Go figure.  Will Rogers once provided a solution to the current President of the United States regarding the German submarine threat,  Will said, “just boil the ocean.”  The President said, yes that will work, but how do you propose we do it.  Will said “you asked for a solution and I provided one.  You figure out execution.”  I am paraphrasing and the quote is not exact.  Never expect more from me.

So, great and knowing public.  So, those of you out there that seek to change the world.  If you could change the world….people.  The real question may be, in that the world can not change fast enough due to purely cultural facts, how are you going to adapt to the world we will face in the future.

Peace out everyone….