In India, I find the yin and yang of life constantly in my face: the ancient squalor amongst the new, shining, tall apartments; the garish movie posters that celebrate sentimental love and outrageous violence side by side; the intricate twining of the wild and the tamed; the weak infrastructure and the strong economy; the hunger and yearning in the eyes of most and the satiated look of the wealthy few. The difference between being a beggar and driving a Mercedes, between pushing a cart all day when you’re 60 to survive and blowing up Rs.10,000 for your son’s birthday when you’re only 30, between starving for a morsel and having all you can eat for Rs.100, between living amongst filth and ramshackle structures and in mansions that rival the West, between being a monk and a free market enthusiast, between being a rat in the jaws of a hawk and being the hawk, all seems so arbitrary that believing in god seems logical. There but for the grace of you, go I. Fate and destiny seem more powerful than free will and conscious action in India.
In the US, I find it easy to turn a blind eye to the way we live and the way most Indians live. In our suburban neighborhoods, I find it easy to think 4 bedroom single family homes with 2 cars is not an aspiration, some lofty goal, but just the basic human right, to be denied it is unthinkable; easy to lose perspective and vent over some trifle like the cell phone coverage of AT&T; easy to dismiss as aberrations the men I see every now and then holding a sign that says “Broke Nam Vet” or “Hungry Vet, Will Work for Food” with labels such as “alcoholic” or “drug addict”. Instead of thinking how millions of us executing the same life choices that I make leads to such broken men, I think how right Gordon Lightfoot was when he sang “See the soldier with his gun, who must be dead to be admired”. One of the haunting images from Lisbon that I still bear is the sight of a street musician whose dog sat on its haunches holding a small bowl in its mouth labeled “alms”. My first thought was about the plight of the dog, not the man. Am I a misanthrope, I still wonder.
I remember a quote from the classic history of the 20th century, Eric Hobsbawm’s “The Age of Extremes” that sums up my confusion, my agitation when I visit India. Julio Caro Baroja, a Spanish anthropologist says: “There’s a patent contradiction between one’s own life experience – childhood, youth, old age passed quietly and without major adventures – and the facts of the twentieth century … the terrible events which humanity has lived through”.
And when I feel despair, I remember Derrick Jensen’s quote, from an article about the state of the Earth, published in The Orion magazine, back in 2006: “I am a complex enough being that I can hold in my heart the understanding that we are really, really fucked, and at the same time that life is really, really good. I am full of rage, sorrow, joy, love, hate, despair, happiness, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and a thousand other feelings. We are really fucked. Life is still really good.”
I often wonder, how can I explain to Maya this schism between what her life is like (hopefully our good fortune extends to her) and what she sees around her when she’s in India. And when she asks what have I done to reduce the schism, what will I say ? What will I have done ?
These thoughts resurge powerfully each time I visit India.
