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The culture that articulated the most thoroughgoing philosophy of carefulness with life (Ahimsa, non-injury) is a land of ecological degradation and human difficulty...I honor India for many things: those neolithic cattle breeders who sang daily songs of love to God and Cow...exhaustive meditations on mind and evocation of all the archetypes and images...But most, the spectacle of a high civilization that accomplished art, literature, and ceremony without imposing a narrow version of itself on every tribe and village. Civilization without centralization or monoculture.The caste system as a mode of social organization probably made this possible--with some very unattractive side effects. But those who study the nature of the rise of the centralized state will find India full of surprises. India has had superb times--now fallen a while on hard times. And, beginning to end, irreducible pride. The sharp-tongued, sharp-eyed village men and women, skinny with hard work and never a big fat meal to eat a whole lifetime, life under an eternal sky of stars, and on a beginningless earth.
-From Passage Through India by Gary Snyder

I found this book on a bookshelf, something I picked up a while ago at a used bookstore somewhere and never read. I began reading late one night, and was interested to find that I couldn't put it down. I referred to the beat poets earlier in my blog. My reverence isn't quite the same as it was in my early twenties, but I still love them. (I also have Allen Ginsberg's Indian Journals...but as much as I appreciate him, it's quite difficult to understand...)

Because I left "ready to go" and have been happy to be home, I wonder if I've deserted my long-beloved India. But as I read Gary Snyder's accounts of eating chapatis and curd, encountering ascetics and adivasis (tribal people), the difficulties of long journeys on second class sleeper trains, and the agony of being surrounded by a throng of desperate but demanding rickshaw drivers...as well as his critiques of guru devotion and the caste system, I felt myself a part of something larger. I remembered that I learned so much, that I love that complex and complicated place, and I truly began to miss it. We traversed similar paths at times...Dharamsala, Triund, Delhi, the Sivananda ashram, Mumbai...and many of his reflections were similar to ours.

Gary Synder traveled to India in 1962, and I was quite taken by how much was similar: the railway system, ashram culture, thalis, chai, the temples...India is changing rapidly. McDonald's is not an uncommon sight in the big cities, and every urban dweller seems to have a mobile phone. Yet, I really believe that so much will remain: women in saris, turban-clad Sikhs, cows roaming the streets, cyle-rickshaws, rice and dal...along with arranged marriage, the sideways head nod, and wacky slap-stick humor.

There were times during our travels, when we couldn't get honesty from anyone, while being stared at by groups of men, when strange, screaming babies where thrust into our arms so they could be photographed with us, when we were laughed at...that I didn't know if I'd ever want to go back. But it's only been a few weeks, and I'm reminded of watching India roll by from an open train window, and the palm-lined beaches of the South, the possibilities of a meal in a stranger's home, and the awe of a place that at times feel so different, yet functions so well. I miss it. I hope to return.

It's not a surprise to me that reading this book, now that I'm home, would have such an effect on me. Throughout our travels, reading served as a necessary way for me to process what I was experiencing, and even begin to theorize a little about it. Some of my suggested reading about India: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons by Susan Bumiller, Holy Cow by Sarah McDonald, and Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This is a very small list, but if you're interested in reading about India, it's a place to start.

Thank you for reading my blog.