Soma

Resources => Other Cultures [Public] => Topic started by: Michael on May 17, 2008, 01:57:21 AM

Title: India
Post by: Michael on May 17, 2008, 01:57:21 AM
I would like to say some more about India - you all know I often refer to my experiences there, and my love of the culture and the philosophical religions of India.

I first came to India, with no knowledge of the place or culture whatsoever. I was brought up to basically ignore the existence of Asia - yes I studied it at school a bit, but really the idea that I should travel through Asia was a thought from the blue. Given to me by someone in a youth hostel in London, when all I had left for money was a plane ticket home to Australia.

I cashed in the ticket, and on less than a shoe string, I travelled overland to India, then down the Malayan peninsular to Darwin, where I arrived as sick as a dead dog with hepatitis.

I still recall the moment I crossed from Pakistan into India. I know they are almost the same land and people, but the fact of the emotional feeling of liberation and 'coming home' I felt as I walked down the wide avenue at the boarder crossing, on the Indian side - all cool and old Sikh military men with those fabulous beards and moustaches; made me aware it was more than the land - it was the people, the culture, that I fell into like a bee into honey.

I loved it from the very first. Everything was different, and i will enjoy to describe some of those cultural differences. But the thing that caught me most, was the feeling of being back in the timeless bosom of humanity as it existed for thousands of years.

I used to travel to India, like travelling to another planet - it was so far away from my 'Western' world, from what I came to see as a tiny bubble on the stream of the human species - a bubble of order and clean streets and houses, of rationality and 'rights'. India had none of those, but when I went there, and I would travel off into the sub-continent with no purpose or agenda, no direction or plan, I would discover the experience of my western self falling off me like slabs of cake, or rather slabs of cement.

Eventually I would gravitate to a position of endlessness - timelessness, and almost complete acceptance of everything. i say almost because i still needed to survive, but i discovered that to survive in India was totally different to survival in Europe of Australia.

Survival in India meant relaxing, and allowing - just flowing with the current. As soon as you struggled for anything, you would surely come a cropper. This meant living very close to the bare minimum - I would sleep in temples, or dormitories, eat the most basic of foods, and just wander, day after day, looking - feasting my eyes and ears on the most extraordinary sights and sounds I had never believed existed. Truly this was another world.

My home country was so far - so far - so far away. eventually my travels there led to a fatal climax.

I listen to other people speak of their problems with India and Indians. Hardly anyone escapes without many traumatic inner and outer crises. I reached a point where I hated Indians. I hated their egotistic and snobbish, hypocritical and filthy arrogance or snivelling obsequious and fulsome deviousness and cruelty.

then as i walked out in the rural setting of what was then just a country town of Pune, I saw a man and his schoolboy son, walking home together. Don't ask me what the connection was, but right there i simply dropped all my antagonism - I laughed and saw the Indians for what they are. This insight is why so many westerners can't understand Indian Bollywood films. They see them as corny or silly or over obvious in emotion. they don't understand the Indian's naivety and love of some quality, that I just can't find words for.

We are so sophisticated in the West, so much into reality and secret self-importance. Indians are into obvious and comic self-importance. I learned to just relax and accept them, to laugh and live among them, as children in the world - children of god.

That does not mean they still don't infuriate me, but that infuriation is now only a game inside me. I do it like they do. It's all in the style, and the flavour of who you are.
Title: Re: India
Post by: nichi on May 18, 2008, 12:21:25 AM
Michael, when you speak of this story, I always picture something like this (you):

(http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/images/2007/12/17/q1x00086_9.jpg)

or

(http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/14_1/fieldreports/gallerywalgren_files/image003.jpg)
Title: Re: India
Post by: Michael on May 18, 2008, 01:38:23 AM
Here are some of our own photos that give a picture of Indian life:

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/kolkata.jpg)
Kolkata

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/barabazzar.jpg)
Bara bazaar

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/kolkata_backstreets.jpg)
back streets of Kolkata

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/kolkata_backstreets2.jpg)
back streets of Kolkata



(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/orchha.jpg)
morning men in Orchha

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/orchha2.jpg)
old palace in Orchha

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/orchha3.jpg)
mustard fields in Orchha

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/puri.jpg)
village near Puri

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/puri2.jpg)
village women near Puri

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/varanasi.jpg)
street life in Varanasi

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/varanasi2.jpg)
street life in Varanasi

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/varanasi_sadhu.jpg)
Sadhu in Varanasi

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/villagelife.jpg)
Village scene
Title: Re: India
Post by: tangerine dream on May 18, 2008, 01:41:20 AM
Quote from: Michael on May 18, 2008, 01:38:23 AM
Here are some of our own photos that give a picture of Indian life:



(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/villagelife.jpg)
Village scene

I like this one!
Title: Re: India
Post by: Michael on May 18, 2008, 02:01:22 AM
from the same village:

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/villagelife2.jpg)
Title: Re: India
Post by: tangerine dream on May 18, 2008, 02:04:47 AM
buildings are the same colour as my dream house from last night...

you don't have pics of the insides of any of these homes, do you?
Title: Re: India
Post by: Michael on May 18, 2008, 02:07:14 AM
that's why I put that one up - it is a beautiful colour... I love it's softness. It is common in many villages.

No - haven't been inside, but I have one of looking through the door
Title: Re: India
Post by: Michael on May 18, 2008, 02:11:34 AM
(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/villagelife3.jpg)
Title: Re: India
Post by: tangerine dream on May 18, 2008, 02:13:18 AM
Lovely!
Title: Re: India
Post by: Michael on May 19, 2008, 01:00:31 AM
I have a video clip - it is very large file, which I know many will not be able to download. I will try to make a smaller one later which can be watched in a smaller frame.

this is of Indian folk dancing - but modern renditions - at an event we went to in Orissa. I filmed this because I loved it so much - the way they move, and the last act is really full on - fantastic drummers! and dancers.

Indian Folk Dance (http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/IndianFolkDance.divx)
Title: Re: India
Post by: Jahn on May 19, 2008, 03:39:17 AM
Quote from: Michael on May 19, 2008, 01:00:31 AM
I have a video clip - it is very large file, which I know many will not be able to download.

It took an hour for me but that may have depended much on the slow server in Aust. The file was said to be 230 Mb something but ended up as 94 Mb. That would load within 15-20 minutes.

Now I am going to install DivX because I have a new computer since a couple of weeks, a notebook that give me a lot of typing errors  :)

I liked the same pic as Soulflower. It looked clean and tidy, had some good vibes really.
Title: Re: India
Post by: Jahn on May 19, 2008, 03:47:37 AM
Quote from: blue feather on May 19, 2008, 03:39:17 AM


Now I am going to install DivX because I have a new computer since a couple of weeks,

Those 17 Mb of DivX took approximately one minute to load. So that gives a hint of what speed it could be.
Title: Re: India
Post by: Shamaya on May 19, 2008, 08:59:05 AM
Quote from: Michael on May 18, 2008, 01:38:23 AM

(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/barabazzar.jpg)
Bara bazaar


There is something errie about the the guy looking into the camera

Just struck me -
Title: Re: India
Post by: Michael on May 19, 2008, 09:50:32 AM
Quote from: blue feather on May 19, 2008, 03:39:17 AM
It took an hour for me but that may have depended much on the slow server in Aust. The file was said to be 230 Mb something but ended up as 94 Mb. That would load within 15-20 minutes.

Now I am going to install DivX because I have a new computer since a couple of weeks, a notebook that give me a lot of typing errors  :)

I liked the same pic as Soulflower. It looked clean and tidy, had some good vibes really.

It is about 230 MB, and it is on the US server.
You may be able to watch some of it - not sure.

It is of two concerts on separate nights, and inbetween are filming of the hermit caves where Jain hermits used to live long ago - at Bhubaneswar.
Title: Re: India
Post by: Michael on May 20, 2008, 12:35:36 AM
Indians have little sense of personal space - they are very happy to be squashed together in large crowds without panicking. Mind you, when they do panic, they stampede and people get killed.

They also have one of the best child-adult relationships of any culture I have seen. All adults love children, and children call all adults aunty and uncle. Adults don't have to be related to children, to pick them up and play with them - there is such a love of children that it really makes us bemoan our culture's fear, separateness and house-bound childhoods.

Indians are extremely lazy. they don't give a shit about anything... except politics. they are dirty and untidy in public, but fastidiously clean in their own homes and personal hygiene. They love a good argument.

Can be excitable, and best to avoid excitable crowds - in fact all crowds that have a purpose.
Title: Re: India
Post by: Jahn on May 22, 2008, 04:02:12 AM
Quote from: Michael on May 19, 2008, 09:50:32 AM
It is about 230 MB, and it is on the US server.
You may be able to watch some of it - not sure.


Thank you, I had a glance for a few minutes - it looked fine! Young India girls and women singing and acting on stage in different groups. This week is filled to the brim but I look forward to watch more of it.
Title: Re: India
Post by: Michael on October 20, 2008, 10:53:12 PM
 :)

Finally, I can share some of this film - Julie discovered it on YT.

This is not a doco - watch carefully, this is a sensitive and beautifully filmed artistic movie.

The dance ones are especially good.
Also the Toda (first) - I visited this area in India long ago - I fear all these people have been absorbed and their culture gone by now, but maybe not.

http://www.youtube.com/v/0GfejIxtDfw&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/wT8W006fqBU&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/uIGodDxlnVo&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/4JB_Mqm1tV8&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/vWPIylNm4jc&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/DAMnyQPQKl8&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/ie2FJTm5txI&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/zwMx3FAN8qQ&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/zVPsqEoN9cc&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/uZ07JKMA72A&hl=en&fs=1
Title: Re: India
Post by: Michael on October 21, 2008, 10:30:49 PM
Quote from: Michael on October 20, 2008, 10:53:12 PM

http://www.youtube.com/v/vWPIylNm4jc&hl=en&fs=1


This one is truly sublime.
Luis Malle, who also does the voice-over, was obviously very affected by these girls' dancing. It is easy to see why.
Title: Re: India
Post by: nichi on November 10, 2008, 09:33:35 PM
M, while I was searching for articles on Karthigai Deepam, I encountered this blog full of southern and northern Indian recipes. The author writes with good cheer:

The Culinary Bazaar (http://culinarybazaar.blogspot.com/)