The Land of the No…
MON 16th January
One of the aspects of India I am largely sheltered from here in Thane, and indeed as a non-resident is the delight the countless bureaucrats and officials here take in exercising the power of obstruction within their fiefdoms. I am currently reading a book by Suketu Mehta called ‘Maximum City’, which is all about Mumbai. Here is how he puts it:
"‘Can I get a gas connection?’
‘No’
‘Can I get a phone?’
‘No’
‘Can I get a school for my child?’
‘I am afraid it is not possible’
‘Can I get a railway reservation?’
‘No’
India is the country of the No. That ‘no’ is your test. You have to get past it. It is India’s Great Wall; it keeps out foreign invaders. Pursuing it energetically and vanquishing it is your challenge. In the guru-shishya tradition, the novice is always rebuffed when he first approaches the guru. Then the guru stops saying no, but doesn’t say yes either; he suffers the presence of the student. When he starts acknowledging him, he assigns him a series of strict menial tasks, meant to drive him away. Only if the disciple sticks it out through all these stages of rejection and ill treatment is he considered worthy of the sublime knowledge. India is not a tourist friendly country. It will only reveal itself to you if you stay on against all odds. The ‘no’ might never become a ‘yes’. But you will stop asking questions."
So you can imagine my trepidation as I went to buy a train ticket today. Thankfully, I was helped by a really nice guy from the accounts department at Lok called Sachin. The maze of queues and ticket types, forms to fill out and peculiar bureaucratic technicalities is bewildering at the best of times. As it was , the whole process took a little over an hour, with Sachin interpreting, and not in the rush hour! Can you imagine what it might have been like when it was busy?! Even the travel agent whom I had originally phoned seemed to have very little clue about the trains and how to access information about when they left, how long they took etc. hence the need for the trip to the station in the first place.
Actually, I had gone on my own last night…only to discover that it was a Sunday and with all my thinking about strategies to pursue and energetically vanquish the ‘no’s I might face, I had forgotten that the ticket office shuts half days on a Sunday!! D’oh. My annoyance at my own stupidity was well dissipated by a very tasty meal at a vegetarian restaurant called Archana. I must confess that, as a confirmed carnivore, India is providing a persuasive argument through it’s excellent vegetarian comestibles to change allegiances…aided by the occasional glimpse of fly-covered goat or sheep carcases gently putrifying in the afternoon heat of the street butchers stall; not to mention, of course, the squawking clucks as a chicken is butchered in the back of the shop I go to, shortly after I have requested chicken breasts for that evening’s meal.
Blithering ineptitude and gastronomically impoverished vegetarians aside, I have had a most excellent weekend. I finally got sight of a swimming pool; infact I was submerged in one for a whole morning courtesy of Adam and Jo. It is hard to grasp, unless you happen to have experienced tropical Asian temperatures yourself, what the climate is like here. Even driving at fifty or sixty miles per hour on a motorbike doesn’t cool you down; rather it is like sticking yourself into and industrial fan oven on a preheat setting. Bear in mind this is their winter. While I am fighting the urge to disrobe in a most culturally insensitive way most of the time, the locals are huddled in sweatshirts or several layers of cloth complaining about it being “somewhat nippy just lately”!!! That, coupled with the constant film of reddish black dust that settles over everything including your mouth and tongue, might go some way towards explaining the mounting verging on pathological desire I have had, since I arrived, to jump into a pool. Wish granted at the Golden Swan country club! The club is set in the middle of a national park (in fact it was probably built illegally!) up on the foothills behind Thane. One of it’s particularly attractive features is the complete lack of noise. I think I was able to hear birdsong and insects for the first time since I got here. It makes a refreshing change from the incessant 24 hour chirrup of horns and rickshaw engines which otherwise fills one’s ears. They serve a pretty tasty chicken tikka there too (just to entirely dispel any concerns you might have that the dark side had indeed taken root (no pun intended).
So having been suitably quenched, I spent the afternoon in Thane with Bushan and Deepu. They are 2 guys around my age, who live in the flats here. I met Deepu in the first week here, and he had agreed to take me to see a Bollywood movie, something I very much wanted to do. This was our plan, but the timings of the cinema did not suit, so it being the day of the festival of Pongal (the harvest festival), they decided to take me to see the oldest temple in Thane. It is located just off the main wholesale vegetable market, a madcap sprawling chaotic patchwork of vegetables on huge pieces of sackcloth and ramshackle wooden trestles amidst small streams of compacted but still sticky “mud” – whose contents I can barely bring myself to contemplate. Ahhhh, so this is the wholesome source of all that has sustained me over the last weeks! Brings a lump to one’s throat.
The temple itself dates back 400 years. The amazing colours and rituals and statues are fascinating. IT is quite peculiar seeing people prostrating themselves before lumps of stone or genuflecting in front of a large slighty comic looking monkey with 6 arms. But I guess my basic take on this is that it would be a mistake simply to reject it as idolatrous nonsense. To do so is to dismiss the real and sincere faith of the millions of people who were doing similar pujas (acts of ceremonial worship) across India. I think we have to be wary of falling into the trap of assuming that idol worship is just the product of ignorance or poor education. To be honest, I can’t see much to separate someone laying a Paan leaf laden with a prescribed portion of nuts or dried fruits in front of a stone statue in the hope of a change in fortunes and someone buying their weekly “flutter” on the national lottery in the hope they “might just win”. I guess I prefer to start from the premise that those with a different faith are made by God with exactly the same in-built need for Him and for security in relationship with him that I have. They may have a completely distorted theology, but at least when you speak to most people here about God you are not dealing with the complete denial of Him that you start with in many cases at home. As I have found with religion in other countries before, there is much in the creativity, colourfulness and diversity of other people’s practices that celebrates very real aspects of God’s works and character. This is not to divorce it from often unpalatable half-truths and misconceptions that are liberally mixed in. But as well as feeling appalled and beside myself that so many could be so sincerely missing the precious relationship with their creator that their hearts so earnestly desire, I guess I also felt a little like Paul might have done when he visited Athens and saw all the offerings in the Acropolis; an overwhelming desire to understand what these people think is the truth about matters of life and death and to reason with them and reveal to them the amazing creator God who for many remains hidden behind stone statues and supernatural occurrences (the black stone Lingam – representing the male organ of Shiva – at the centre of the temple is alleged to grow by a small amount every year, and when it touches the walls of the temple, it will be the end of the world!).
The temple visit was followed by an obligatory visit to an eatery, where Bushan and Deepu introduced me to Mussul Pav, a SERIOUSLY chillified but tasty dish, which could accurately be described as an internal sauna! Needing some exercise to work it out through our pores, the day was concluded by a row on the lake in the centre of Thane, the last thing I had thought I would be doing when I came to India. It reminded me a lot of Hyde park except that rather than being surrounded by acres of greenery, we were surrounded by rushhour downtown Thane. I was very touched at the repeated insistence of both Bushan and Deepu to not let me pay for anything. Bear in mind that we are complete strangers who had met only the night previously, and that Mumbai is a city with 25 million people in it – twice the size of London. I find it hard to imagine a tourist turning up at a block of flats and passing some lads in London and getting the same reception. One of the things I am really learning about from this culture is the openness and hospitality that relative strangers show each other. It is a precious thing that I hope is not eroded by the continuing westernisation of their culture.
More of my adventures with these two chaps anon. Watch this space..!!!
One of the aspects of India I am largely sheltered from here in Thane, and indeed as a non-resident is the delight the countless bureaucrats and officials here take in exercising the power of obstruction within their fiefdoms. I am currently reading a book by Suketu Mehta called ‘Maximum City’, which is all about Mumbai. Here is how he puts it:
"‘Can I get a gas connection?’
‘No’
‘Can I get a phone?’
‘No’
‘Can I get a school for my child?’
‘I am afraid it is not possible’
‘Can I get a railway reservation?’
‘No’
India is the country of the No. That ‘no’ is your test. You have to get past it. It is India’s Great Wall; it keeps out foreign invaders. Pursuing it energetically and vanquishing it is your challenge. In the guru-shishya tradition, the novice is always rebuffed when he first approaches the guru. Then the guru stops saying no, but doesn’t say yes either; he suffers the presence of the student. When he starts acknowledging him, he assigns him a series of strict menial tasks, meant to drive him away. Only if the disciple sticks it out through all these stages of rejection and ill treatment is he considered worthy of the sublime knowledge. India is not a tourist friendly country. It will only reveal itself to you if you stay on against all odds. The ‘no’ might never become a ‘yes’. But you will stop asking questions."
So you can imagine my trepidation as I went to buy a train ticket today. Thankfully, I was helped by a really nice guy from the accounts department at Lok called Sachin. The maze of queues and ticket types, forms to fill out and peculiar bureaucratic technicalities is bewildering at the best of times. As it was , the whole process took a little over an hour, with Sachin interpreting, and not in the rush hour! Can you imagine what it might have been like when it was busy?! Even the travel agent whom I had originally phoned seemed to have very little clue about the trains and how to access information about when they left, how long they took etc. hence the need for the trip to the station in the first place.
Actually, I had gone on my own last night…only to discover that it was a Sunday and with all my thinking about strategies to pursue and energetically vanquish the ‘no’s I might face, I had forgotten that the ticket office shuts half days on a Sunday!! D’oh. My annoyance at my own stupidity was well dissipated by a very tasty meal at a vegetarian restaurant called Archana. I must confess that, as a confirmed carnivore, India is providing a persuasive argument through it’s excellent vegetarian comestibles to change allegiances…aided by the occasional glimpse of fly-covered goat or sheep carcases gently putrifying in the afternoon heat of the street butchers stall; not to mention, of course, the squawking clucks as a chicken is butchered in the back of the shop I go to, shortly after I have requested chicken breasts for that evening’s meal.
Blithering ineptitude and gastronomically impoverished vegetarians aside, I have had a most excellent weekend. I finally got sight of a swimming pool; infact I was submerged in one for a whole morning courtesy of Adam and Jo. It is hard to grasp, unless you happen to have experienced tropical Asian temperatures yourself, what the climate is like here. Even driving at fifty or sixty miles per hour on a motorbike doesn’t cool you down; rather it is like sticking yourself into and industrial fan oven on a preheat setting. Bear in mind this is their winter. While I am fighting the urge to disrobe in a most culturally insensitive way most of the time, the locals are huddled in sweatshirts or several layers of cloth complaining about it being “somewhat nippy just lately”!!! That, coupled with the constant film of reddish black dust that settles over everything including your mouth and tongue, might go some way towards explaining the mounting verging on pathological desire I have had, since I arrived, to jump into a pool. Wish granted at the Golden Swan country club! The club is set in the middle of a national park (in fact it was probably built illegally!) up on the foothills behind Thane. One of it’s particularly attractive features is the complete lack of noise. I think I was able to hear birdsong and insects for the first time since I got here. It makes a refreshing change from the incessant 24 hour chirrup of horns and rickshaw engines which otherwise fills one’s ears. They serve a pretty tasty chicken tikka there too (just to entirely dispel any concerns you might have that the dark side had indeed taken root (no pun intended).
So having been suitably quenched, I spent the afternoon in Thane with Bushan and Deepu. They are 2 guys around my age, who live in the flats here. I met Deepu in the first week here, and he had agreed to take me to see a Bollywood movie, something I very much wanted to do. This was our plan, but the timings of the cinema did not suit, so it being the day of the festival of Pongal (the harvest festival), they decided to take me to see the oldest temple in Thane. It is located just off the main wholesale vegetable market, a madcap sprawling chaotic patchwork of vegetables on huge pieces of sackcloth and ramshackle wooden trestles amidst small streams of compacted but still sticky “mud” – whose contents I can barely bring myself to contemplate. Ahhhh, so this is the wholesome source of all that has sustained me over the last weeks! Brings a lump to one’s throat.
The temple itself dates back 400 years. The amazing colours and rituals and statues are fascinating. IT is quite peculiar seeing people prostrating themselves before lumps of stone or genuflecting in front of a large slighty comic looking monkey with 6 arms. But I guess my basic take on this is that it would be a mistake simply to reject it as idolatrous nonsense. To do so is to dismiss the real and sincere faith of the millions of people who were doing similar pujas (acts of ceremonial worship) across India. I think we have to be wary of falling into the trap of assuming that idol worship is just the product of ignorance or poor education. To be honest, I can’t see much to separate someone laying a Paan leaf laden with a prescribed portion of nuts or dried fruits in front of a stone statue in the hope of a change in fortunes and someone buying their weekly “flutter” on the national lottery in the hope they “might just win”. I guess I prefer to start from the premise that those with a different faith are made by God with exactly the same in-built need for Him and for security in relationship with him that I have. They may have a completely distorted theology, but at least when you speak to most people here about God you are not dealing with the complete denial of Him that you start with in many cases at home. As I have found with religion in other countries before, there is much in the creativity, colourfulness and diversity of other people’s practices that celebrates very real aspects of God’s works and character. This is not to divorce it from often unpalatable half-truths and misconceptions that are liberally mixed in. But as well as feeling appalled and beside myself that so many could be so sincerely missing the precious relationship with their creator that their hearts so earnestly desire, I guess I also felt a little like Paul might have done when he visited Athens and saw all the offerings in the Acropolis; an overwhelming desire to understand what these people think is the truth about matters of life and death and to reason with them and reveal to them the amazing creator God who for many remains hidden behind stone statues and supernatural occurrences (the black stone Lingam – representing the male organ of Shiva – at the centre of the temple is alleged to grow by a small amount every year, and when it touches the walls of the temple, it will be the end of the world!).
The temple visit was followed by an obligatory visit to an eatery, where Bushan and Deepu introduced me to Mussul Pav, a SERIOUSLY chillified but tasty dish, which could accurately be described as an internal sauna! Needing some exercise to work it out through our pores, the day was concluded by a row on the lake in the centre of Thane, the last thing I had thought I would be doing when I came to India. It reminded me a lot of Hyde park except that rather than being surrounded by acres of greenery, we were surrounded by rushhour downtown Thane. I was very touched at the repeated insistence of both Bushan and Deepu to not let me pay for anything. Bear in mind that we are complete strangers who had met only the night previously, and that Mumbai is a city with 25 million people in it – twice the size of London. I find it hard to imagine a tourist turning up at a block of flats and passing some lads in London and getting the same reception. One of the things I am really learning about from this culture is the openness and hospitality that relative strangers show each other. It is a precious thing that I hope is not eroded by the continuing westernisation of their culture.
More of my adventures with these two chaps anon. Watch this space..!!!
posted by Duncan at 10:07 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home