The India confusion

Jun 6th, 2004, 08:03

Maybe it just lets people understand how tired they are of eating boiled beef and melted cheese..Aldous huxley wrote a book called "island" where he represented the early 20th century liberal view (bloomsbury set etc) of what India was to him.

Jun 6th, 2004, 08:15

Changed the link. the old link is here

volga_volga · Jun 6th, 2004, 17:45

Quote:

Originally posted by sillylilly
Like all unequal things in life, God gave North Indians the looks and South Indians the brains.

a question i wanted to ask for some time: is there a so called "North-South divide" in India?

(N-S divide as in: advanced, industrial and better off North and agricultural, laid-back and poorer South.)

beach · Jun 6th, 2004, 19:16

This is a part of the article{"Freedom beckons them"} appeared on “The Hindu” some times back (Monday, Apr 15, 2002).

Quote:

What travellers like in this country are obviously landscapes, temples and cities, but above all, they love the people.
``Indian people are so nice and so helpful, especially in Kerala. It is very pleasant. You cannot get lost, there is always somebody to explain the way to you, to show you the right bus,'' explain Jim and Lucy, both Australians.
Indian culture and spirituality are also very fascinating to travellers; religion and its varied symbols are everywhere. Costy, a Greek Yoga teacher, comes to the south of India every winter:

``India is the original place of sprituality. Here you go directly to the essential, people are not yet too much influenced by television and Coca-Cola''.
However, this omnipresent spirituality can be uncomfortable for unseasoned travelers in India. Not infrequently, people lose touch with reality since so many come here in search of a meaning for their life, knowing India only from the various bohemian tales floating around.

The French government noticed this trend and decided to put a psychologist in each French embassy in India. One of those doctors wrote a book, `Crazy about India'.
He explains how people can become really crazy here and then return to a state of absolutely normalcy upon arriving home.
The main problem for those tourists is the fear of poverty and death. Death is a normal part of life in India, and in fact the two go hand in hand, whereas in Western countries the perception of death is decidedly different.
A famous Swiss writer, Nicolas Bouvier, wrote about Asia: ''We think that we will do a travel, but it is the travel which does you or undoes you''. Indeed, India changes the people travelling here, but most of them will come again, perhaps to escape winter, perhaps to find themselves ... or perhaps simply to taste a freedom that they never encounter in their own country.

http://<br /> Full article here htt...1501180300.htm

Yes. The air here is filled with the cultural version of Bhang. You simply live here and get the kick. Or you can ride on the emotional roller costar. Even we ourselves could not explain the twist and turns of this human ocean. In the west things work based on logic. In India she follows fuzzy logic. That is what happens when her population chant in Sanskrit and rant in English!

Quote:

Originally posted by volga_volga
a question i wanted to ask for some time: is there a so called "North-South divide" in India?
(N-S divide as in: advanced, industrial and better off North and agricultural, laid-back and poorer South.)

Volga, Watch out!!! You are tinkering with a bee’s nest. This N-S divide can get nastier than the Indo-Pak arguments. After all Indians are in India and Pakistanis are in Pakistan.

But your perception of social advancement is just the reverse!

Draw a diagonal line on the India map from Chandigarh to Visakhapatnam. The lower part of it is at least 25 years ahead of the top part in ANY social indices. Yes, there a very few pockets of exceptions.
You cannot have a backward state with 98% literacy and an advanced state with less than 40%

Who wants to start a surrogate thread “North Vs South”. It’ll be easier for Steven to close it because it will be an ‘internal’ dispute

. And mud will fly freestyle in all directions. So enter the thread with protective clothing’s

. I’ll argue for south even though I’m a bit confused if Bombay is north or south

SHIMLA · Jun 6th, 2004, 20:50

Steven, you're wanted !!

beach · Aug 12th, 2004, 20:24

by Rahul Bedi

LOKUR: Dining with the world's largest 178- member joint family in India's southern Karnataka state is a hospitable but hurried affair. As one shift of between 25 and 30 Narsinganna family members finish eating - seated cross-legged on the floor in their large ancestral home in Lokur village, 420 kilometres north of the state capital Bangalore - another hungry batch replaces them.

And, so it continues for most of the day that is largely taken up with the mid-day and the evening meal till the entire family is fed by the household women, who take turns at cooking in shifts of two hours each.

Squatting before the row of wood-stoked fires in the smoky, cramped kitchen this army of women cooks and their female helpers daily prepare an average of 1,600 millet 'rotis' or flat unleavened bread and vast quantities of vegetables and lentils in massive steel buckets that are consumed by their family.

Six in the morning onwards they labour in the kitchen till around eight in the evening with a short break in between that is taken up with other household chores like washing mountainous piles of clothing, peeling vegetables and kneading the ubiquitous millet, readying it for baking.

"Cooking and housework is all that we know," Saraswati, the family's oldest woman said. Feeding so many people is tough, the 80-year old who now has an advisory role, declared resignedly.

The younger girls, who graduate to cooking from between 10 and 12 years, serve the men-folk who eat first. Dozens of infants crawl unselfconsciously in and out of the laps of their elders, helping themselves to the food that is served in large steel 'thalis' or trays that are lined-up along the cavernous corridors on the ground floor of the main family house that doubles as the dining area.(full story at Dawn)

sadhuji · Oct 21st, 2004, 21:53

to know india better, you may like to go thro my spots
http://peekayjee28.blogspot.com - destination india
http://peekayjee29.blogspot.com - indian satire
http://peekayjee34.blogspot.com - sweets of india
http://peekayjee35.blogspot.com - festivals of india

jenky · Nov 2nd, 2004, 12:19

beach:

Thanks for your short review, I'm going to India in January, it's my first time, so this kind of post is very helpful.

I'm Mexican and it's interesting to learn about the things that India and Mexico (and other latin american countries) have in common.

I'm gonna spend 6 months there and I want to share my thoughts with you & the other people in here.

For me, I don't think that visiting India is going to be a challenge; it's going to be an experience. I don't share the stereotypical conception of some other travelers that seem to center their trip on learning to accept poverty, constantly worrying about their security, etc.

I want to have an interesting trip through which I can learn, coexist, and enjoy all the aspects of the country.

Almost 6 months ago I left Mexico to live in Buenos Aires and now I feel that the city, the people, and the country have a place in my mind and heart. I hope each new journey will have this lasting effect.

And of course I'm going to share my experiences in this wonderful site as soon as the next journey begins.

himadventures · Nov 2nd, 2004, 13:27

This was one of the impressive account of a travel I had known to read on net. I am a Indian and I am sorry not a proudy one to be.
If we go in history of India-Northern part of it was too much disturbed by MUGHALS,TURKS,GREEKS when they keep on invading plains of "N" for attacking Delhi. This makes all tribes of NORTH from Afghanistan to PUNJAB- A action oriented , extreme loving people. Be it a PATHAN of Afghanistan or a Sikh of Punjab. These both kinds are happy with guns and battles. Although education and 'time' had changed a lot but still mindset is same.

There is lot of troubles which makes a person/traveler bit scary. Even I -being a Indian is scary. We are living a life which has been effected and rules by caste and religion. Be it in Govt. Jobs/Rservations of jobs/any thing....you are evaluated by your caste and religion. Sometimes I do feel that we are living on time bombs...this is so easy to get a mass murder spree here in India.

All you have to do is kill a cow and throw in front of Mandir and kill a pig throw in front of Masjid and you will be having RIOTS which will kill hundered of people and burn millions of property-please do not think that any police will come help-they are themselves devided between politics/bribe and God knows..what...

Still,India is living and stranegly-going great. With latest technologies like hi fi and wi fi and GPRS and lot lot more....still people are dying with hunger. Kids are being sold and half of the parliament is being ruled by people who are blacklisted in policy register !

Still.we are living and we do say that we are proud to be a Indian. Where value of life is just equal to a checken...it does not matter if you die like a street dog in road accedents, railwaymen's negligence, riots, looting and arson in trains and buses, treated by fake degree doctors...no one cares..

Still- India is running and running good. Your write up was very much impressive-specially where you say there is no culture in Inda. Yes-there is no culture and if you want to see "CULTURE" go in remote places . Tribal areas, where so called civilization had not shown it's face.

torryquine · Dec 4th, 2004, 02:48

Beach

By saying thank you for this informative and captivating piece of writing, I hope am doing it the service it deserves. By putting it back on the front page, I hope others who haven't yet seen it will have the opportunity to enjoy it as I have.

These are exactly the things I needed and wanted to know about India.

Kind regards TQ

Dino · Dec 4th, 2004, 06:47

Thankyou Beach for putting into words the seductive power that is India.I've only just discovered this website and am overcome by the quality and quantity of information.

I spent my first hour in India (Chennai) absolutely terrified,and every subsequent hour absolutely in awe and wonderment.We have our third and fourth trip to India already planned,as much as you can plan for India anyway.

beach · Dec 18th, 2004, 19:37

Quote:

Indian culture and spirituality fascinate travellers. Costy, a Greek Yoga teacher, comes to the south of India every winter:

However, this omnipresent spirituality can be uncomfortable for unseasoned travellers in India. Not infrequently, people lose touch with reality since so many come here in search of a meaning for their life, knowing India only from the various bohemian tales floating around.

The French government noticed this trend and decided to put a psychologist in each French embassy in India. One of those doctors wrote a book, `Crazy about India'.

Does anyone know about this book?

himadventures · Dec 19th, 2004, 06:32

Going Crazy in India

By Rosemary Dinnage
Halfway between the southern cities of Madras and Bangalore, Vellore is a small town with a thirteenth-century fort, a long, busy bazaar, and Christian Medical College. Founded in 1900 as a one-bed dispensary, CMC has grown to employ 2,500 staff, train graduates in thirty different specialties, and treat patients from many countries outside India. It is a reminder of the benevolent aspects of the Raj; supported by Protestant churches abroad as well as missions and diocesan councils from all over India, it still adjusts its charges to the patients' purses and prides itself on dispensing two or three hundred thousand dollars' worth of free care in a year. > more

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arti...rticle_id=6817

ak973 · Jan 21st, 2005, 08:59

I think India is one big giant wheel where u experience the euphoria, the excitement and for those lily-livered people nausea ... I had been to India in Oct - mid Dec 04 and boy o boy what an experience. On landing in Sydney I felt like I had come out of Disneyland and back to the drab existence. My wife was depressed for the first week and only after she joined work did she overcome it.
One of the "India Confusion" experience occured the day we were coming back. I and my wife arrived at the airport at around 15:00 hrs and after going thru the security check for check-in luggage and getting our boarding pass, prepared to go thru to the customs and immigration. Just as we were making our way thru to the immigration check, one of the security guards came towards us and asked us not to go any further

.. we stood over there and then he came and asked us to move towards the EXIT ...

I asked him why ?? and in a sotto voice he informed me -- "Emergency" ....

When we started walking towards the exit, he left us to join his colleagues who were busy with their walky-talkies ... After a minute or so they started rounding up people and asked everybody to get out of the terminal ... we duly filed out of the exit but them guards had to really plead with people to vacate the building ... the scene outside was a bedlam - people with luggage ( and what luggage, man !!!! each trolley filled to the brim with suitcases ), people without luggage, relatives ( by the dozen) who had come to see off people and all and sundry milling around trying to find out what was wrong. People were joking with the "CRPF " guards about bombs and terrorists and it was a proper riot ... people gathered at the Pepsi stall and asking the Pepsiwalla what was wrong ... he left the booth and returned after sometime to announce grandly that a bag was found in a corner.
In the meantime the guards were running here and there - after sometime a mean looking helicopter sounded and people said bomb dispossal squad had come. The most funny thing was people were arriving at the terminal (as nobody thought of stopping the traffic from coming in

) and looking around in a confused manner at the number of people standing outside the terminal. Unsuspecting, they would start going inside the terminal and our security guard would run after them shouting for them to stop and not go in. I promptly took out my camera and filmed everything. There were other tourists as well like me looking bemused but accepting everything as only those who hv been to India and experience everything ...
In the end everything turned out to be ok or the bomb disposal squad might hv inactivated the bomb. Then all of a sudden the security guard said we could get in and promptly disappeared to hv a smoke !!! Then there was a mad rush to get in as people were anxious to know if their flights had departed or waited for them or were they late .... The funny thing about this was that there were no announcements or information about anything given. When we asked the immigration officer what was wrong he also did not hv a clue but sheepishly (almost apologetically) said "terrorists". And there and then I and my wife started laughing ...
We were then discussing how eventful and hilarious the entire sequence was and compared it to insipid and dull ways in which the same scenario would hv been tackled in Sydney. It is events like this that take ur breath away when u start thinking about India. This is the reason why I love India and go back every year .... I just cant stop loving India ....

lonelyaztec · Jan 21st, 2005, 11:27

Superb post !!

Jun 6th, 2004, 20:50	#35
SHIMLA Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Yangon, MYANMAR Posts: 4,129	Steven, you're wanted !! __________________ Whoever said money can't buy happiness didn't know where to shop !

Aug 12th, 2004, 20:24	#36
beach Lost in translation Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: India Posts: 2,230	Dining with a 178-member Indian family by Rahul Bedi LOKUR: Dining with the world's largest 178- member joint family in India's southern Karnataka state is a hospitable but hurried affair. As one shift of between 25 and 30 Narsinganna family members finish eating - seated cross-legged on the floor in their large ancestral home in Lokur village, 420 kilometres north of the state capital Bangalore - another hungry batch replaces them. And, so it continues for most of the day that is largely taken up with the mid-day and the evening meal till the entire family is fed by the household women, who take turns at cooking in shifts of two hours each. Squatting before the row of wood-stoked fires in the smoky, cramped kitchen this army of women cooks and their female helpers daily prepare an average of 1,600 millet 'rotis' or flat unleavened bread and vast quantities of vegetables and lentils in massive steel buckets that are consumed by their family. Six in the morning onwards they labour in the kitchen till around eight in the evening with a short break in between that is taken up with other household chores like washing mountainous piles of clothing, peeling vegetables and kneading the ubiquitous millet, readying it for baking. "Cooking and housework is all that we know," Saraswati, the family's oldest woman said. Feeding so many people is tough, the 80-year old who now has an advisory role, declared resignedly. The younger girls, who graduate to cooking from between 10 and 12 years, serve the men-folk who eat first. Dozens of infants crawl unselfconsciously in and out of the laps of their elders, helping themselves to the food that is served in large steel 'thalis' or trays that are lined-up along the cavernous corridors on the ground floor of the main family house that doubles as the dining area.(full story at Dawn)

Nov 2nd, 2004, 13:27	#39
himadventures Maha Guru Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: India Posts: 1,069	Well Written and Well Balanced Write Up This was one of the impressive account of a travel I had known to read on net. I am a Indian and I am sorry not a proudy one to be. If we go in history of India-Northern part of it was too much disturbed by MUGHALS,TURKS,GREEKS when they keep on invading plains of "N" for attacking Delhi. This makes all tribes of NORTH from Afghanistan to PUNJAB- A action oriented , extreme loving people. Be it a PATHAN of Afghanistan or a Sikh of Punjab. These both kinds are happy with guns and battles. Although education and 'time' had changed a lot but still mindset is same. There is lot of troubles which makes a person/traveler bit scary. Even I -being a Indian is scary. We are living a life which has been effected and rules by caste and religion. Be it in Govt. Jobs/Rservations of jobs/any thing....you are evaluated by your caste and religion. Sometimes I do feel that we are living on time bombs...this is so easy to get a mass murder spree here in India. All you have to do is kill a cow and throw in front of Mandir and kill a pig throw in front of Masjid and you will be having RIOTS which will kill hundered of people and burn millions of property-please do not think that any police will come help-they are themselves devided between politics/bribe and God knows..what... Still,India is living and stranegly-going great. With latest technologies like hi fi and wi fi and GPRS and lot lot more....still people are dying with hunger. Kids are being sold and half of the parliament is being ruled by people who are blacklisted in policy register ! Still.we are living and we do say that we are proud to be a Indian. Where value of life is just equal to a checken...it does not matter if you die like a street dog in road accedents, railwaymen's negligence, riots, looting and arson in trains and buses, treated by fake degree doctors...no one cares.. Still- India is running and running good. Your write up was very much impressive-specially where you say there is no culture in Inda. Yes-there is no culture and if you want to see "CULTURE" go in remote places . Tribal areas, where so called civilization had not shown it's face.

Dec 4th, 2004, 02:48	#40
torryquine Oilfield Trash! Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Aberdeen Posts: 700	Many thanks Beach Beach By saying thank you for this informative and captivating piece of writing, I hope am doing it the service it deserves. By putting it back on the front page, I hope others who haven't yet seen it will have the opportunity to enjoy it as I have. These are exactly the things I needed and wanted to know about India. Kind regards TQ __________________ http://werenotafraid.com/

Dec 19th, 2004, 06:32	#43
himadventures Maha Guru Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: India Posts: 1,069	The Book Going Crazy in India By Rosemary Dinnage Halfway between the southern cities of Madras and Bangalore, Vellore is a small town with a thirteenth-century fort, a long, busy bazaar, and Christian Medical College. Founded in 1900 as a one-bed dispensary, CMC has grown to employ 2,500 staff, train graduates in thirty different specialties, and treat patients from many countries outside India. It is a reminder of the benevolent aspects of the Raj; supported by Protestant churches abroad as well as missions and diocesan councils from all over India, it still adjusts its charges to the patients' purses and prides itself on dispensing two or three hundred thousand dollars' worth of free care in a year. > more http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arti...rticle_id=6817

Jun 6th, 2004, 08:03	#31
albaruni Posts: n/a	Maybe it just lets people understand how tired they are of eating boiled beef and melted cheese..Aldous huxley wrote a book called "island" where he represented the early 20th century liberal view (bloomsbury set etc) of what India was to him.

Jun 6th, 2004, 08:15	#32
albaruni Posts: n/a	Changed the link. the old link is here

Oct 21st, 2004, 21:53	#37
sadhuji Maha Guru Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: nasik, maharastra Posts: 1,261	to know india better, you may like to go thro my spots http://peekayjee28.blogspot.com - destination india http://peekayjee29.blogspot.com - indian satire http://peekayjee34.blogspot.com - sweets of india http://peekayjee35.blogspot.com - festivals of india

Nov 2nd, 2004, 12:19	#38
jenky Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: India-Mexico Posts: 37	beach: Thanks for your short review, I'm going to India in January, it's my first time, so this kind of post is very helpful. I'm Mexican and it's interesting to learn about the things that India and Mexico (and other latin american countries) have in common. I'm gonna spend 6 months there and I want to share my thoughts with you & the other people in here. For me, I don't think that visiting India is going to be a challenge; it's going to be an experience. I don't share the stereotypical conception of some other travelers that seem to center their trip on learning to accept poverty, constantly worrying about their security, etc. I want to have an interesting trip through which I can learn, coexist, and enjoy all the aspects of the country. Almost 6 months ago I left Mexico to live in Buenos Aires and now I feel that the city, the people, and the country have a place in my mind and heart. I hope each new journey will have this lasting effect. And of course I'm going to share my experiences in this wonderful site as soon as the next journey begins.

Dec 4th, 2004, 06:47	#41
Dino Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Murphy's Creek (Oz) Posts: 246	Thankyou Beach for putting into words the seductive power that is India.I've only just discovered this website and am overcome by the quality and quantity of information. I spent my first hour in India (Chennai) absolutely terrified,and every subsequent hour absolutely in awe and wonderment.We have our third and fourth trip to India already planned,as much as you can plan for India anyway.

Jan 21st, 2005, 08:59	#44
ak973 Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: australia Posts: 34	I think India is one big giant wheel where u experience the euphoria, the excitement and for those lily-livered people nausea ... I had been to India in Oct - mid Dec 04 and boy o boy what an experience. On landing in Sydney I felt like I had come out of Disneyland and back to the drab existence. My wife was depressed for the first week and only after she joined work did she overcome it. One of the "India Confusion" experience occured the day we were coming back. I and my wife arrived at the airport at around 15:00 hrs and after going thru the security check for check-in luggage and getting our boarding pass, prepared to go thru to the customs and immigration. Just as we were making our way thru to the immigration check, one of the security guards came towards us and asked us not to go any further .. we stood over there and then he came and asked us to move towards the EXIT ... I asked him why ?? and in a sotto voice he informed me -- "Emergency" .... When we started walking towards the exit, he left us to join his colleagues who were busy with their walky-talkies ... After a minute or so they started rounding up people and asked everybody to get out of the terminal ... we duly filed out of the exit but them guards had to really plead with people to vacate the building ... the scene outside was a bedlam - people with luggage ( and what luggage, man !!!! each trolley filled to the brim with suitcases ), people without luggage, relatives ( by the dozen) who had come to see off people and all and sundry milling around trying to find out what was wrong. People were joking with the "CRPF " guards about bombs and terrorists and it was a proper riot ... people gathered at the Pepsi stall and asking the Pepsiwalla what was wrong ... he left the booth and returned after sometime to announce grandly that a bag was found in a corner. In the meantime the guards were running here and there - after sometime a mean looking helicopter sounded and people said bomb dispossal squad had come. The most funny thing was people were arriving at the terminal (as nobody thought of stopping the traffic from coming in ) and looking around in a confused manner at the number of people standing outside the terminal. Unsuspecting, they would start going inside the terminal and our security guard would run after them shouting for them to stop and not go in. I promptly took out my camera and filmed everything. There were other tourists as well like me looking bemused but accepting everything as only those who hv been to India and experience everything ... In the end everything turned out to be ok or the bomb disposal squad might hv inactivated the bomb. Then all of a sudden the security guard said we could get in and promptly disappeared to hv a smoke !!! Then there was a mad rush to get in as people were anxious to know if their flights had departed or waited for them or were they late .... The funny thing about this was that there were no announcements or information about anything given. When we asked the immigration officer what was wrong he also did not hv a clue but sheepishly (almost apologetically) said "terrorists". And there and then I and my wife started laughing ... We were then discussing how eventful and hilarious the entire sequence was and compared it to insipid and dull ways in which the same scenario would hv been tackled in Sydney. It is events like this that take ur breath away when u start thinking about India. This is the reason why I love India and go back every year .... I just cant stop loving India .... __________________

Jan 21st, 2005, 11:27	#45
lonelyaztec Maha Guru Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Bangalore Posts: 1,407	Superb post !! __________________ Aztec My photoblog

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