Theos-Talk Archives (October 1997 Message tl00027)

My conscience has been prompting me to post a corrective to my
recent comments about India.  Although there were plenty of
horrors witnessed in my six weeks there, each was
counterbalanced by something wonderful.  I began to feel that I
knew what it was like to be manic-depressive.  One minute I'd
be thinking this was hell on earth, I couldn't stand another
day of it, and then some kind, generous, friendly, interesting
person would happen along and make my day.  Or everything would
be going along swimmingly, and I'd suddenly be confronted with
aggressive, nasty, relentless behavior the likes of which I'd
never seen before.

The best thing about India is hard to describe.  There was
something magical in the air; it seemed as if parallel lines
always met.  For example, the first day I was walking around in
Bombay and ran into the woman who'd been behind me in line at
customs in the airport the night before, the man who'd been
behind me in line at the moneychangers counter, and a third
person they'd met.  Nothing to that, but in the next half hour
I ran into the same three people *four more times* and finally
we all decided this was an omen that we should throw in our lot
together.  We had a great four days in Bombay, and the guys and
I went on to New Delhi for another four.  The whole period was
like this-- constant encounters with people who just seemingly
dropped from the sky in front of me offering companionship and
help.  Another example: at the Asiatic Society Library, I'd
just concluded that I'd seen everything relevant to my research
when a stranger walked up, asked me what I was researching, and
upon hearing the subject advised me that Mme. Coulomb's (very
rare) pamphlet was in the collection.  I got some very helpful
information from that.  And so it went.

Another pleasing thing about India was the atmosphere of total
tolerance.  In Bombay, you would see Westerners walking the
streets in the most outrageous garb; eccentrics who would have
turned heads and caused jaws to drop in any American city.  But
in India, nobody paid them any mind.  People's sense of ego
boundaries seems very different there, and after a while you
forget you're a foreigner.  It's a very welcoming place that
seems to draw you in with a kind of magical enchantment.  Until
something grotesque and horrendous appears in your path,
breaking the spell.

Anyhow, partly in amends to Doss, I want to make it clear that
I don't have a negative impression of India overall, despite
some of the most vividly unpleasant experiences of my life.
For every serpent, there was a flower-- and vice versa.