Spring 2018, Sweden.
Complete I say, not full, Complete Moon, radiating like a pregnant woman knowing that she will create something out of her ---and still be herself.
Krishna meaning Dark is one of the most popular Hindu gods. He is represented in light color in the north, as above, and dark color in the south, representing various ways our Gods can be represented. Krishna Paksha refers to the fortnight where moon wanes to nothingness and the skies are dark. Nothing to be afraid of......darkness has its own wisdom!!
This long post that is now going to be posted in two parts--was inspired by the Infinity Mantra, which I will return to in the second part. But for references I start with the links and a short text.
The Infinity Mantra, in two parts. I have heard this mantra several times.
Infinity Mantra part two
From the poorna (पूर्ण) (whole/complete) when you take out poorna, you are left with poorna (1-3). Poorna is a Sanskrit word, which is usually roughly translated as ‘whole’. In the context of the Shanti Mantra, translators (2,3) have interpreted poorna to be a synonym for Brahman (ब्रह्मन्) and the statement to imply that “Brahman is still full, although the whole universe has come out of it”(2).
As the year ends....
Earlier in the year I was at a conference, where I had to engage two different kinds of ideologies that I have been working/struggling with.
One is that India, a rising power has been labelled communal for the last two decades or so, to undercut its rise and to portray it as unequal, an unfair, and a backward nation. The other is that westerners, especially from countries who were colonizers--and there are many---who do not want to take the blame for what their ancestors did but blame colonized countries for their current state.
When I first left home, I was this, Pollyanna who believed and lived in the Indian philosophy of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam'---Vasudev's Family--implying that ‘this world is a family’. Anyone who has known me, in all the countries that I have lived, must also have eaten a meal made by me, possibly except India because I become a child when I am there.
By cooking, I mean a complete meal, with bread and daal, and rice and raita, and salad and chutneys and of course two kinds of desserts, and at least one homemade, if not both.
As young as I was when I left home, I started serving people, with food and gifts. Simply because I loved to serve. Loved to take care of people. And truly thought that we were one family. And also because that is the kind of family I grew up in.
I am sure, my past lives have something to do with that as well. But most of the people, and especially westerners have indicated it as a need ‘to please’. Somehow the colonial ways of looking at things has not changed. And the concept of love has not really been understood, where love is showered throwing out the concepts like how time it takes, the energy it costs, and ofcourse the financial investment…but most of all emotional investment.
The first time I left, shortly after I stepped out of teens, was for a job in Africa. Until I went to college, while I had seen a few Africans --some of who were students and rented rooms around my neighborhood, I had never really had a conversation with them or seen up close. At college, I had a classmate from Kenya. C.
I spoke with C, asked her about things and remember her saying, 'I wish I could explain to people, that Africa is not a country but a continent'.
That stuck!
Later, I would have to deal with the same concept about India. But I will come to that later in the article.
For me, other than the fear of being around men who were too free with their advances, I saw no danger.
I did not see race or color.I saw cultures. In all their glory.
The absolute silence of an African village where electricity had not yet made inroads was scary, coming from a bustling city like Delhi. For the first time I heard my own heart beat!
Until, I stepped into the continent –Africa--I had not had 'real' conversations with people from different countries. In Africa, Africans called me 'Legoa' (pronounced Lekhoa)--white and the whites, most of whom I knew --were Americans, called me, well--not directly but referred a lot to skin color both mine and in general. It was interesting to see how ‘color’ was embedded in a regular conversation in the US. Later I would relate that to being ‘white and western’. The mention of white and black is so common in western nations.
People have labelled India as a racist nation (caste system and all). Which is not quite right.
First, skin color does not indicate race.
Second, Indian is not a race. It's a culture and a civilization, one of the oldest surviving one at that.
So, ever since I left home, I have been treated strangely. And because I do not fit into the proper narrative of what they think an Indian and an Indian woman looks or behaves like, I am always asked, 'Where are you from? How old were you when you moved here, How come you have no Indian accent, and many others.' Accent by the way, is used as race and class card. Watch Disney animation movies and you will know what I mean.
Third, because India is truly ancient and has mixture of all 'races' –that diversity is visible within one families. In one family you can have three different skin colors, so there is no such thing as 'Indian color, Indian texture of hair, Indian accent or Indian food'. Yes the term is used so-- for the convenience of a world that is 'not so diverse'. Even countries like the US, where white and blacks and Hispanics and Orientals and Indians remain divided even as they work in the same space, or walk the same streets. Look at the neighborhoods, the more settled ones are always segregated. Cities do not leave much choice, and yet you can find segregation. Often by skin color and race, which is intertwined also with economic levels. But at the highest levels too, there is segregation, rich neighborhoods of colored people and those of non-colored people. Even at the lowest levels, the poor are segregated by skin color and race. In India, this division of religion is also recent, for centuries people lived together in the same neighbourhood.
The neighborhood I grew up in had refugees from Punjab, but also a Muslim and also a Christian family (both of whom were tenants)—and a Sikh family.
Fourth, our God in one of Her most popular form is called 'dark' Krishna.
Krishna paksha (side), refers to the waning of the moon—moving from light to dark. The fortnight when moon wanes to nothing.
Krishna is also depicted differently in north and south.
While He is always Krishna (has 1008 names)--in the north people of light skin --have represented him as light (picture above) and in the south, he is carved in a dark stone. Fully representing the people who worship Him.
We understand context and its value.
People asking me questions about my accent and pointing out what I look like will never think of themselves as racist. But will point out 'caste system' and issues with India at the drop of a hat.
So, after several years of dealing with this, and being treated differently, noticing it but ignoring it...my first outburst came against someone I considered a close friend –almost a family--nearly a decade after I left home.
I knew what I was doing, but I also hoped that having known me for a long time will allow them to say, 'this is not you'.
Instead, I got what I get often from westerners, 'If you love your culture and country what are you doing here, Why don't you go home?' At that time and for many years after, I detested myself for being angry. Its taken me years to understand what had happened, and finally acknowledge the disappointment in those folks, who knew me closely and yet never said, 'Wait, we have known each other for so long, I have never seen you angry, what is going on?'
Home.
Today, I would say, why did the colonizers not stay 'Home?’.
So much got influenced by the way they travelled and how people got treated and how people's own languages got treated and how their own Gods got treated.
I remain one of those few who did not get converted to the idea of the west, not in religion, not in culture and not in believing like they do, that they brought literacy and culture (which they didn’t, India alone has nearly 16 scripts surviving today and used daily. Indian currency features about 10 of them!
I know, so I cannot convert. Hence, I pose a problem.
Hence the suggestion, 'Why don't you go home?'
I could not get converted even though I believed in Vasudhaiva_Kutumbakam.
Simply because I saw that most of the world did not function on that mantra, certainly not Abrahamic religions (only oneGod and onlytheirs), certainly not of the countries that colonized (we the civilizers and your culture can go to XXXXX).
Disappointment gave way to anger and frustration. As life would have it, my journey continued and mostly on my own in countries and continents beyond my imagination. Much of which is not even mentioned yet on this blog.
I have been to over 40 countries (more actually) and been to some of them more than many times. I have been to Estonia. Only a weekend trip. But Estonia—many people have not even heard of it. And definitely do not know that it was a Swedish colony at some point.
Been to Thailand about five times. Japan twice, Spain five, Zimbabwe three times hitchhiked between Botswana and Zimbabwe (with a friend, so cannot take the credit) and so on and so forth.
Everywhere a kind of amnesia. On both sides. The colonizers thinking they brought civilization. Colonized believing in the ways of the colonized. For example, Christianity is the religion for 'all of world'. Anything before Christianity was animalistic and should be shunned.
Associating Christianity with development, which is absolutely untrue, if anyone has ever been to Africa.
The colonized were taught to shun their own culture, which is how civilizations, including their languages all over the world were killed.
Been to Italy? The center for culture today. Just check out the ruins of 'temples', neglected and discarded after Christianity came. And check out the gold in the Vatican, obviously stolen --much from South America.
And shortly after I say this, people usually go, ‘But there are many kinds of Christianities’
Nope, that is a façade. All kinds of Christianity tell you to believe in the superiority of Jesus, over other religions. All kinds of Christianity encourage their followers to shun, insult and dislike non-Christian religions and ways. And Christianity goes in hand-in-hand with desecration of what was originally sacred to the respective cultures.
Yet, oh, Christianity, fit for all the world. Imagine the hate it has already spewed.
In that, struggling with my own career because I see a similar ideology in academia, as if all theories and knowledge come from the west, I have had much to question, think and muse about. Academia takes an option here or there from non-western countries and makes a cursory mention and then goes back again to its own ideologies.
In Fiji, when I asked a tourist guide about their practices before Christianity came (not too long before Hinduism and Islam came to the country) --the man said, 'We are not allowed to practice them ma'am.
That is how civilizations were killed, by making them hate their own culture, their own skin and their own way of life.
So, to dress western is normal (once in the US a well-meaning classmate had said, 'I have seen you in normal clothes, but it is nice to see you in Indian attire today'. Another colleague had asked to borrow my Indian outfit for a Halloween party—by the way, all good well-meaning people).
In this kind of atmosphere, I am a thorn.
I have not stopped wearing my Indian outfits. Mainly salwar kameez. I put a bindi, the red dot on the forehead off and on. I proudly talk about my Gods!!--yes plural manifestation, which allows me freedom, and I refuse to go back to meat eating or take up drinking as a social activity.
All this has affected my personal relations, my career, my life, and so much more.
Just now coming into my own. So, the conference that I talk about earlier in the post was where I had written an abstract based on some of this experience. Finally, as a scholar I am stepping into my own. The best part was that the paper was received very well.
But at the same conference an Afro-British lady had looked at my 'brightly orange dress' which I wore to celebrate onset of summer with my new snake printed blue flat shoes---said, 'Ooh, HIndu Nationalist?' (orange is associated with Hinduism).
I was taken aback, but it would take a few more conversations that day before I snapped, later that evening at the dinner. *India is racist' she said at some point. I put my hand on her arm and said, 'Africa is racist'.
Silence.
On the same table was a young Portugese woman (I know I have a reader from Portugal, so please know that this is not a generalization, but it is important to have this conversation)---'Do you think it is fair that Indian government has said that Portuguese people have no claim on their properties in India anymore, do you think it is fair?'
Fair? Seriously, I say karma!
Well, I did not say it at that time because I was taken aback.
Fair?
At the same table --something about Goan Inquisition, (very similar to the Spanish inquisition), came up.
'Yes, but that was not a long time' defended the beautiful young woman.
'Not long? it was 200 years' said the man.
Yes, but they ruled for over 500 years' explained the young woman artist who was finishing her terminal degree. This kind of defense I have seen from educated, and well-travelled people.
Their travel, education and experience with people from other countries does not train them in questioning their own superiority. What their ancestors did is to be written off.
Two hundred years of torture and forced conversions are to be forgiven because they form the only 40% of the time ruled. Are we counting that it took them a century to establish and once established in that part of the country the latter part became easy?
'So, as an Indian I need a transit visa to go through UK, a country that ruled us for centuries and became rich in the process, is that fair'
'No, it isn't but do you think it's fair that Indian government is not allowing.......' she repeated her argument.
I took a deep breath wondering if she even listened, or was the focus was just to say, 'Indian government is unfair.'
To be continued
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