Growing up vegetarian in a meat dominated culture (and family), I’ve always been in the minority in at least one way. I was strange, different, weird. Excluding some friends who experimented with vegetarianism in high school, I knew no other vegetarians until I was 19 and living in Italy (Mormon vegetarians in Utah, it turns out, are very rare). By this time, my minority status was enhanced further as an American Mormon in a Catholic European country. Years later in Africa, I would often find myself as the only white person in a bustling, crowded market. Being vegetarian, Mormon, and from the West made me unique even in cosmopolitan Boston. Now, I am daily the sole non-Indian on a constantly overflowing bus as I travel the hour from Mugapair to Nungambakkam for work. Being always in the minority has taught me some important lessons and profoundly shaped my identity; my sympathies for minorities and underdogs go deep.
I wish that everyone could be in the minority at least once in their lives; what a different place this world would be if each individual could experience the powerlessness, isolation, distance, and otherness that often come with minority status. When you have been in the minority, it is easier to understand the tendency of immigrants and other outsiders to congregate together with those of similar backgrounds. To meet someone who is like you is very affirming and there is often an instant bond of trust and understanding amid the general incomprehensibility of society.
I believe the morality of a group can be directly and easily discovered by observing how they treat their minorities. Insecurity seems to lead to intolerance and demands that everyone conform to your way of thinking and doing things. Compassionate, dynamic cultures are characterized by their ability to learn from and incorporate the best of what their minorities have to offer while maintaining what is beautiful in their own traditions. After many years, I’ve finally realized that no matter where I go in the world, I will always be a minority on at least one dimension and likely on many dimensions simultaneously; my diet, religion, political leanings, skin color, and birth place virtually ensure it. I’ve come to accept this. I just hope that I can always be open-minded enough to learn from those who are different from me. And, more importantly, I pray that I will always be aware and conscious enough of the potential isolation of others that God can somehow use me to make them feel included in the larger whole.
Roadside market, Zambia 2003
Zambia, 2003
Zimbabwe, 2006
Zimbabwe, 2006
Sikochi brothers, Zimbabwe 2006
Not just veg (vegetarian), but "pure veg."
"High Class Veg" - as if there was any other kind!
These buses often have so many people hanging from the doors that the entire bus tilts to the left as it travels down the street.
A Christian church in Orissa. Christians are a small minority in this area and faced violence, vandalism, and other persecution in August and September of this year.
Christian church, Orissa 2008
An LDS church in Bangalore. Anti-Christian sentiment ebbs and flows in Karnataka (the state in which Bangalore is located). In September, 70 Christian churches were vandalized in the span of a few weeks. During this time period, two Mormon missionaries were abducted, beaten, and jailed. They spent two days and two nights in a prison with 5,000 other men, many of whom were incarcerated for murder. Several church members who tried to come to their aid were also accosted and persecuted. According to their leader, in such situations "fear is the real enemy, for it is the only thing that can defeat hope."
Orissa is one of India’s poorest states; the proportion of people living below the poverty line in the state is nearly double the country’s average. It is located on the eastern coast of India, just below West Bengal (Calcutta). In the far western part of the state, tribes still live as they did thousands of years ago. I spent December 16-19, 2008 in Orissa, flying into the state capital of Bhubaneswar (which I still don’t know how to pronounce correctly) and proceeding the 1.5 hours to the coastal city of Puri. The airport in Bhubaneswar is small with only a few airplanes on the ground at any one time and passengers walk the 400 meters across the runway to board their plane directly. Interestingly, this small semi-rural airport also hosted the strictest security I’ve yet seen in India.
Unfortunately, Orissa was marred in August and September by violence and vandalism against the small Christian minority after they were blamed for the murder of a Hindu leader and some of his followers (see here). The majority of Christians in the state are destitute, illiterate, powerless tribal people who make an easy target for the machinations of politicians.
In contrast to media reports from other parts in the state, the city of Puri was relaxed and welcoming. According to two different sources, Puri is one of the four most sacred cities for Hindus (although my sources were conflicting on which cities constituted the other three). The city is home to Jagannath Mandir, a temple dedicated to Jagannath, whom Hindus believe to be the Lord of the Universe and an incarnation of Vishnu (Krishna). Built in 1198, the temple attracts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over India each year. Non-Hindus such as myself are not permitted to enter; however, according to my guide book, within the temple can be found statues of Jagannath, his brother Balbhadra, and sister Subhadra (see here for images). “The brothers have arms but no hands, while smaller Subhadra, sitting in between, has neither. Priests continually garland and dress the three throughout the day for different ceremonies. Incredibly, the temple employs about 6,000 men to perform the complicated rituals involved in caring for the gods. An estimated 20,000 people—divided into 36 orders and 97 classes—are dependent on Jagannath for their livelihood. The kitchen, with 400 cooks, is reportedly the largest in the world.”
Each summer, Puri is home to a huge festival, called Rath Yatra, in which the statues of the three gods are placed on huge cars and pulled through the city. Again, according to Lonely Planet, “The main car of Jagannath (origin of ‘juggernaut’) stands 14m high. It rides on 16 wheels, each over 2m in diameter—in centuries past, devotees threw themselves beneath the wheels to die gloriously within the god’s sight. Four-thousand professional temple employees haul the cars, which take enormous effort to pull and are virtually impossible to turn or stop…Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims (and tourists) swarm to witness this stupendous scene, which can take place in temperatures over 40 degrees C [104 degrees Fahrenheit].”
Puri is also home to a beautiful beach (much cleaner than the beaches in Chennai). Also unlike Chennai, hundreds of Indians frequent the beach for swimming and relaxing and a carnivalesque atmosphere prevails. As the city’s main attraction doesn’t permit the entry of non-Hindus, the city and the beach are surprisingly free of foreign tourists. I was content to be the only white person wandering down the warm beach Wednesday evening, although the lack of foreign tourists means that the local hotels and restaurants aren’t so great at catering to Westerners and few people speak English proficiently (the hotel where I stayed doesn't stock toilet paper, for instance, but was nice enough to buy some for me when I asked).
On Thursday, I took a three-hour round trip ride on the back of a motorcycle (don’t tell my mom) from Puri to the small village of Danda-Mukundpur. I’m now convinced that the best way to see rural India is from the back of a motorcycle. We stopped along the way to buy a fresh coconut (costing about 13 cents) on the side of the road; the vendor sliced open the green fruit with a machete and placed a straw inside so that we could drink the refreshing juice. Afterward, he cut the hull in half so we could eat the white, slimy coconut flesh inside. This was my first trip into rural India and I found it beautiful and the people very friendly.
An enormous temple which is a place of spiritual power for thousands of devotees, beautiful beaches, and welcoming people make Puri a great place to visit—definitely worth a return trip. Next time I’ll be sure to bring my swimming suit. However, as the only white person on the beach, I’ll have to be careful that my iridescent glow doesn’t attract too much attention.
A beautiful, warm beach in December!
A Krishna Temple down the street from Jagannath Mandir.
Jagannath Mandir.
As non-Hindus are not permitted inside, this is as close as I could come to seeing the interior.
If there is any place where the old India meets the new, it is Bangalore. Thomas Friedman wrote extensively about the city in his 2005 book as typifying the new “flat world.” Bangalore has been called the outsourcing capital of the planet and is full of IT companies and BPOs (business process outsourcing firms). It is home to the legendary campus of Infosys, a computer company started with $250 by seven individuals in 1981. It is now worth $20 billion and employs over 90,000 people. According to Lonely Planet, when you enter the campus (which isn’t accessible to the public) “it’s as if you’ve slipped through a wormhole into an alternative India, where neatly trimmed lawns sprout shiny glass and steel structures. The workforce (average age 26) cycle or use electric golf carts to get around the 32-hectare campus, passing five food courts (serving 14 types of cuisine), banks, a supermarket, basketball court, putting green, and state-of-the-art gyms. There’s even a hotel! The point of all this is to prove that Infosys (and by extension India) can compete on equal terms with the developed world—the level playing field of Friedman’s ‘flat world.’ And with bumper-to-bumper traffic crawling along the highway outside, nowhere seems to sum up the contradictions of modern India so succinctly.”
I visited Bangalore on November 15-18, 2008. The official name of the city is now Bengaluru, but unlike the Madras to Chennai and the Bombay to Mumbai name changes, Bengaluru hasn’t really caught on and everyone still calls the city by its colonial name, Bangalore.
This marked my first time flying within India and I was somewhat surprised by the lax airport security (compared to the U.S.). Not only did my shoes and belt remain on my body, but I didn’t even have to empty my pockets or take my laptop out of its case (on the return trip I did actually have to dis-encase my laptop but my shoes remained on my feet). I was also allowed to carry any liquids I wanted right onto the plane. While this was pleasant and convenient for me, it does make one a little nervous traveling in a country where terrorist attacks are not infrequent (as was recently tragically demonstrated in Mumbai). A substantial snack (bordering on a meal) served on the short one-hour flight was another pleasant surprise.
The beautiful, recently constructed international airport is a testament to Bangalore’s rise and new-found wealth. About an hour bus ride from the main part of the city, the airport is adorned with beautiful fountains, art sculptures, and meticulously manicured lawns. Although there is not much of historical interest in Bangalore, I’ve been told that it is a great place to live as you can find anything from anywhere in the world in the city’s trendy shops and restaurants. There is also an active social scene catering to the many young working professionals. I saw the city’s transformation firsthand as I wandered down a dilapidated old street and stumbled upon a beautiful new mall. The white granite structure housed several high-end brand stores which were much too expensive for me. An escalator led to the roof of the building where a terrace, populated with elegant restaurants and a beautiful multicolored fountain, overlooked the city.
The rise of the Indian economy is attributed, almost universally here, to the deregulation and government reforms of the early 1990s. These changes, coupled with a large, educated, English-speaking population, have unleashed Indian’s entrepreneurial potential. With starting salaries higher than those of their long-employed parents, young IT professionals and “call center yuppies” are fueling the rise of a large Indian middle class. The best IT firms now wield so much power that some have dubbed them the ITocracy. Jobs viewed with disdain in the U.S. confer substantial status and are highly sought here. With so many people in the country, competition for jobs at top companies is fierce; many applicants have special training in “American” English and advanced degrees from top universities.On the other side of the world, many Americans are increasingly frustrated as they try, unsuccessfully, to communicate with their credit card’s back-office support team in India. Next time you find yourself in this situation, struggling to make yourself understood, take a moment to reflect on the fact that the person on the other end of the line likely speaks three or four languages in addition to English, is probably more highly educated than you, and is working many, many hours each day to provide a better life for himself and his family. This may not decrease the level of your annoyance (I myself try to avoid using the phone here), but at least it will provide some perspective.
Iconic symbol of the West.
The beautiful Lalbagh Botanical Garden.
Temple within the garden.
Glass house at Lalbagh.
I found a family of monkeys in urban Bangalore near the LDS church.
View from the top of UB City. Unfortunately, you can't see the fountain so well.
My church teaches consistently and often about the importance of being prepared. It encourages anyone who will listen to have adequate supplies (72 hours worth) to sustain themselves and their families during an emergency situation. It further emphasizes the importance of long-term food storage (one year) in the event of a major catastrophe. However, until this weekend, such teachings have been entirely abstract for me; a good idea but not of immediate concern or relevance.
It is monsoon season and it rains almost everyday and sometimes several times a day. On Tuesday, however, the rains became more frequent, longer in duration, and more intense. When I left work on Tuesday night, one of the roads on my way home was completely flooded and I wished that I had worn my sandals. On Wednesday, even more roads were covered in water and I paid a rickshaw (150 rupees) to take me into the office instead of waiting for a bus (4 rupees). Thursday, I worked from home rather than brave the rising water. Friday, I woke up to find that I had no electricity. The power is generally out for one or two hours a day, but the scheduled outage usually doesn’t happen so early. As the morning wore on, I realized that this was not a typical power cut. My computer battery was soon drained and, consequently, my newly acquired wireless Internet USB modem was of no use. Unable to work, I decided to wade through the inundated city.
Even after living in India for four months, I was surprised by what I saw. Much of Muggapair was two feet or more under water and many neighborhoods were completely flooded. Men in this area wear a wrap-type thing called a dhoti instead of pants which can be adjusted from angle length up to much-too-short. I had thought this clothing was purely a response to the heat, allowing them to easily control the temperature of their lower extremities. I now realized, however, how useful such an article of adjustable clothing could be during a flood as well (ingenious really). At several different points, the road was being dug up to create trenches to allow the water to drain. These ditches, combined with the water itself, made most roads in the area nearly impassable for vehicles. Although the clouds had looked benign when I left, I soon cursed myself for having forgotten my umbrella and was forced to find refuge under an awning as the rain resumed. As I later made my way home, one misstep submerged my left leg up to the waste, and with it my cell phone, which I had stupidly put in my pocket. Nearly soaked, I returned to my apartment to find a backhoe creating a mess out of the road in front of my house in order to ease the flooding of the neighborhood across the street. I was immensely thankful that my apartment is in a relatively high spot and that the water had remained outside my walls.
Inside and finally dry, the gravity of the situation began to sink in. I had no idea how long the rain would last or how deep the water would get. No electricity meant not only no computer, but no refrigerator, hot water, or light once night fell. I did have a flashlight, but, without extra batteries, its usefulness was limited.I decided to save the batteries, just in case the electricity remained out for an extended period. With the grocery stores closed and the roads transformed into canals, I began wondering how much food and drinking water I had. I also realized that all the electronic cash in the world would be meaningless in an emergency situation. However, the utility of a gas powered stove was tangibly evident (at least while there is propane left in the tank). Thankfully, the water in my apartment remained on as well. Alone, with no Internet and a water-logged cell phone, I was completely cut off from the world outside my neighborhood (and hence all English speaking people with whom I could communicate). As dusk fell and the light faded, I became increasingly bored and wondered how long the hours would drag on until it was finally time to sleep. I began calculating the number of weeks I could survive if things got really bad.
Mercifully, the electricity came back late Friday night. The local grocery store was open on Saturday, although with a much reduced inventory (how they plan to restock until the roads are fixed, I have no idea). As if sent by God Himself, the sun returned on Sunday and began drying up all the rain. Still, even if the skies remain clear (unlikely as it is raining again as I write this), it will take weeks at the very least for some areas of the city to be functional. I won’t even venture to guess how long it will take to repair all the roads. I just hope that they put in drainage pipes before they repave.
In the end, this calamity was short lived, at least for me. Some friends, whose apartment building is completely flooded, will live with relatives for the next several weeks. I’m told that usually the monsoon season isn’t this bad (some say a cyclone passed through) and that the city hasn’t been in such a state since at least 2005 :). Even still, I think I’ll stock up on some basic food items, get some extra batteries, and buy some candles.
This used to be a road.
Homemade raft-Making the best of the situation.
This backhoe came to dig up the street in front of my house and let the water drain from the neighborhood across the street.
The street becomes a canal.
The neighborhood across the street.
This is the route I usually take to the bus stop each morning.
November 14th is Children’s Day in India. It marks the birthday of the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who reportedly loved children. Local schools conduct artistic contests, extol Nehru’s virtues through presentations and speeches, and distribute sweets and other prizes to commemorate the day.
I celebrated by visiting the children at Pathway, a local non-profit organization. Pathway was started in 1975 when a 22 year-old speech pathologist and audiologist, Dr. ADSN Prasad, took in two disabled children who had no one else to care for them. Over time, this effort grew into a school and residential facility for mentally disabled children. Today, Pathway consists of three separate facilities and has served 22,000 children and adults. The original school in Chennai caters to 300 mentally disabled youth, 100 of which live on the premises. (For more information on Pathway please see here and here.) Students are provided with diagnostic, medical, and dental services and a full-fledged treatment plan. The organization’s mission statement reads: “Our goal is to offer comprehensive care and assistance to as many children as our facilities can accommodate without regard to their religion, caste, creed, or sex. If we can in turn help those individuals develop the skills and self esteem to become productive citizens of our country, our mission is accomplished.”
Pathway also operates a vocational training institute and factory in Koothavakkam which employs 50 mentally disabled adults, including many former students, in printing, jewelry-making, baking, and woodworking. Along with the school in Chennai, I was able to visit a third site operated by the organization in Agili, about 90 minutes from the city. The beautiful 60 acre farm hosts a school and residential facility for orphaned and destitute children. Separate dorms house 74 boys and 113 girls who attend kindergarten through tenth grade at the school. Two additional buildings, currently under construction, are designed to cater to mentally disabled youth. The completion of these facilities will bolster Dr. Prasad’s vision of integrating disabled and full-functioning youth to provide learning opportunities to both groups. A “hospital on wheels” operated by Pathway also provides medical care to a large number of poor villagers in the vicinity of the farm.
Funded by domestic and international donors, the Pathway facilities provide food, clothing, medical care and other necessities free of charge in addition to schooling. The organization also benefits from synergies as bakery goods and furniture made in Koothavakkam can be used in Chennai and Agili and food grown on the farm in Agili can be used in Chennai and Koothavakkam. Dr. Prasad hopes to soon install solar panels to overcome the challenges of frequent power cuts and garner the benefits of a sustainable energy source (if anyone has connections to solar energy companies looking for corporate social responsibility initiatives or donors willing to support such a project, please let me know; hundreds of current students and many future generations of children would be extremely grateful).
In a country where the government is, at best, inefficient and overwhelmed, and too often corrupt as well, non-profit organizations and businesses succeed in spite of the government, not because of it. It is not the government but civil society and world-class firms that are driving the incredible transformation of India as it emerges onto the world economic stage. Pathway is heir to a long lineage of progressive social organizations, such as fraternal societies, Rotary Clubs International, and the Salvation Army, which generations ago created a more compassionate, prosperous society in the U.S. It is Dr. Prasad and the thousands of individuals like him in countries across the world that will bring about a better tomorrow and propel hope into the future.
The vision and development plan for Pathway.
Some of the youth at the Chennai facility.
Children's Day assembly at Agili.
Sometimes you just need a nap.
Lining up for treats.
Priceless.
On the playground.
More pictures can be found here as well as videos on my Facebook video page.
On my morning walk to the bus stop, I pass many Hindu temples, multiple mosques, and several Christian churches representing various denominations. Flipping through the channels on my TV, I can hear programming in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada, and English (not to mention the international channels from Japan, Australia, Germany, etc.). Limited to the English programming, I can still listen to the musing of a Hindu guru, the evangelizing of a Christian preacher, or the philosophizing of a Jain monk.
These daily experiences underscore the incredible diversity that defines India. The second most populous nation on earth, with 1.1 billion people, India must also be one of the most diverse (surely in terms of diversity per square mile if nothing else). The country offers divergence across almost every category: ethnicity, race, language, religion, dress, food, climate, geography, education level, caste, income, holidays, and even seasons. Some sources claim 2,000 or more ethnic groups reside in the country spanning several different races. Although most people picture Gandhi when they think of the typical Indian, those in the northeast are Mongoloid in appearance and might easily be mistaken for Chinese, while some here in the south are darker than my African friends (for more information on race in India, see here). According to Wikipedia, there are 415 living languages in India, with about 216 being spoken by groups of 10,000 or more. There are 15 official languages with the national language, Hindi, being the primary language of only about 41% of the people and nearly non-existent here in the south. Cuisine also varies by region (north, south, east, and west) as well as being split nationally between veg and non-veg diets (several apartment complexes in Chennai allow only vegetarian residents). India is home to some of the richest people in the world as well as some of the poorest on the planet. Just over one-third the size of the U.S., India is also very diverse geographically, spanning freezing cold mountainous regions as well as humid, tropical areas. Even the seasons are different depending on the area of the country in which you find yourself; it is monsoon season here; however, Delhi and Kerala experienced their monsoon seasons months ago.
Some places in the U.S. are also very diverse in terms of inhabitants; in New York or Boston you can find people from every country, representatives of most ethnicities, and adherents of nearly all belief systems. However, the U.S. is characterized by individual diversity. India exemplifies group diversity. Although Hindus account for 80% of the population, large, concentrated pockets of Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians (as well as Zoroastrians (Parsis), Jews, and Bahais to a lesser extent) can have a substantial impact on the peace and stability of regions and the country. Further, unlike in the U.S. where it is often impossible to determine if a given person is religious or not through casual acquaintance, religious iconography is everywhere here, constantly proclaiming differences.
It is true that this diversity sometimes results in conflict as illustrated in several recent examples. Violence continues in Jammu and Kashmir. Terrorist blasts in Delhi and several other cities hint at tensions between Hindus and Muslims which bubble up to cloud relations with Pakistan. In the past few months, the national media has reported on the vandalism and even destruction of Christian churches in Orissa and Karnataka and the forcible conversion of some practitioners to Hinduism (the LDS church has no presence in Orissa, but two LDS missionaries were arrested in Bangalore two months ago). Populous politics, Maharashtrian nationalism, and xenophobia have combined in Mumbai as a regional politician (Raj Thakre) called for immigrants from other Indian states (especially Bihar) to go home and stop taking jobs from locals. His recent arrest sparked riots in the city.
However, the newsworthiness of these incidents highlights the fact that, for the most part, the diverse peoples of India get along surprisingly well. Hindus, Muslims, and Christians are neighbors, co-workers, and friends. Any given person may stop by the Hindu temple each day to receive a mark on the forehead before going to work, leave work Friday afternoon to attend prayers at the Muslim mosque, go to one of the many Christian churches Sunday morning, or attend no religious services at all. Mutual respect and tolerance allow many very different groups of people to form one vibrant nation. Diversity does not necessarily mean divisiveness. Nor does it have to lead to dilution of ideals. On the contrary, for me comparisons and contrasts often reveal new and profound ways of understanding and practicing my own culture and traditions. I am inspired by the concept of ahimsa (non-violence) taught in Hinduism, the reverence for the Almighty demonstrated by Muslims, and the closeness to God exemplified by many of my Jewish friends. The genius of God in creating such a diverse world is incomprehensible. Not only is it immensely more beautiful and less dull than a monolithic, uniform world would have been, but what better way could He have devised to ensure our continual learning and progression? We often learn the most when we are presented with ideas or situations very different from our own which challenge our current understanding.
Murals such as these, displaying symbols of various religions side by side, can be found throughout the city. In this one, Christ is followed by Islamic symbols, and the Hindu Ganesh.
A Hindu temple near my house. I like to think the cow is there seeking asylum from all the meat eaters.
One of the local neighborhood mosques.
The Apostolic Christian church at the end of my road.
Several houses prominently display symbols of the religious faith of their inhabitants. Ave Maria marks this as a Christian (Catholic) house.
Ganesh indicates that Hindus live here.
Linguistic diversity: the top is written in Tamil, followed by Hindi, and then English.
