What is India?
There’s no such thing as an Authentic India or a Real Indian. There is no Divine Committee that has the right to sanction one single, Authorized Version of what India is or should be. There is no one religion or language or caste or region or person or story or book that can claim to be its sole representative. There are, and can only be, visions of India, various ways of seeing it—honest, dishonest, wonderful, absurd, modern, traditional, male, female. They can be argued over, criticized, praised, scorned, but not banned or broken.
-Arundhati Roy, “The End of Imagination”
This is a quote that we read and discussed during Pre-Travel Orientation. What is India to you? Please post your comments.
Comments
To me, India is a place that I'm learning about and experiencing vicariously through Team Ganesh. Can't wait for your next post!
Posted by: Gabrielle St. Pierre | February 19, 2010 4:43 PM
I keep thinking of the food, and wishing I was there.
"India did not enter me through my mind but through my senses. I have spoken of my arrival in Bombay, one morning forty years ago: I can still breathe that humid air, see and hear the crowds in the streets, remember the brilliant colors of the saris, the murmur of voices, the dazzlement before the Trimurti in Elephanta. I have also mentioned in passing the food; from it I gained, early on, a small insight that taught me more about India than a monograph." –Octavio Paz, In Light of India
Posted by: John | February 17, 2010 4:34 PM