Journey to India

Anita-

I just read the series on your journey and I was fascinated by the seemingly occidental bias your post brings. As someone who has an identity that is Indian, you have a disdain and superiority over the daily conditions of life in India that read like something a British missionary would have written during the time of the British Raj.

While I'm sure your purpose for this is sincere, I would suggest searching your thoughts and attempting to separate your self from your western bias.

The constant references to the dirty, congested and crowded conditions is tiresome. Enjoy the special place you have come to for what it is. True--all the food isn't organic and the streets tree-lined, but it has a character that is special and deserves to be appreciated not ridiculed.

I would have expected more from you.
 

Thank you for your feedback. Your critique is very astute and concise...

I felt bad about the reactions I had, but I decided not to correct them in order to be politically correct. I had to choose between honesty and dogma.

I don't agree that it is a western bias. It is a cliche to attribute all critique to western bias. I have met so many people with their heads in the sand, glorifying India, and getting defensive if someone says something remotely negative. I am also tired of the cliche that India is somehow especially spiritual or something... that is actually very funny.

If you would be so kind as to tell me who you are then I can better understand why you expected more from me.

As for my identity, I am many things to many people, including myself, and my Indian identity is unique, and not given to tribal loyalties.

And last but not least, I respect your opinion. Many Indian people, as it were, both living here and abroad, and those visiting from abroad, have been happy with my postings. However, I think that courage to post what you did, and I thank you for that.
 

as an indian male, living in canada and having been to india about 30 times in the last 30 years (and every part of india i would say) i feel the core of what anita says is essentially political.... the disgust that emanates from the take over of india by a feudal, male, corrupt,criminal, gangster milieu(half of india's male parliamentarians have rape, robberry and murder charges on them .....what the hell is there to enjoy when the main "democrats" in the country are from a thug era? ) ---who have no sense of hygiene (an essential element of a corrupt brahminical landlord culture, where dirt is left for outcastes to clean up) and really dont care about the world they live in, except to protect their selfish, self-serving, self-effacing money-grabbing nexus...so to accuse anita in edward saidian terms or the hogwash uppity intellectualism that pours out of a deconstructionist subaltern school, from time to time, smacks of a libertarian casualness about criticism of what india is.. anita does not act like a "foreigner" she is simply re-aquainting herself with the feudal misery that india covers up in its family, social and national context with high faluting export quality etherealness... india has to correct itself...and that correction will come from indians themselves who are astutely struggling against this awful feudal culture that envelopes it.. job well done so far, anita!
rana bose