Journey to India

It's been a great beginning to my trip to India this time. Last time was different. I landed in Kolkata from Dubai, and I had a reality collapse as these two cities are as different as identical tiwns are the same. This time I transitioned from my home on Vancouver Island to Manzil House in New Delhi (www.manzil.in) and they are similar in many ways. This house is a  private one, yet so many youth are here all day long and the kitchen is constantly busy with the cook providing an endless stream of parathas, masala tea and cold water, while the young ones bustle about making music, going online, hanging out and coming and going.

The photo on the left is of the kids who were supposed to be learning Englsh having a great time with the freecycle Lego and Duplo I brought. It was a first time with these toys for most of them, and it's so intuitive, no explanation needed and beautiful creations emerge immediately.

I'm right at home... except that geting two long shirts ironed downstairs at the market only cost 25 cents. At this price, I would be outsourcing most of MY housework. YES.

It's hot here, but manageable. Sunny and Meeta had me over for lunch yesterday in their cool apartment (literally cool as it is on the ground floor, shading them from much sun) and I learned a whole bunch of stuff about Indian culture that I did not know and needed to know. What is lying? When is it okay in which culture? If someone's feelings are saved from being hurt by lying, does it make it okay? The religious stories of Hinduism, says Sunny, are full of examples of lying to save the day, save the person or the tribe. My question is when does lying honourably become a slippery slope into lying for less than honourable reasons? When does it catch up to you? If you lie to your parents, and it's okay, then I suppose it's understood that one's children would lie to us. And if they do, is that okay?

The night before I had stayed up late with some younger ones, discussing whether one should and can practically follow one's heart's desires. In India. there is the question of duty to your parents to a much deeper and wider extent than it arises in Canada. It exists to the point that aside from looking after them in their old age, that we have a duty to keeping them happy long before they are old by following their wishes and plans, much to do with the physical and financial security of the parents, rather than one's own heart's desires.

These are complex questions, that have certainly been factors in my family's life in India, and the subsequent emigration to the West.