In preparation for this trip, I read a lot of books about India. The one exception is the book that I am finishing on the eve of my departure, Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski. It’s a great read and since I’ve already bored many of you with the details, I’ll spare you (you’re welcome). Let’s just say that if you are inclined to wanderlust, I think you’ll enjoy it.
Over the past months as I’ve shared my most recent scheme, many people have asked me, ‘why!?!’ often followed by ‘why India!?!’ Honestly, I don’t exactly know why India. For a long time something in my heart has drawn me there and finally my mind has caught up. Maybe by the end of this chapter of my blog, I’ll be able to answer the question.
As to the former question, a passage in Mr. Kapuscinski’s book gave me a suggestion for a possible root of my nagging desire to get out and see what everyone else is doing:
“Herodotus was therefore a Greek Carian, an ethnic half-breed. Such people who grow up amid different cultures, as a blend of different bloodlines, have their worldview determined by such concepts as border, distance, difference, diversity. We encounter the widest array of human types among them, from fanatical, fierce sectarians, to passive, apathetic provincials, to open, receptive wanderers – citizens of the world.“
For me, there is some magic to the idea of long-held traditions, the cohesiveness of culture. But it is the fact that we all have these things, ours by accident of our birth that make the last words of this passage resonate with me. Citizenship of the world compels me to see it, but also to involve myself in it… so that’s how I end up t-1 days from 4.5 months of seeing (India, Nepal, Sri Lanka?) and being and 1.5 months of doing (South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre).
“Herodotus was therefore a Greek Carian, an ethnic half-breed. Such people who grow up amid different cultures, as a blend of different bloodlines, have their worldview determined by such concepts as border, distance, difference, diversity. We encounter the widest array of human types among them, from fanatical, fierce sectarians, to passive, apathetic provincials, to open, receptive wanderers – citizens of the world.“
For me, there is some magic to the idea of long-held traditions, the cohesiveness of culture. But it is the fact that we all have these things, ours by accident of our birth that make the last words of this passage resonate with me. Citizenship of the world compels me to see it, but also to involve myself in it… so that’s how I end up t-1 days from 4.5 months of seeing (India, Nepal, Sri Lanka?) and being and 1.5 months of doing (South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre).
First stop? Delhi!!!
Thank you everyone, for a most lovely send off!
(For those of you who are already penning a cheeky comment, go ‘head, I can take it! That said, I promise that my entries will get more entertaining when they are not being written from my go transit mobile office ;))
(For those of you who are already penning a cheeky comment, go ‘head, I can take it! That said, I promise that my entries will get more entertaining when they are not being written from my go transit mobile office ;))
1 comment:
am so happy that you have begun ure adventure...will defo check out that book as i would like to explore -even if only in writing - more than the goa tourist side of india!
well what can i say - ure wittieness is being sorely missed here in scarberia....obviously i am still here although am concocting many plans to get myself somewhere else from resurrecting the mobile tanning biz-subject to me actually getting a car as doing so on a bike not so good- to growing veg and selling it at a farmers market(altho if u take a look at the plant in the office and its current state under my care one would be more inclined to think i was at war with the plant world!!!)well, cant wait to hear ure reports of the big climb!
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