friends,
soo, wehere in the world is timm robb? who? who knew? i am here,
Aotorea, now they call it New Zealand, it is an island and island life has
swept this awesome place. I just arrived not two days ago, i haven’t
slept in about four so this may be a ramble, however, it is my best and i
feel as though i have not ramble adequately enough for this blog and for
all of you whom i love, so as they say, ramble on...
I spent the past two months in India, an amazing place that is so
different in all of its locations, cities, beach towns, rural areas,
forests, forests within cities, cities within forests that generalizations
are unbearable. I started in New Delhi the capitol city. Upon arriving
such sites as this city had to offer where so far from any that i had seen
before. I walked through the streets, through religious ceremonies, to
street food carts, through thick auto traffic crowding streets, through
thick cattle herding through the streets. Everything: cows aplenty adorned
with painted hooves and horns for beautification, camels spitting wildly
like tobacco chewing grandfathers, elephants carrying unfathomable loads
on their backs. Walking down the street one sees enough to contemplate for
the eternity of one’s life. Once a boy no more than three ran in front of
me, pulled down his trousers and released a bowl onto the sidewalk before
my footsteps. Transportation is dominated by the auto rick-Shaw: three
wheeled, one to nine passenger carts that crews through the expansive
streets of the city. they are cheap, you can take them (and i did, daily)
from one end of the city to the other for less than two dollars. The
cities air pollution is nearly unbearable turning your throats soar and
your boogers black. The smog choked air is most emblematic at sunrise and
sunset when you can stare at the sun with your naked eye, gloat at its
perfect shape and glamour through the thickness of smog that protects your
eyes from its overbearing intensity.
Delhi is also a collection of all the separate cultures that exist in
plurality throughout the country. It is unspeakable the variety of culture
and people that exist here, but Delhi seems to combined all of these into
a rhythmic blend of beautiful images, colors and smells. Every truck that
passes on the street is adorned with beautiful flowers, paintings, and
depictions of gods. Everything on the street are colored fantastically,
pulling your eyes attention in all directions at once. It was a city that
made me feel at home in a vast sea of differences. i could not have been
farther from my home, but something in the autonomy that exists in the
stare of the people, made me feel seen, not as an American, or westerner,
but as if they were acknowledging the budda within me, as they say,
Namaste.
Our crew of 25 traveled outside of Delhi, visiting the Taj Mahaul, and
then settling in a rural community to study and learn the complexities of
the cotton industry in India. We stayed at a Gandhian ashram, studied his
philosophies as we practiced his communalism. Later I traveled to
Dharmsala in the north part of the country. I spent ten days alone, fairly
isolated in a town settled in the foothills of the Himalayas. I hiked,
read, and wrote alone in a cabin, basking in my loneliness. I met and
befriended a Tibetan monk who took me to the top of a mountain. WE became
friends in a way i have never know friendship to exist before. we swapped
broken english sentences in exchange for companionship. After this point
our crew re-met in Mumbai for a few days before spending the rest of the
time on a small farm north of the city. The farm bordered a river within
which i swam everyday in the mid afternoon heat.
The attacks on Mumbai were hyped by the media to the fullest existent as
im sure they were in the states as well. People here were very effected by
the attacks and it has lead to. among other things, civil organizations
demanding accountability of their government. This is leading to very
intense conversations between India and Pakistan in attempts to reconcile
the violence. Although there is a lot of pressure on the Indian government
now from its people, there is little to be accomplished between these
talks and people are feeling the frustration of a tense and unsettled
dilemma. I know very little about this like many people, and are unable to
fathom the outcome of these increased tensions.
What to say in reflection of my time here... most of my academics were
spent studying under a well known activist by the name of Smitu Kathari.
He comes from a family of educators and activists and versed us students
well in the diversity of social movements that are in existence in
contemporary India. Certainly a fascinating perspective to learn from, one
that i respect very much and will miss in my months to come here on out.
We spent a majority of the time discussing the framework of social
movements, its skeleton, its fuel and its obstacles. India is a very
unique place. For example, the little i knew of India before coming was
that it was a "developing" country. I now have a clearer definition of
what this means specifically to the political borders of the landmass. it
is not always pretty, in fact, hardly ever, but in its wake exists a
plethora of mobilization and activism that cannot be described as anything
but awe-inspiring. What i love about this, is that even in the face of the
unspeakable, people speak. In the shadow of one powerful persons dream,
are the torches of those who have dreams that differ from the main stream.
It is the gentle steady hum of the individuals collectively harmonizing in
a common "no" making way for the many "yeses".
sorry to have colonized our blog wall, it happens seldom that i thought
its appropriate. i will try to be more frequent and less verbose in the
blogs to come. With enduring gratitude and love in my heart, salaam
aleikum
timm
