The birth of the new old

The birth of the new old

It’s very easy to forget that we are studying a very Western subject and that our thoughts, perspectives and even our emotions are often influenced and manipulated by Western constructs. Thus we see everything in black or white, particularities without anything overriding in between. This was me and is still me but the only difference is between three weeks back and now is that I not only know the inherent contradictions in such a way of thought but in fact I’ve come to enjoy it. Now to understand this change, we have to go back to when I first joined college. At this point of time, I was still relatively a product of Western values with enough Indian masala to call me a Non-Resident Indian. I had never fully lost that flavour despite coming to India three years prior to my joining this institution. But it was here that I slowly smelt the aroma of the earth and came into a deeper touch with my roots. However while this process culturally and physically enhanced me, it never fully got to me mentally. There was always an intellectual gap that was unfathomable to me especially when I found my love for Indian culture growing daily and my appetite for the said culture would have made any Indian mom or grand mom satisfied.

This gap showed its strains when it came to the contradictions I saw everywhere in India. Even now, after 6 years, I still find it difficult to fully take in the artistic amalgamations that our culture can create and call home. There would be litter on one side and a crorepati’s mansion on the other; the presence of dogs dying from disease right near the air conditioned driveways of the Marriot. No one is shocked. No one writes books about this. For a long time, it was difficult accepting this, with all the culture shock and anger that came with my naïve understanding of this complex culture. But forwarding five years later I was still the same, just better at hiding the frustration and at faking a smile. But it was during my vacations that I was impacted by a mind-changing experience that helped me re-evaluate everything I knew. It was in Kerala where I had gone to visit my grandmom. There it was peaceful being in the heart of a city but not having to live through the traffic. I was relaxing and researching an intriguing concept on Buddhism which looked at the transience of life. It showed how mandalas, which are the decorations made with coloured powder and common to many cultures across the world, had something sacred in Buddhist thought – the idea that we can put all the effort we can in making the perfect one but then like life it can be blown or washed away and that patch of land resets to what it was before, not knowing better.

At that moment, it seemed unique, a little preposterous and a lot of utopian ideology. Something that worked for cultures that could only be Indian. And then, forgetting about this I went out to go for a walk. There was a man on the way that seemed to be carrying dried chilis. He passed me by and said hi to the people opposite the road who were the roadside vendors that most likely provided him and a lot of his friends with the best value for money tea in that area. I finished the errand I had promised my grandmother I would do and was walking back when I saw the chilli man again. This time he was sitting near that roadside vendor with who he was having a discussion as heated as that afternoon sun. Suddenly the graceful wind that passed me by turned vicious and flung his chillis away into the road. Before he, myself or anyone else could react, they were crushed under the rubber and tar sandwich of the passing on roads. I or anyone else I would have believed to be in that position would have lost it, walked with an invisible weight of exaggerated sorrows and gone home. However he just went to the middle, smilingly putting his hand to slow down the car in front of him, picked up the crushed chilli, ate it, relished the spiciness and then commented “Only gravity can make something this tangy” and continued walking.

I learnt the greatest lesson of the culture I was in – take something one way and the world will force you down that path. But surprise it and the world is yours.