Make India Proud of Herself

After landing without incident in Delhi, the fun began. The wheel-chair pushers wanted 200 rupees – apiece – for the service. Since the can-ride to the hotel, which I had just prepaid at the police-approved booth in order to avoid rip-offs, was only 269RP, I dug in my heels. I didn’t know at the time that one RP= $.025, so that 200RP is just over $4.00, or I would have given them what they asked. I figured if the cab cost that much, it must be something like $20-$30! So, I offered them 1000 yen. They didn’t want it, but when it became clear it was that or nothing, they accepted – a little more than $10.00!The Claridges, which is very luxurious, but not very expensive by American standard, and even less through our agent. This was wisely designed to give us India virgins a refuge from the intensities of culture-shock. Well, we’ve seen the movies, so it isn’t a surprise. I would compare it to Mexico. Lots of very poor people, but a rapidly-increasing population of very rich and middle-class. style="">The population is young, exuberant, and hopeful. They are friendly, happy people, even if they be miserably poor. And the way things are going, they may not be for many moiré generations. My Japanese friend, Takashi, thinks India will outstrip Japan before too long (a decade or two, mainly for demographic reasons. Accommodations aside, we attended the Urs of Hazrat Inayat Khan at his Dargha. Urs is the saint’s day – the day of death. It is the word meaning “leading a bride to the bridegroom”. The Dargha is his tomb. A very pleasant place. Sharif gave a magnificent lecture there, and we all paid our respects to the Pir-o-Murshid (master and teacher) by a kindof oracular divination or lectio divina. After asking a question silently, we each stood before the grave and opened a book of his aphorisms to and where our eye fell. Mine was:

We shall see who will persevere to the end:

My persevering Adversary, or

I, persevering in my cherished patience.

How’s that for a wonderful, opaque, ambiguous, beautiful koan?

We visited the Bahai Lotus Temple, the Qutub Minar (11^th Century pillar that was the tallest building in the world until Chartres’s towers); and in Old Delhi, the Red Fort (palace and compound of the Mughal emperors until the British massacred them in 1857), the grand mosque (the biggest in the world for many centuries); then we paid our respects to the Mahatma at the site of his cremation (The Raj Ghat, or royal bank), where notables are cremated.

Raj Ghat ~ smadhi of Mahatma Gandhi

This is India’s national shrine. There were endless busloads of uniformed school children, the future of this lucky country. How so? Well, I remembered the movie, the part where Gandhi has just returned home and he has a talk with the rich old professor, founder of the Congress Party. He says to G.: “When I saw you dressed in Indian clothes, I knew. You are the one. Make India proud of herself, my boy.” And, by God, he did! It is moving to remember this at his shrine, surrounded by young Indians. Perhaps one of the reasons they are so hopeful and energetic is that the founder of their country was a saint.

Then we got on an overnight train for Mt. Abu.