Black or White?

The two boys living in the house across the alley are the friendliest people I’ve met in India. They will wait outside on their stoop until I walk outside, just to be able to say hello. On one of the first times we ever chatted, the older of the two (about eight or so) brought me a pen and a one page hand written survey. The questions on it were all the typical questions asked by any Indian making friendly conversation (“What is your name? What is your fathers name? Which country? Which village? What are your hobbies?”) and concluded with an exclamatory remark: “INDIA IS THE BEST AMERICA.” I’m not sure if this was supposed to be a threat, compliment, or assertive question, but I took it as friendly and we’ve been cricket mates ever since.

On one occasion, they invited me to their home to take some sibling pictures (their idea, not mine). They also tried to talk their mother or aunt or something into joining but she wouldn’t give in to their demands. One of their elderly women relatives (the extended family lives under one roof) kept making jokes to me and laughing. Camera shy relatives, yippy kid siblings, and a crazy aunt. Being twelve time zones away from my own family but making up for it somewhat by finding myself in the warm company of this one made for a nice afternoon.

Also, my neighbors are Muslims. I’ve been thinking hard, but I believe they’re the first I’ve ever met. Not that it’s all too surprising; ‘Muslims and Hindus are each brothers of mother India,’ as Ben Kingsley reminds us in Ghandi, but it’s probably more surprising that I can’t think of anyone else I know who follows the world’s second biggest religion.

They say India is the World’s Most Multi-Dimensional nation. In a land where 99.9% of the population would probably be considered ‘some sort of brown one’ by American standards, that diversity seems to stem from places other than race.

Religion would be one of those areas. Muslims are Sunnis and Muslims are Shiite. Hindus are Jain or Sikh or one of dozens of others. Christians come in all the familiar flavors. And while there are multi millennial old Buddhist ruins around here, I think they’re more predominant in the south.

Visiting the lakeside park and serene herbal garden in Patan, we once stumbled upon a big pink temple that was built before George Washington was a general. A large man then invited us to stay for the Hindu service that was scheduled to begin in a few minutes. He proudly proclaimed himself a member of the high status Brahmin caste and asked us our caste. At first, I thought he was joking. Once I realized he was serious and we explained that our country didn’t have castes, I could only sit and pretend he was joking. As more respectable looking Hindus filed in and sat on the marble floor (it was a very nice temple, maybe only high status folk can attend?), I wondered what privileges our host had inherited through birth, how he had probably lived his whole life justifying these birth rights with the caste system, and what he’d think of a society sans caste like the US. What would he think if that society told him the caste system was barbaric and should be abolished? Would it be fair to him for us to do that? (We do.) He’s only living his life the way his heritage has for millennia (one of privilege), but would it be fair to the Kanjar not to end that? There are over three thousand castes in India. That’s diversity.

The service consisted of lots of chants and clapping, a door that would open to reveal a golden statue and a guy who would hit a gong to the beat of the chanting, people bowing, a passing around of little tea leaves to eat, and hand movements coordinated with more bowing and eating of tea leaves. Everyone remained standing for the entire service. We then cleared out of the marble floored room and walked to the front courtyard of the temple, where we entered another room filled with bright tinted sunlight. Everyone began chanting again and then doors at the front of the room opened to reveal another big shrine thing and the same guy hitting a gong again. An automated drum machine was turned on and we repeated the whole ritual.

As a kid in weekly Wednesday night Sunday school, we were told that “Thou Shalt not Worship False Idols” meant that we shouldn’t pine over things like video games and new TV’s or bikes or (and this one was emphasized) Pokemon cards. In India, I finally see a truer picture of what the Bible was alluding to because there are A LOT of idols here for worship. In dug out portions of little retail store exteriors, makeshift alters street side, along the ends of the city walls, or just randomly painted things with rocks placed next to them, Hindu shrines are everywhere. Most aren’t as elaborate or impressive as the ones in the fancy Patan temple, but simply rocks carved into round stalactite like shapes and painted orange and covered with foil. I think praying to these in the morning and occasionally giving one of the larger ones an offering is a regular ritual for most. And while I don’t understand what about all this turned the early authors of the Bible off, I really don’t understand or comprehend the idols thing at all.


My favorite temple experience would have been visiting the hilltop fortress here in Patan on a rainy afternoon. Once there, it began to downpour and I was invited to sit on the steps of the elaborate (and somewhat gaudy) temple that had been erected within the decaying fort walls’ courtyard. I sat watching the rain and passing stray dogs with the plump fifty something Indian woman who’d been selling incense at a table before the storm. Not knowing each other’s languages, we just sat under the blaring speakers that had been installed on the foil-mirror plastered ceiling of the temple awning. In a scene that might be from a Wes Anderson flick, we shared coconut and sugar rocks while the awfully high pitched voices of the Hindi women singers drowned out the sound of the rain and the temple guru (who was shouting at his cell phone while sitting cross legged at a shrine inside.)


That fort had been built during the time when the Mughal, Rajput, and Muslim empires were continuously jockeying for control of north western India; conquering land, erecting great structures (the Taj, for example), and then losing the land to a rival empire who’d repeat the process. I think about the long histories of the things around me a lot in India, and the strange situations those things find themselves in contemporary times. How many invading soldiers had been speared off where the loud speaker control panel was now installed? Did the priest who charged his cell behind the Ganesh alter have ancestors who’d toiled under the hot sun to finish the Maharaja’s fort? What does INDIA IS THE BEST AMERICA really mean, anyways?