The East is defined by the great Bay of Bengal and the mighty Brahmaputra that pours into it, creating the Andaman Islands. Or so a geologist assured Hugh and Colleen Gantzer. But they found more than dense forests there. In Ross Island they had an eldritch encounter in the ruins of an abandoned church.
In this, the fourth book in their Intriguing India series, the Gantzers describe the other experiences they've had in the Eastern States.
In Puri they saw a million people, of all faiths, held in disciplined awe as the enormous chariots of three forest deities rolled by.
Cruising on the mighty Brahmaputra they came across a powerful Sino-Burmese dynasty: the Ahoms had ruled Assam for longer than the combined dominance of the Mughals and British; and then they had vanished without a trace. On a visit to the largest riverine island in the world the Gantzers found a fascinating faith in which some monks dance and others make masks as a religious duty. At the sacred shrine of the Mother Goddess Kamakhya they saw evidence of an ancient celestial catastrophe. They unearthed evidence in Nagaland pointing to the overseas origin of these very special people. Assessing the mounting threat to Tawang from across the border, they ask, "Why are the Chinese so eager to capture the Golden Monastery, repository of ancient Tibetan scholarship? Does its esoteric library and museum hold an awesome transcendental secret which can be turned against us?"
The Gantzers, once again, bring their gentle curiosity to bear on questions that orthodox science does not want to ask. And they give their own intriguing answers.
In the East, we toured the world without leaving our shores. In the eyes of our people we saw reflections of their ancestors. They spoke and the lilt of the past was the cadence of distant lands. In their food our tongues savoured flavours born far beyond the horizon. In the fragrances of their festivals was the incense from shrines in the far corners of the earth. The texture of their fabrics recalled the warp and weft of looms lost in the mists of history.
These are the wellsprings of our Indian-ness. This is what makes us what we are. We are a country, but we are more. We are a nation, but not only that. We are the world, but even the world is not enough to describe who we are.
We are something that has never happened before.
We discovered this first when we were asked to give a talk on India to the winners of the annual international essay competitions run by America's Herald Tribune. The awardees came from many faiths, many countries, many political systems: a polyglot, multi-hued, effervescent group of achievers who started by asking us what, in our opinion, was the greatest achievement of India. We advised them to look at any Indian currency note and at the languages and scripts printed on it. Every line described the denomination of the note but they all did it in the letters of their own, ethnic, alphabets. They were all the national languages of India and those who preferred to use their own mother tongues were also linked together by the Official language, Hindi, and the Associate Official language, English: the international language in which the winners had written their essays.
There was a moment of silence. Then a flurry of whispered conversations with neighbours. Finally a barrage of questions hit us.
They were amazed by our diversity, astounded by our unity, enthralled by our democracy, our rule of law, our free media. Even the fact that we have no social safety net and that every Indian has to work to survive, that there is no dole, surprised them. They agreed that doles, hand-outs and freebies weaken the character of a nation.
At the end of our talk, the last question was, "What makes you tick? Is your diversity the secret of your unity? Is it because you have such a vast pool of genetic material, customs and traditions, that there's always a choice: there are so many options open to you that you can always find an alternative?"
These questions triggered our quest to know more about our own Intriguing India. Now that we have written this, the last book in this series, we have been able to sit back and mull over our discoveries and distil our beliefs.
We believe that our India is, more than everything else, an Idea whose time has come. And nothing can stop us from soaring to our ordained place in the sun.
Hindu (935)
Agriculture (118)
Ancient (1086)
Archaeology (753)
Architecture (563)
Art & Culture (910)
Biography (702)
Buddhist (544)
Cookery (167)
Emperor & Queen (565)
Islam (242)
Jainism (307)
Literary (896)
Mahatma Gandhi (372)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist