20 December 2008. Bangalore.

It is early Friday morning here, following yesterday’s train travel from Hassan, through Mysore, to Bangalore. The Indian railroad system is impressive, though not always efficient. There are two major kinds of trains, coach travel and sleepers. The sleepers do provide a bed, but they are not prompt. They make long runs across the country, stopping throughout the night and day at small junctions. Yesterday’s sleeper from Hassan to Mysore was over an hour late, and the 3:30 a.m. wait on the small town platform was a bit discomforting. But the connecting coach train – an express route to Bangalore, was on schedule, comfortable, and quick.

Along the way from my window seat, I noticed several things, in no certain order:

• Flowers abound. In the north, lotus blossoms are very popular, but in the south, marigolds are the most obvious. They are used for worship offerings and to make those large flower ropes and leis.
• India’s landscape changes rapidly, from tropical paradises to something like Texas hill country to more arid regions, all within one state in south India. To be sure, there were more coconut groves and rice paddies than any other plant life, but the overall variety mirrors the great diversity of the people.

• Roadways of any sort are sparse, and anything like a major highway is rare. Rail travel is the mode of transportation, for those who must travel between towns. The lack of major roadways also preserves small town, village, or hamlet life, unlike so many dying towns along America’s interstates.
  
• Hindu temples are most often very small buildings with one central shrine, set in neighborhoods and along business streets (even in the middle of the road), and the larger temple complexes appear at sacred towns and rivers. The major temples are impressive, usually with large courtyards and multiple shrines, but the day to day religious life of Hindus centers around the small ones. This arrangement reflects the nature of Hinduism – accessible to all people, wherever they are, whatever they do.
  
• Cobra mounds dot the landscape, at least in the south. They look like giant fire ant mounds, up to two feet tall. I’m happy not to have seen a cobra.

• Indians like their cell phones, and they like to talk loudly into them. They also like fancy and long ring tones.
  
• School children wear uniforms, both for public and private schools. Everyone whom I’ve met has advocated for private schools if the families can afford them. Even for public schools, in some parts of the country, families must pay a monthly fee for school bus / rickshaw transportation.
  
• India is a veritable fruit feast. Joining the ever-present bananas are the largest mangoes I’ve ever seen, apples and oranges of all sorts, among others.
  
• Cricket is certainly the national sport. I found these energetic players taking batting practice, the Indian way, in Mysore.
  Last night I walked around the hotel area, and I watched a furniture store employee offering special puja for the business. He was praying, facing the store, and then suddenly, he took a coconut and slammed it into the steps, spreading the juice all around. A final lemon squeeze over the offering, and the service ended. Unfortunately, I did not have the camera. The owner told me that they do this every week, in preparation for Friday, asking for a good week of business.
  

Today I hope to visit a Parsee temple. Parsees are a version of Zoroastrians, whose religion developed in Persia during the 400s B.C. So I hope to have a final journal entry tomorrow, before leaving to come home.

One aspect of Zoroastrianism, which I had often attributed only to that religion, is the ubiquitous swastika, which one sees all over India – on business doors and advertisements, over home entries, and in Hindu temples. Not known by most of us is that this symbol is ancient and sacred. It signifies the cycle of life – Hindu samsara, or “turning” – that supports Hindu philosophy and ethics. Its use by Hindus is yet another kind of puja – prayer offering – for good days, successful business, and spiritual growth. I am told that the Indian version of the swastika is a reverse form of the later Nazi version. Whatever the case, the dominant takeover of this image by Nazism, and all that it implies, reminds us of the power not only of rich spiritual symbols but also of their evil distorted uses. It also cautions us against quick judgments based on assumptions and perceptions. As the wisdom writer said, there is indeed a time to speak (against evil, for example) and a time to be silent. (The biblical exegetes will forgive my probable misuse of scripture, please.)

I close this morning with a poem from R. N. Tagore, India’s great poet of the late nineteenth century:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow walls;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into every-widening thought and action –
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

slp