Friday, March 20, 2009

India Journal: Entry 12 - Distant Worlds



During my travels in India, I came across an individual who said something which would later play a role in defining my reflections on the trip. I was at Ranthambore, sitting by a fire with other tourists and out of the conversations a man said, “India has the best and worst the world has to offer”. That statement resonated with me. If you ever find yourself traveling around seeing the natural places remaining in India, you will understand too.

In my experiences in the protected areas where tigers roam, I was in paradise. The sights, sounds and smells made me feel at home. Aside from human presence, everything about being in these places was incredible. Seeing a tiger was the peak of it all...the epitome of the raw wildness and sublime beauty of nature (or, in the words of Dante, “The art of God”). Indeed, I was immersed in a dreamscape where the energy of life itself surged forth in vivid color, light and fragrance unlike anything mankind could ever render. Time seemed to not even exist, but for the daily passing of the sun and the air seemed so pure that often I was lost simply in the act of breathing. This was Eden, but we had kicked ourselves out.

When traveling between protected areas into human settlements and cities, the places of my dreams became distant worlds. Vivid color gave way to pale grays obscured by dust and pollution, which stung the eyes and made it difficult to breathe. The sounds of the wild were silenced by roar of engines, car horns, blaring music, and people yelling. The timeless slow-motion of nature was overtaken by the hectic rapidity of city-life. Yet life here in these places, rather than surging forth, felt subdued, suppressed and corrupt, limping forth just trying to get by. For every 5-star hotel, posh restaurant, or hi-tech electronics shop amidst the crumbling streets, masses of poverty-stricken beggars were never far from view. It was a soul-crushing juxtaposition. The vast inequality, the desperate and pitiful struggles of seemingly endless numbers of families, the filth, the pollution, the despair and the apathy...it rendered a sadness which lingered in my heart like the hazy air that so often obscured the sun. My experience in India will always be tainted by this. This is not what life is supposed to be and I felt damned to be a part of it.

There are moments where we as individuals reflect on our lives and question if we are walking the right path. I had grown up largely within a “modern” suburban environment, cushioned from both the ills of poverty and the sublime beauty of raw nature. Somewhere in the time when I was discovering tigers and pursuing higher learning at university, I began to widen my perspective. It was only when I visited India that I could truly appreciate the divide I saw before me. When I could see the man-man reality of the city right next to the small pockets of India’s remaining forests, I began to wonder, “Is this the way we should live...the way we are meant to live? What are we heading towards?”

The Eden’s of the Earth are being swallowed up by the way we are living. We are not only laying waste to the last remaining bastions of life itself, but many of our own species are left behind in the process, struggling to survive while the rich thrive. We seek to separate ourselves completely from nature, yet it is nature upon which we depend. Where will this take us? Can we turn back? Can we bring the realms of man and nature, these distant worlds, back together and can we create a world where fortune favours all instead of the few?

If life in the wilds I visited was life in balance, then the places in between were the epitome of life out of balance.

In India, I saw the best and the worst this world has to offer.

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