Day 73: Two More Days Left

The Heritage journey is coming to a close. If I am able to summarize the experience, I will try. I apologize that I was unable to post as much as I had hoped on this blog because to upload pictures takes more than the 2g that I had most of the time. It still is challemging.

If you were on FB you had a chance to see my daily photo portrayals of India. Lets see if I can get a few more pictures up of the past 2.5 months? In my photo essaying I attempted to communicate several things about India: diversity, color, vibrancy, and chaos.

One cannot actually truth fully portray this country. Just little glimpses that give a partial portrayal of a vastly diverse region. Clearly the smells and sounds don't come across. I noticed even the colors in any photo I took were never like the color I saw with my naked eye. It is clearly a place to be experienced. Portrayal must be understood just as that.

I may add that even a movie will fall short, as much as movies a central part of India. I remember years ago going with friends to see Salaam Bombay in the US, and I was asked if it was authentic. For the part of Mumbai, which was the red light district, yes, I thought so, but for the smells. If people could only smell those scenes of cramped humanity. I wondered if anyone would ask if the red light district anywhere in the US was representative of America? Many people have thought they understood India better after watching Slumdog Millionaire. To that , I would have to say, with a big sigh, hardly! Though it had some wonderful glimpses.

Essentially the only real misconception of India is that it's all the same. Its not all Hindu, or, even any One kind of Hinduism. The number of Muslims is larger than most muslim nations. One must be settled with the possibility for all conceptions being partially true. It doesn't mean that you can't hold fast to one particular view, it makes for interesting conversation.  Furthermore, any minority of 2%, for instance, is still several billion people.

With technical difficulties I can only post this much today.