diwali

The overnight train to Varanasi passed uneventfully and without much hassle, and I actually thought I had gotten away without being set upon by a gaggle of young boys as is usually the case with me... until they found me out in the last hour. Actually, a very nice and very well-spoken 13-year-old boy came up to me in the morning about an hour outside Varanasi and so we started speaking in the usual manner.... what was my name, what was his, where was I from, what did I do, etc. I learned that he was from Varanasi and was attending a very prestigious boy's boarding school near Gwalior but had been given a few days leave to come home for Diwali, the Hindu New Year and Festival of Lights (basically one big excuse to set off really big fireworks seemingly in each others faces without any reagrd for personal safety or that of passersby). Kushagya's (that's the boy) friends from school soon joined the conversation and we spent the last hour chatting about their interests (Cricket of course) and mostly about the more outgoing boy in particular... who was also very polite and well spoken and really very funny. Kushagya stayed more in the background, but when it came time to leave the train he offered me a ride to my hotel so that I wouldn't have to fight through the rickshaw wallahs vying for their chance to rob me. I accepted not really knowing what to expect. He said it was no problem, that it was on his way, and that he would have his driver drop me off. His driver?

I soon found out that Kushagya's father is a devloper and comes from very old money in Varanasi. His great grandfather was an extremely wealthy landowner and philanthropist who donated much of the money to build the renowned Hindi University in Varanasi, as well as a major non-denominational temple. On the way to my hotel, Kushagya phoned his mother on his cell and after the briefest of introductions (of which the only word I caught was 'architect') handed the phone to me. Kushagya's mother was delightful and she invited my to their house the next day for Diwali... hooray!

The next day I phoned their home and his mother gave me some directions and a time to come over at 6pm. Jen and I set out in an auto-rickshaw and we had him drop us in what we thought was the right area. After a few wrong turns in the dark, and a few awkward wrong doorbells and some more awkward questions, we started walking down a pitch-black lane towards what was supposed to be a music school. Suddenly headlights of a jeep came careening around a corner and skidded up alongside us... a hand reached out from the passenger side and a boy's voice said "hello doug"! Kushagya and I shook briefly before Jen and I jumped in the back for a quick u-turn (his driver/friend was behind the wheel... he is only 13) and a short ride back in the direction we had been headed to their house.

Kushagya Gupta's extened family lives in a beautiful modern Haveli built by his great grandfather, and where I met his mother, father, one older sister who is studying journalism in Delhi (another is living in California studying law and is married to a nano-technology researcher), a much older brother, a grandmother, an uncle, cousins, nephews, etc. They all shared the house in comfort and closeness. As it happened, an older couple from Vancouver was also present and had found themselves there by similar auspicious means. We spent the rest of the evening nibbling on sweet cakes, sipping tea, discussing modern India, and watching the kids shoot off fireworks, all followed by a lovely dinner.

The main discussion revolved around the increasing rise of the new Indian middle class, and the specific cultural influences making India unique in the developing world. Mr.Gupta, the father, who had clearly grown up in a privaledged house, seemed at a bit of a loss as to how to function for a few simple tasks because almost all of his house staff had gone home to their families for Diwali. This turned out to be rare or impossible in past years because of a lack of money. However, more and more poor Indians are starting to be able to afford things like train or bus tickets and I have certainly met quite a few on the trains.

From what I can discern thus far, the two most powerful forces of Indian culture are an uncompromising devotion to Family, and an equally living breathing devotion to the Hindu dieties as strengthened by direct experience and application in everyday life. The Family is the center of life, and one can not exist without it. The extended family usually lives together in the same house for their entire lives, marriage is almost always determined by families by arrangement and not love, married women go to live with their husbands family, a seperate house seems unheard of. On the plane to Chennai I met a young Indian woman who had just been in Delhi visiting her family for Diwali. She had been working in Chennai for a year and had already put in for a transfer back to Delhi. It wasn't just that she didn't like Chennai (which I completely understand) but that she missed her family and wanted to be with them. Most I've talked to about this find the western experience of leaving the family house a sad and empty existence. They want to be close with their families and can't imagine the alternative. I, of course, can't imagine living as they do on top of each other. What I see as stiffling, they see as comforting. Where I see freedom they seem to find emptiness. Most, of course, aren't any where close to being as comfortable as the Gupta's.