Amazing Indians

What is it about India that creates some amazing and inspiring to the point of tears social entrepreneurs? I think from the novels I have read, the news I have heard, and my own meagre travels (just 5 weeks) that it is either in the water (the Ganges is Mother) or it's the incredible inequality of Indian society. Or both, and more. Here are two, to name only a few.

Menstrual Man: this amazing man, humble and uneducated, was driven to empower poor women in rural India by inventing a machine that could make sanitary pads at a cheap cost that they could afford, and give them meaningful jobs that helped their communities at the same time. Read the full story - The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary (BBC).

Amlan Ganguly: creator of 'the revolutionary optimists'. He empowers slum children in Calcutta to change not only their own lives but those of the people around them - slum dwellers with no hope of a future. He started off as a lawyer but it was not his true calling. The children call him dada in this naturalistic and heart catching film about his work. View the film trailer and find out more.

There are more of course, and the greats like Mother Theresa and Ghandhi, but that is enough heroes for now!

A fine balance

I have read another book about India - A fine balance by Rohinton Mistry. It created a mix of emotions in me. On one level it was sad as the characters in the book, who you get to like, don't fare well. But interestingly, they deal with their misfortunes, largely hugely unjust (they are at the mercy of corrupt forces) with fortitude. In fact, as the final injustice is done, the youngest character resigns himself to his fate stoically and with dignity, and you wonder where he gets it from. Perhaps it is in the Indian psyche, because it is a foreign concept to someone whose life as a westerner has been relatively cruisy. Indeed anyone living in Australia would never experience what happens to these people. And the poverty! Bu they shine through. One of the characters, the most fortunate, does not 'survive' mentally and emotionally the ordeal that seems to be life. His life is the easiest of the four characters as his family is not poor - he has money and a good job (in the end) and he is young and goodlooking. But it does not save his mind and body. The message in this book? It is probably about attitude more than anything else, how you deal with fate. To understand what it means to be Indian is starting to intrigue me!

Q&A or Slumdog Millionaire

I have just finished the book Slumdog Millionaire (originally Q&A). It was brilliant to use another two 'ls'. The film is a lot different, seeming to retain just the concept. This makes the book all the more enjoyable as there is no need to compare it to the film. The last line of the book is guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye - Because luck comes from within. Really though, Ram Mohammed Thomas is a character you have to like, because of his compassion for other humans. He chooses to help people rather than not, and connects with people in ways that affect his 'luck'. Because he is a communicator, he meets people who craft his ability to know the answers to quiz questions in the TV quiz show that is the backdrop to his life. Others would call it serendipity.

This is the third book I have read about India lately. The others being The White Tiger and Shantaram. The main character in The White Tiger is not likeable (rather, cunning and driven by circumstances), but a lot about India (particularly corruption, also a theme in Q&A) is portrayed in this novel. Whilst reminders of what India is are in Shantaram too, the main character is not (for me) charismatic, but has more of a gangster mentality. However, as with Ram in Q&A, he too connects with people. This can change the nature of your life. Being cut off makes less things possible. One thing that emerges from all three novels is that India is a place where things can happen by chance. In a country of so many millions living in close quarters with each other, unpredictability would have to be a key aspect of life.

Tiger sighting

Since going to India in June-July 2009, I have a new respect for William Blake. I saw a tiger (more than one) in a natural environment whilst there, and at first viewing, quite close from an open jeep, tears unpredictably rolled down my cheeks. The best kind of crying.

I don't really know why I had this reaction, but guess it was the power of the beast or perhaps its beauty. Some things are best left unanalysed. So here is the poem. I don't know if William Blake had actually seen a tiger, but regardless, he recognised a higher being played out in its beauty that may be what I reacted to:

The Tyger (from Songs of Experience)
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

1794