What did I learn from India?... A letter from Mumbai

We are in our hotel room in the Sea Green Hotel in Mumbai, the ocean visible across the street, packing and reflecting this last afternoon before an evening trip to airport.  It is a good time for me to think about and share what I learned from India. 

Insight #1: India, like China, is an ancient civilization with grand accomplishments which parallel and sometimes exceed those of European civilization over the past 3000 years.  While India may be in some ways a developing country now, climbing out of a 200 year colonization by the British, there is much we can learn from its “other” experience of philosophy, spirituality, daily practice, aruvedic medicine, agriculture, art and music making, and much more.  Eastern Civilization (mostly India and China) should be studied along with Western Civilization and given equal weight, especially considering the rising importance of Asia in the world today.  Latin American and African history should also be learned.  These things are shockingly ignored in the American educational standards, and we need to make time for them at Peregrine School. 

Insight #2: India and China are the big population centers of post-colonial development and rapid advancement in the world today.  They have similarities and shocking differences.  India is producing countless young people who are as well educated as U. S. students, and more eager to compete in the world market both in the USA and in India.  India is also producing (and using) oil, has become a major computer center rivaling the Silicone Valley in California, and is a media magnate producing more films in Bollywood for Asian consumption than Hollywood produces each year.  Understanding India is understanding our world.  Understanding the good and bad in how India and China are developing sheds light on questions of democracy, capitalism vs. socialism, and more in the world today.

Insight #3: Questions of human rights, fairness, and just plain decency arise for almost anyone visiting India.  Rapid capitalist development is enabling countless young people in India to have opportunities they never had before, and is resulting in rapid building and life improvements.  On the other hand, Mumbai - the richest and poorest place in India - is but one example of the costs of “survival of the fittest” capitalism.  While a rising upper middle and rich class wear designer clothes, go to movies, and sip cappuccinos, 37,000 children live on the streets of Mumbai with no means of support.  Everyone in India is on the take, at all levels of society, making contact with people both compelling and exhausting.  Every student wants a reference to come to the USA, every taxi driver wants to take you to see his cousin’s rug shop, and every child, dog, and monkey on the street is hungry.  For those at the bottom of the food chain, the current system offers no opportunity other than to grapple for the crumbs of those who are eating at the table.  A repeated set of signs has been stenciled in front of the beautiful if ostentatious Prince of Wales Museum.  The signs read: “What’s a few more bodies under the foundation, if India can become great?”

Insight #4: Anyone who doubts the toll caused by the rapid increase in the use of fossil fuels for autos and trucks, building, agriculture, and industry should come to India and/or China and see how our “model” of giving every family a car and seeing what will happen is affecting the environment.  The pollution levels in all of India and China’s major cities exceed Los Angeles before lead was omitted from American gasoline.  They are intolerable.  And this is before we consider global warming.  Garbage is another issue, as everyone gets coca cola and plastic water bottles - things they did not have in these numbers until recently - and then drops them on the ground and ultimately in the rivers and oceans.  No bodies of water we have seen in India are swimmable for Indian people.  It is sad to be in Mumbai, a beautiful city made of islands surrounded by bays and oceans, and see that it is forbidden to swim at the beaches due to pollution.  Since the USA is the major model of a “good” lifestyle dependent on fossil fuels, and of consumer use of products which become waste, it seems that we have a lot of work to do in providing a different model to the world.  We can’t expect others not to want the things that we consider essential. 

Insight #5:  India is a personal story for everyone.  I have never seen a place so vital, so multi-faceted, so beautiful and so challenging.  The human story is here in all its many forms.  Anyone who loves art wants to bring it all home in the form of purchases.  Anyone who loves food wants to eat all the spices.  But India’s earthy materialism is linked inextricably to spirit.  A multitude of important religions - Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and many other forms of worship - either originated here or have a history here which goes back thousands of years.  People meditate and do yoga on the crowded seawall where I join others in walking each morning.  India makes one mindful of oneself, of one’s body, and of the process of becoming mindful.  It creates personal challenges which it might take a lifetime to consider.

Being who I am, I relate much of what I do and see back to Peregrine School.  I felt bad to leave our school during the school year - something I have never done before.  But so many rich things will be possible because of this trip.  At the elementary school, the week after the winter break, we will do a unit on “fiber” which will draw heavily on India.  I have collected multiple kinds of silks and cottons which illustrate various processes, such as batik and tie dye, which we can do.  I have also collected block printing tools and natural dyes to use.  I have been saving photos of key topics, such as elephants and cows, which can become inspiration for daily life and for art with all kids, even those in Escuelita.  I believe that a 21^st century education involves knowing the world as much as possible, and that India is an important addition to any world curriculum.  I can’t wait to share with you and most especially, with the children, in person!