Some Picks Along The Path

So.

India is interesting. In many ways almost a desperatively endless source of cultural, political, geographical, historical and - well, basically you just name it - information.

So layered, so vast.

Now after some days here feelings and thoughts are going here and there. It's very hard to get a hold even from your own thoughts after seeing and experiencing so much in such a short period of time.

Everything is mixed. The rich and the poor, overwhelming politeness and hospitality and extreme rudeness. In a country with almost one billion inhabitants everything has utmost extremes at both ends.

And almost when you enter the country all this hits you in the face.

Layers go deep even to the smallest details: When travelling by bus, the co-driver goes and buys flowers to put them on the miniature altars in the bus. And because there are both christian and hindu among the staff, of course the flowers are set on both: over the cross and over the figure of Ganesha.

The thing here is that you just have to cope with everything and everybody. You have to find a way to manage with all layers. Even if you happen to be the third richest man walking on the planet Earth, you still have to go together with the poorest of the people. 

There are many things you can appreciate at home. Everything is somehow so solid. Only thing is that quite a big part of this solidity comes out of the fact that we walk in the world eyes half shut, closing our eyes from the uneasy truth that as the world becomes smaller also its different aspects come to affect our everyday life. To cope, to survive in the future we must retain some - maybe quite a big part - of the present solidity to increase the tolerance.

For example environmental issues would require abilities to tolerate and accomplish very big changes in minimum time and to have patience to take small steps and to see their cumulative effects during a long lapse of time.

Thus the slogan of our hosting school has a very deep and profound meaning: Ut prosim. That is "to serve you".

Mixed in the waves of thoughts,

Jarkko