India ……..Much of its survival is amidst apparent chaos and
regional anarchy is perhaps due to the cultural shrug summed up in the Hindi
expression jo hona hai hoga …….a
smiley acceptance of everything, from the deeply sublime to the utterly
ridiculous.
Perhaps I felt a little as Kipling did when he wrote to a
friend in 1883: ‘I am in love with the Country and would sooner write about her
than anything else. Wherefore let us depart our several ways in amity. You to
Fleet Street …..and I to my own place, where I find heat and smells and oils
and spices, and puffs of temple incense, and sweat and darkness, and dirt and
lust and cruelty, and above all, things wonderful and fascinating innumerable.’
………Lhasa Tibetan, a gunfire language from the people of
peace.
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