Our days were full of paradox and mystery. One does not return from perhaps the most spiritual and sensuous place on earth having “made sense of India.” In sifting and percolating my impressions, I am reminded of a continuing theme in one of the books we read, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s […]
Old Delhi is the India I feared, although I know there are far worse slums in the world. It is the India described in “Midnight’s Children” when the affluent and sheltered Amina Sinai is lured at night to a fortune teller at the […]
So many impressions swirling about and little time to collect and transmit them. We are now heading into day two and it feels like we’ve been here a very long time. I can say, for all of us, that so far any trepidations have been unfounded. We are uniformly […]
We have read so much and many of us have watched lots of films and talked to both South Asians and those well-traveled there. I watched A Passage to India the other night and was overcome with embarrassment at the arrogant excesses of the British Raj. In more current books, the picture […]
A quick note before a bunch of us take off for India. Lots of preparation – reading, movies, visa, shots, packing, repacking. But how does one prepare emotionally for India? I don’t know. I am going, I hope, with an open heart and mind and no expectations of making sense of […]
A true confession: When I am intent on something, I can be more dogged than any canine wth a bone. One of the books we will be discussing in India this coming February/March (Confounded & Bewitched: The Strange Rise of Modern India) is a personal favouite, Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. I learned the extraordinary Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta recently […]