Visiting India (13.7.15)

“Visiting India is for those who persevere.

Visiting India is for those who overcome the hurdles on the way.

Visiting India is for those who love the land,

                                          who love the people of the multitudes,

                                          who love the children growing up.

Visiting India is not relinquished until it is the will of God;

                       is not relinquished while in the time of harvest,

                                                      while in the time of planting,

                                                      while in the time of the latter rains;

                       is not relinquished until the labourers are no longer needed.

Visiting India is a blessing to all who choose to participate,

                                            to all who share the burdens of the land,

                                            to all who would uphold the call of righteousness to vanquish corruption and hardship from the time of trial.

Visiting India opens eyes to sights,

                       opens ears to sounds,

                       opens the body to feel to touch to speak.

Visiting India opens doors to joy and celebration,

                                           to learning and achievement,

                                           to pain and grief galore.

Visiting India is not for the hard of heart,

                       is not for the faint-hearted,

                       is not for the cynical,

                       is not for the blind the deaf the dumb.

Visiting India serves best the soft of heart who understand what the senses are revealing,

                                                         who have the wisdom and the knowledge to interact without offence,

                                              who would do no evil either in the sunlight or in the moonlight where witnesses both watch and wait.

Visiting India speaks of people returning home from visiting abroad,

                                   of people who come and go with the quests of life,

                                   of people in the cities who only rest for a few hours in the morn,

                                   of people in the countryside who labour all day long.

Visiting India is filled with greetings and farewells,

                                    with surprises round a corner,

                                    with colours scents and smells,

                                    with shopping in emporiums fed with goods presented in the varieties as sought by man.

Visiting India is not a jumble sale of mix and match,

                       is a testimony of development and skill,

                       has a layout with abilities,

                       has services with the hosts,

                       has education highly prized and sought after,

                       has languages aplenty,

                       has the dress and garb to keep the eyes in a turmoil of assessment,

                                                                                      in a turmoil of appreciation,

                                                                                      in a turmoil of amazement at the cleanliness maintained.

Visiting India is not a once-off in a lifetime,

                       has cultures alive and well separated both by tongue and distance,

                       has the works and crafts of man commanding his attention,

                       has the presence of the mighty and the lowly both in their palaces of grandeur and at home within the slums.

Visiting India can be a march into the past,

                                  a walk within the present,

                                  a race into the future.

Visiting India can be a gambol on a beach,

                                   an expedition in a city,

                                   a bumping on a road,

                                   a searching through a sanctuary for wildlife on the wing,

                                   an industry where manufacturing is at the whim of need,

                                   a photograph taken for later placement as an aid to memory –

                                                                                                                with a resting place of honour.

Visiting India can be a source of questions,

                       can be a source of answers.

Visiting India can be both a source of knowledge and of wisdom.

Visiting India can both tarnish and enhance the reputations and the characters of man.

Visiting India can be but a playground or acknowledged as a learning institution.

Visiting India is valuable in the experience of life,

                       is valuable in all that this land imparts,

                       is valuable within the growth and cycles of its history,

                                         within the growth and cycles of its future –

                                                                                                as it waits to be recorded.”