Not really thought. I was going to type out what I remembered of my post, but thought instead that I would share my initial observations and reflections on a book that I started reading recently. It’s Arundhati Roy’s “Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy.” It is a compilation of essays written in the 2000s on various topics related to democracy and social justice in India. The first one for instance, deals with the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002, and other essays deal with the political situation in Kashmir and the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai.

I promise you that this isn’t an academic dissection of every idea and theory in the book, but what I find interesting about it is the fact that it shows how India is a fragmented society, and how even though Bollywood and Indian politicians may suggest otherwise, the intact image of Incredible India! is sometimes merely an image. While this may be like stating the obvious, it is an issue that is being discussed more frequently now, with India’s declining economic performance, accusations levelled at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of being an “Underachiever,” and a revival of the dialogue surrounding the government’s policy towards dissent groups, especially militant ones, such as the Maoists and Naxalites. 

India is an extremely vast country with many definitions of what it means to be Indian. Increasingly, many political movements are equating the country with right-wing Hinduism, and there are yet others working to ensure that the diversity in the country can be maintained without a descent into even more violence. Approaching this diversity from a personal level, I am constantly reminded of how even location can vastly change someone’s perception of India. Merely comparing my experience at Aravind to last summer where I worked in a village in Gujarat studying affirmative action, I am able to understand this reality. North Indians who come to Aravind on various short-term projects have trouble eating the food here, and two of them lamented to me one evening about how much they missed the food in Bihar. This diversity is made even more evident by reading all the CASI interns’ blog posts. A few weeks ago, I was talking to Becky from the comfort of my Air-Conditioned room, after I had consumed a “vegan latte” at CCD (Cafe Coffee Day) where they played all the contemporary American hits. Interestingly enough, it was only in Madurai, specifically at CCD, that I heard Call me Maybe for the first time, having happily missed all the new American popculture hits during study abroad. Becky was talking to me from outside her hostel so she could get better signal, and every few minutes she would say, “I think I see a wild animal. What is that?” We talked about how, despite both of us being in India, we would come out of the summer with unique perspectives based on our different locations, job duties and organizations.