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A Celebration of Independence

Admittedly, it feels a little odd posting about Independence Day, bt I thought I’d give it a try. When I was in the States, July 4th was the holiday I felt most ambivalent about celebrating. After all, I am descended from folks whose first experiences of the New World were of the involuntary kind. On the other hand, there’s nothing like a day basically spent eating, drinking, and then playing with fireworks.

After a year in India, I realized that when I put my mind to the idea of independence, some entirely new perspectives on the subject came to the surface. I realized what I really wanted to celebrate was freedom from “dependencies” I’d always assumed were just part of the American way.

Freedom from advertising. Think about the advertising you’re exposed to over the course of a day: billboards, bus stands, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, and so on. I didn’t realize how much of it I’d been exposed to, until I started living in a place with much, much, less. Oh, there’s advertising signs plastered on the front of general needs stores, or the sides of sheds, but it’s not even close to the experience of driving along, say, 101 for about 30 minutes.

Freedom from “i”-anything. No ipods, No iphones, no i-nothin’. Yes, white earphones are trendy now, in Delhi and Mumbai, but out here the cult of the Tiny Tune Carrier is mercifully absent. Instead, many cell phones include radios and MP3 players.

Freedom from Franchise living. No Denny’s. No Target. The closest Mcdonalds’ is 12 hours away. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that there are times I’ve pulled into a Denny’s for a meal, precisely because no matter which Denny’s I went to, I was guaranteed to get the same thing every time, whether I ordered it in Portland, Oregon, or Roswell, New Mexico. Here, a bus ride can expose me to several different Indian cuisines, including the fiery Punjabi fare.

Freedom from “the office”. I have a home office again, in my bedroom as is my wont. Ironically, because of the pace of rural life, I tend to get up much earlier and start work earlier than I ever did in the Bay Area. Some days I’m up and working by 6 AM, and happy to do so.

Freedom from religious assumptions. If you want to change your religious world view, travel to a place where Christianity is not the dominant religion. In Rewalsar the kora path passes by three Buddhist monasteries, several Hindu temples, and a big Sikh gurudwara. In the morning as I go on kora, I meet neighbors going off to temple, and nod to the Sikh meditator who sits by the lake in the early morning. One time in Delhi, I wandered into the Muslim quarter of “Old Delhi”. As elsewhere, I found myself being stared
at by passersby. I was a bit surprised to realize that many people were staring not just because I was a Western tourist wandering in the hood, but because they could see my face.

Freedom from….er…meat. No, really. I’ve not become vegetarian; I still tuck into the occasional dish of thukpa or momos. Except for sushi, I don’t actually miss it that much. I think back to the number of times a week I had steak, burgers, chicken, or fish back in America, and the amount seems kinda startling now. I’ve just grown accustomed to eating a lot of vegetarian dishes.

Freedom from wanting a lot of material goods. This is way different from needing material goods–I still lust for a dishwasher, and a microwave from time to time. I’m talking about more of the “retail therapy” form of wanting. It’s the difference between needing a new pair of pants, and buying five pairs because the store happened to have a sale that day. Many days I try to think of stuff I would buy tomorrow if money were no object. It’s actually a pretty short list, mostly computer stuff, chocolate, and hair
product for my dreads. Of course, in this “material goods” equation, yarn doesn’t count…

So those are the freedoms that are on my mind today. What kinds are y’all celebrating?

July 4th, 2007 Posted by admin | General, India | 2 comments