blogzsunder.26

subject: India without make up [in continuation from previous page].Whatever races came to India –they were attracted to her like moths to a flame –had one peculiarity: they refused to be integrated. Despite the terrific pressure of the anonymous multitudes around them, they remained undigested chunks.
Hence the Indian paradox: one Indian reacts, like a Scythian, another like a Sumerian, a third like a Greek, a fourth like an Arab, and so the complicated tale continues.
But let us not run away with the impression that our Indian Sumerian is a pure Sumerian. Only the dominant layer in him is that; his other layers are in constant conflict with the Sumerian.
Fantastic, it will be said. Not quite. Take, for example, the most noted Indian of his day- I mean Nehru. His fundamental reaction to life, and thought-patterns was Western, particularly British, yet he was no more an Englishman than I am the Kahn of Tartary. He was a complex personality, and affords the best example of my contention. Nehru could identify himself closely with almost every type of Indian; he felt with the Naga; with the Brahmin like a Brahmin; with the Muslim like a Muslim; with the untouchable like an untouchable; yet at heart he was none of these. What he was, I am sure, he himself did not know. He had deep urges and large dreams- that`s all. Here was our typically complex and contradictory Indian. India.
There is no doubt that our various racial strains have made us what we are at present-a people with no distinctive soul, but with only a many-coloured psyche. But to say this is not say all.
Our soil, climate and vegetation have played their part in moulding us. As there is a lot of nonsense talked on this subject, let me linger over a little.
Every country affects its dwellers in a particular way. A psychologist bas observed that a monkey sent to Germany for scientific observation begins to brood and behave like a Teuton, while the same money dispatched to the United States reacts like a restless American, always on the go.
A foreigner in England gradually and imperceptibly acquires British phlegm-that is, he becomes sedate,; the same person, if he had lived in France, would have turned light-hearted; and if he had been transplanted to the States he would get to be as agitated as a Yank.
Now whatever might happen to our mythical foreigner in different lands, the changes in him would be mostly in behavior. His core would remain what it was-Nordic or Stavonic, as the case might be.
The point I am trying to make is that whoever comes and lives in India undergoes a subtle change of psyche. His value alter. The boundaries of good and evil, so clear before, now begin to melt and move. He floats in a void.
Sunder Thadani – Your views, and comments are most welcome. Best wishes.