To my friends from India and :
My best college roommate was from Bombay (today's Mumbai). He is Sudhir. I hold very fond memories of our experience living together in a tiny one-room off-campus ecumenical center geared towards lonely international students.
In those days as a starving student in America's Midwest, plodding along trying to adjust to American college campus life, Suddhir was my soul mate, and through him, I not only learned how to enjoy curry, make keema, but also learned from this great soul and decent human being from Bombay.
Sudhir was older than me, with an enormous background working the maritime world as a seaman before returning to school for his engineering degree. He smoked a pipe and was one of the most spiritually secure man and the most generous man I have ever met in my entire life.
Through Sudhir, I was exposed to a new window into the richness of one of the world's oldest and greatest civilization. Despite all of its sectarian tensions in that vast subcontinent, there was a lot of goodness in Indian culture. I learned about India in a humane way where very few foreigners will ever be exposed to. I connected with Sudhir's circles of Indian foreign students in campus. And I was enriched because of him and our friends from India.
Through my Indian friends, I learned about the richness of religions, i.e. Hindusim, Islam, Buddhism,Sikhism, and yes Christianity, all forces at play at the cradle of civilization in the Indian subcontinent. Through their experiences, I also learned as well the downside or religion when mixed in with politics, power, bigtry, fanaticism, turning into sectarianism.
Apart from lessons about life, he also taught me how to drive for the first experience in basic fundamental lessons of trying to place my foot on the pedal.
I almost ruined his 2nd-hand Mercury automobile, Sudhir's most priced wordly possession. Yet as a friend, Suddhir was so generous and giving that he soothed my anxiety by calming my nerves and patiently giving me hands-on"one on one" lessons, from the most basic steps of learning how to maneuver his Mercury sedan, to parallel parking.
Thanks to Sudhir, I picked up my freedom on wheels by passing my first Michigan state driver's license, gloriously.
And subsequently, I toot-tooted around in my brand-new Volkswagon, thanks to my holding two jobs on and off-campus doing TGIF's post-parties Saturday morning clean-ups at raucuous fraternity houses cleaning up after the boys and their beer and soggy pizzas. and working as a school janitor at the School of Business. I had fond memories of Suddhir and I missed him after he left school and settled somewhere in New Orleans. We lost contact as was usual with American living where the work treadmill spells erosion of friendships.
Now the Olympics torch is heading soon to India, China's neighbor, I thought fondly of Sudhir, who was my crutch through those lonely, isolated, excruciating difficult years trying to adapt to America.
I know India and Indians are a decent, respectful people. Notwithstanding the ups and downs and the tribulations between China and India, over a host of issues, the tensions over its undefinable borders at one time, and the flare-ups occasionally between two cultures, both of which are historically rich with long-lasting poignant narratives, with sufferings, sectarianism, religious tensions, caste and class divides, I know India, like China are two emerging and resurgent civilizational thrust which is on the road towards taking its rightful role in the world stage in todays' 21st century.
Here in California's Silicon Valley, the oft-repeated joke about our "IC" industry, is that the two alphabets are the acronyms for Indian and Chinese tech workers.
No joke. The truth is that many of my Indian friends, empowered with the vast smart brain power from their society, together with the brain power contributed by Chinese brainy students since hired to be Silicon Valley tech workers, these two narratives are the lynch-pins for much of the success of America's high-tech industry. Without our "ICs," the success would not have progressed as rapidly as it has today. Thanks to our ICs.
I am personally very moved by the new CHINDIA. China and India combined. As two civilizations with so much to contribute and potential to link humanity in all facets of life, economic, cultural, spiritual, the arts and otherwise, I know in the spirit of the World Olympics, the people of India, and New Delhi, where the Olympics torch will take a stop, will be treated in a dignified and respectful manner.
To my friends in India. Don't be like the WEST. Show the world that CHINDIA will not be swayed by stridency, incivility, and bigotry.
And consider the following piece from a fellow Indian expat now settled in Iowa who shares a common bond with us ethnic Chinese in the Diaspora, as Diasporic Indians overseas share their bond with the homeland and the home culure. This piece is from a blogger who is one of the rational and observant voice in America, free from the din of dumb, crass, ignorant narrative drowning out the voices of reason in the West, especially the U.S.
The URL hyperlink is:
http://chicodowning.blogster.com/passing-the-torch-from-india-to-iowa-001
And unlike some of the boorish and uncivil and hectoring American protesters railing for the cause of TIBET-SHANGRI-LA, the people of New Delhi will know how to do the right thing, calmly and with respect to sooth the stridency and tensions.
India has been through its own sectarian violence. And its people know that politics and religion, when mixed with a vision for a theocracy, can indeed be an explosive powder keg.
New Delhi. Don't be London. Paris. or San Francisco.
http://chicodowning.blogster.com/passing-the-torch-from-india-to-iowa-001
