Day 3 (12/02/12) - Delhi

Gandhi Smitri and Ghandi, Lunch at a private home, and the Lotus Temple

We started by going to the Gandhi Smitri.  This is the house in which Ghandi lived the last days of his life.  Like nearly (every?) other house in which Gandhi lived, he did not own this house but it belonged to a friend or associate or support who wanted him to have a place to live.  This was the case with this house which was owned by a fairly wealthy person.  In the post independence days, Gandhi dispaired over partition and especially the violence that occurred during that period.  For this reason, Hindu extreamists believed he wasn't "Hindu enough" and one assassinated him.  (Of course, is assassination ever a rational act?)  On the day of his assassination, Gandhi walked from his study to the place where a prayer meeting was to be held, all within the grounds of the house.  The path is marked with a steps represented by wooden sandals (like Gandhi wore) and is surprisingly moving.

There was a professor from the University of Delhi who spoke with us about Gandhi at the Smitri.  And this raised some questions.  Our revered leaders are all viewed with at least some skepticism ... or at least as not deities.  This is not so true with Gandhi.  Most material on him, including the material at the Smitri and the talk by the professor, is uncritical.  It is clear that India generally reveres him to a degree greater than we're used to.  He is the only person on the currency and is on every bill.  This issue was highlighted when someone asked the professor why Gandhi was so opposed to partition and whether this made sense.  He basically didn't have an answer.  I can think of several off hand including that he was concerned because partiition inevitably would lead to violence.  But we didn't hear any such thing -- simply that Gandhi was opposed.  It seems strange that if Gandhi is always right, then why did nearly all India support partition?  

I think the failure to raise questions about Gandhi comes from the fact that few Indians are willing to be critical of Gandhi.  Whether this is true because (1) Gandhi was differenct from the revered leaders in our country and really deserves his near-diety saatus; (2) There is something in Indian culture that results in Gandhi being treated differently; or (3) it's only been a little over 60 years since Gandhi died -- we have longer experience and thus more distance from our leaders.  I don't claim to have an answer here -- just questions.

Lunch today was at a private home -- the group was divided into thirds and sent to three different families.   The family we went to was a definite upper middle class family with both children married with children and long out of the house.  

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 The two photos at opposite ends of the couch in the last picture are the two daughters -- both married with children and in professional jobs.  The woman does the cooking -- at least that part that she believes needs her.  Like many Inidan families of middle class or higher (socio-economic, not caste), they have servants -- in their case about 4.  THese people live at the house.  India has a large unemployment problem and having servants is considered a means of helping with that ... as well as making your life easier.  The issue of relationships with the servants is discussed in many of the books for expats and was mentioned at least in passing by both this family and Amy and Indu.  The woman is a complete "from scratch" cook.  She uses nearly always fresh spices, either fresh picked from her garden or freshly ground and usually dry fried before grinding.  The meal was typical of what we have been having here -- dal, basmati rice, 2-3 other dishes - one vegetarian, one chicken, and one lamb - and papadam and nan.  It was all very flavorful but spiced for the American palate.  There house is in an area typical for upper middle class families in Delhi -- The house is behind a security gate which guards the an entire groups of home -- and there is even an homeowners association that handles such things as dividing costs and determining what services such as security exist.  Our family's home is the first floor of a 3-story buidling and others own the other two floors.  So the notion of condominimum sytle of ownership is alive and well in India.  It was nice to get a glimpse into this type of living as much of what you see as a tourist is either the poor or tourist sides and to be able to see a bit of other people is nice.  

After lunch we visited the Lotus Temple.  This is the Bahai temple and one of 6 Bahai temples in the world.  The Bahai religion should be of interest to the AOCers on this email because Bill Davis, the first of the two Bills in Ralph-Ralph-Bill-Bill is an active Bahai.  In fact, Bill was first with the AOC in the 70s and then left to eventually head up the Bahai administration (in Israel).  He then left and became 9th Circuit Administrator before returning to the AOC.  The Bahais are apparnetly a small but rather prosperous relgion.  While we were given a pamphlet on them, I won't bother to repeat it here as anyone who really cares can look it up in Wikipedia.  The largest Bahai community in the world is in India -- some 200,000 which makes it a very small proportion of the 1.2 billion population of India. The Lotus Temple gets its name from its design and shape.  

There is some aspect of the Bahai faith to which the number 9 is important.  The temple was jammed with people.  There was a long line to get in and it took us about 30 minutes to work our way there.  Nearly everyone who was there was there to experience the building both inside and out and not there because they were Bahais.  We did likewise.