Holy Cow! (Part 1)

Wow! It's been a long time since our last posting...

• a sudden unexpected need to change flats,
• a surge of requests for Creativity Workshops,
• preparations for our first trip back to the U.S., and
• the 2 1/2 month U.S. trip concluded with a 10-day stay in S. Korea for a conference,

have led to this major interruption of postings.

But we're back!

We arrived in Delhi very early on the morning of July 29th. It's good to be back, but we're reminded of how different life can be living cross-culturally. For example...

[the text below (and in coming Holy Cow! postings) excerpted from Tarun Chopra, Holy Cow, Prakash Books 2008]

...for a visitor, driving on Indian roads is a hair-raising experience, with motorized vehicles, animal-drawn wagons and human-powered handcarts competing with each other to get from Point A to Point B.
The former U.S. ambassador to India, Daniel Moynihan, called it "functional anarchy". In fact, he couldn't have been more accurate. If in the States people stick to the right lane and in Britain people keep to the left, in India they seem to drive everywhere. And pedestrians be damned. Of course, street-smart as they are brought up to be, pedestrians in India too, contribute their mite to make the chaos worse confounded. For example, given the unruly nature of the traffic, people never look for a zebra crossing (even if there is one it is to decorate the street). And, if visitors were to think that motorists would stop for them merely because they're crossing the road on a zebra crossing, they're in for a nasty surprise - in India, traffic stops for no one. Not even on a zebra crossing. It's a jungle out there, even without the zebras.

So, the golden rule while crossing Indian roads is to first look right, then left and then run for dear life across the street, before someone or something knocks you over. It's like being a player in a computer game. The only difference is that this is not virtual reality but the real thing. No wonder Indians seem to have such a profound belief in reincarnation, or life after death.

Bang in the middle of this mad-house, strolls a serene creature oblivious to the bedlam around it. This is the Holy Cow. (And as holy things go in India, women and cows are venerated in equal measure).

[today's excerpts pp. 8-9]
--- coming soon: Holy Cow! postings #'s 2-5 ---