Monthly Archives: November 2013

How in the world do you describe India to a Westerner?

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Courage to Tremble's avatarCourage to tremble

How do I explain what India is like to a Western person? Often people who visit the country for a short period come back with negative descriptions. “But that is not India,” I want to tell them, and yet their descriptions are not wrong either. They come back loving the Taj and loving the hospitality of friends and yet horrified by the poverty and filth. But for us who grew up in that great land, India is so much more, which is so difficult to put into words.

I chanced upon a blog by Eric Rowell, a young man who wanted to find out more about India and actually lived in India for two years and wrote about it. In a post called ‘Answering a Hard Question – “How was India?”’, he writes:

The hardest part of this for me might be that nothing happens linearly. I want to…

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Because happiness requires struggle

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I’ve posted before about love, some favourites being here and here. Or just check the tag for all those posts.

I read this article recently which talks about the most important question you need to ask yourself actually. Isn’t happiness the ultimate goal in many forms of us humans? And how can there be any happiness without love?

Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship — but not everyone is willing to go through the tough communication, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder “What if?” for years and years and until the question morphs from “What if?” into “What for?” And when the lawyers go home and the alimony check is in the mail they say, “What was it all for?” If not for their lowered standards and expectations for themselves 20 years prior, then what for?

Because happiness requires struggle. You can only avoid pain for so long before it comes roaring back to life.