Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jayehe Bharata bhagya vidhata…

The title to this week’s blontry is the first stanza of the Indian national anthem. I picked that as the title this week because Friday was Indian Independence Day and so it seemed appropriate to talk about. Actually I kinda have the national anthem running through my head these days. I have heard it sung three or four times since Thursday and it had stuck with me.

There is controversy about the origins of the anthem. Some say it was written in honor of King George, who was making a visit to India. Many people believe that is the ruler mentioned in the lyrics. However the man who wrote the original poem from which the lyrics are adapted clearly has stated they weren’t written about “…George V, George VI, or any other George.” Who the ruler actually refers to is open to interpretation. Since the vast majority of Indian citizens are Hindu, most of the population probably assume it means Shiva, Vishnu, Shakti, or whichever god their family particularly worships; Muslim’s of course would identify with Allah; and so forth: each person identifying the ruler in light of his or her own religious perspective. I guess for those who have no religion, the ruler could even be King George or some other mortal leader. In that sense it is the perfect song for India and its multi-culturalism.

Here is an English translation of the lyrics:

Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people,
Dispenser of India's destiny.
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindhu, Gujarat and Maratha,
Of the Dravida, Utkala and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
mingles in the music of Yamuna and Ganga and is
chanted by the waves of the Indian Ocean.
They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise.
The saving of all people waits in thy hand,
Thou dispenser of India's destiny.
Victory, victory, victory to thee.

It’s actually kind of cool, I think, that the national anthem was written in a version of Sanskrit such that it can be sung without change in nearly all if not all the official languages (other than English) throughout India. It would sound a little different depending on how those Sanskrit characters were pronounced, but still it can be sung. This might seem like a small thing in the US when there is only the official language of English. But in a country where there are more than 20 official languages and fair amount of chauvinism about the “rightness” of their local language, to have everyone sing in his or her own language is a big deal.

For those who would like to hear the anthem sung, here is a video of it being sung at a meeting at our Church on Friday.

As you might expect, saffron, white, and green is as ubiquitous here around Independence Day as red, white, and blue are in the US for the 4th of July. People often wear those colors, particularly on the 15th. Stores decorate with those colors as well. Below are a couple of pictures from a mall we frequent that show the use of the Indian Tri-color in decorations.

Well, that’s it for me. Here’s Rae.

Just a quick note about the activity at the church on Friday.  Because it was Independence Day and most people had the day off, the district decided to have a missionary activity. Even district wide they were projecting an attendance of around 50 people.  When Phil and I arrived just a couple of minutes late (we’re becoming Indian) most of the chapel was already full.  As in true Indian style as the meeting progressed more people filtered in and more chairs had to be brought in.  There ended up being 246 people attend the activity.  It was inspiring to me to see that many people come and be so excited about sharing the gospel.  The church is growing here in India. 

Another note about the anthem that they sang at the close of the activity.  I will give the people here credit for being enthusiastic singers, but usually their enthusiasm is expressed in their own individual key rather than one unified key. Don’t know if the recording really captures this, but it really was beautiful and shockingly in the same key.  I loved hearing it and was moved as I listened to them sing. 

As seems to be my contribution lately, I will share a few random thoughts and pictures.  I’ve talked before about how amazed I am at the size of loads that are carried on the backs of bicycles.  Here are a couple of pictures that will help illustrate. 

These two shots are of a bicycle moving at least a dozen boxes.  I don’t know what was in them or how heavy each box was, but it was an impressive load.  It is taken from the car as we are passing, so not the greatest photos but you should be used to that by now. 

I think I’ve mentioned in the past that I’ve never seen trash trucks, at least not like we have back home.  Our trash goes out each day to the guard house and someone travels our neighbourhood, on a bicycle and collects it into a much larger bag.  These bags are later gone through and the trash that has value is removed and sold by the collector.  This is how they make their living.  We don’t pay anything for trash pick-up. These two pictures show a guy hauling a bag that looks like those I’ve mentioned above.  I’m not sure if his is full of garbage but that is what they look like.  It is not uncommon to see someone with two, three or even 4 of these bags loaded behind them. 

My third picture/thought is of a barber set up.  Sometimes our driver brings us into our neighbourhood a back way.  This is a neighborhood street and like most neighborhood streets is very narrow and requires some close maneuvering.  During the day there are always two men/barbers set up next to the wall.  When it is dark there is no sign of them.  Their set up consists of a very small table, a mirror, either propped up or hung on the wall, a chair and their tools.  There is no sign of electricity.  This like most of my shots are taken from a moving car so not the best.  (Further down that same street, along that same wall, there are usually two or three guys sorting through some of those bags of garbage I mentioned earlier.  I’ll try to get a poor quality picture of them some time.)

Yesterday I had to be back at the Vasant Vihar building again for a district training that we were doing for some new YW leaders.  It is not unusual to see cows in that neighbourhood.  There is a park close to the church building and in one corner of the park is a small Dump.  The cows go to the dump to sort through for food.  Within a half block of leaving the building we saw 5 or 6 cows, probably headed to the park.  Here is a picture of one of those guys.  They are not intimidated at all by the traffic and just calmly make their way along. Guess they know no one would dare hit them. 

One last thing to share.  This is not a happy note so not a good way to end, but wanted to mention it.   We have a guard that has been our main guard.  He is here almost every day, even most weekends.  He stays in a room at the back of the property.  There is usually a different guard for nights, some weekends and the times when our guard has gone home to be with his family.  Last Wednesday he was at the gate in the morning, but I guess not feeling well so he went home and a substitute guard came.  We heard Thursday afternoon that he had passed away from a heart attack.  I don’t know how old he was but probably no older than us.  So sad to think that his life was spent standing at someone’s gate and away from his family most of the time.  Life here is hard for so many. 

Sorry about ending on a sad note, but I feel her deserves at least a mention. 

    

 

Namaste.