India and Water - my email to California in London

His project has to do with India and water - he wanted to know my thoughts, so I e-mailed him this:

Truthfully California, I do not know where or how you want your project to go – I’m afraid that I might have a very clouded perception of what is the Ganges and what others might see. However, keeping that in mind along with my idealistic views here is what I see:

Before I can even begin speaking of spirituality and Hinduism, I will have to bow to science and logic: The Ganges is dirty. I don’t allow myself to think of how incredibly dirty that river truly is, I’m scared that if I do – I will ruin it. I’m scared that by counting the pieces of trash and pollution in the river, I’ll be turning my back on India. As much of a foreigner and American that I am – even though I deny it – the fact is that I will never know what it feels like to have been born in the Ganges, to drink from the Ganges, to bathe in the Ganges, and to die in the Ganges.

It is a life source.

The way I try to see it is as if I was an Indian born on the banks of the Ganges. I would know no other wonder in the world, especially if everyone around me told me how holy and lucky it was for me to be born in the waters of Ganga. I would be enlightened and allow the spirituality of the river’s symbol and significance become my everyday. Even if I was a brick worker or a rickshaw driver – the one thing that would get me through my day is my beliefs – and my spirituality – the Ganges.

It is easy for scientists and foreigners to question how on Earth human beings allow the water of the Ganges to touch their lips – however, the rest of the world is hung up on sanitation wipes and numbers, India is at least in touch with their hearts. The Ganges is a symbol of birth, life, and death. It is the cycle of life manifested in a river – how much more extravagant can spiritually possiby be?

After spending my summer in India, I learned some things about Indians that I never knew could exist in human beings. As wound up and obsessed they are with their beliefs - they believe with and for love. They have crazy hang-ups and superstitions that drove me insane – yet at the same time, these hang ups and superstitions always came with a moral. The problem with people such as me, and the rest of the world is we are so far disconnected with our roots that we forget life can be as simple as it is in India (a story with a moral). When you think of it - people are born, drink, live, and die in a river – what sounds so wrong or inhumane with that statement?

The rest of the world is just prude. Indians have the heart and mind and the simplicity in their life to wash themselves in water. A water that carries all of India. They don’t care if it’s dirty – for they don’t even know what clean is. Or, might I say, we don’t know what clean is.

Before you start this project California, seriously think about redefining yourself and meanings. I’m not saying that you should fly to India and bathe in the Ganges this very second – I’m saying that maybe you should think about what being dirty means to you. About what being clean means to you. About what spirituality means to you. About what poverty means to you. About what water means to you.
You have always had clear water to drink that has come out of a faucet into a glass. – No One who drinks from the Ganges even knows what that feels like.

In America – you will first use water to wash your hands and then drink it.
In India – you will drink the water first, because there is never enough water to quench your thirst.

There are so many times I wish I was born in India. (This is the idealistic part of me talking right now.) But seriously, sometimes I wish I knew what it fucking felt like to have one pair of clothes, to have one belief, to know nothing other than what and where I was born. To wholly live within the moment. We are all so educated and so aware that it has in turn hurt us instead of helping us. I’m not a pessimist – I just can’t stand when education breeds sanitation. Do not go into this project tying to make the Ganges “cleaner,” or “better,” or more “sanitary friendly,”– don’t try to do what you think “helps” the Indians - because if there is ever an attack on Earth – we’re the ones who are fucked – because we drink clear filtered water.

Foreigners think that they can “help” India – but, India does not need help. It is the one nation that is truly taking its time to develop. Everyone else in the world is so ahead of themselves that they will be dead and not even know how they died – where as in India everyone will be praying and bathing in each other’s death. That is what I define as beautiful.

Do you know what it feels like to drink water that is muddy with ashes and pollution in it? Do you know what I feels like to possess a spirituality within you that can blind yourself to muddy-ness and pollution. Indians, have no money, therefore they have faith. They could never afford clear water. So, instead they allow their thankfulness and spirituality to morph any water into drinkable water. Have you ever been so desperate or so simple in your thinking?

Sometimes I hate my body for being full of clear filtered water. Every time I saw people in India drink from some random puddle of water in the road – I got jealous. I don’t think this happens to a lot of people – but I just wanted to tell them that what they think is poverty, might just be a blessing in disguise.

How all my rambling will fit into a project – I’m not sure. Although, I do hope that you approach this subject with sensitivity and understand that India is many physical steps behind us but a hundred spiritual steps ahead of us.

Clear water does not = clean.
Muddy water does not = dirty.

Our “dirty” = Their “clean”
Their “clean” = Our “dirty”

One thing I did not bring up is the Ganges drying up. All I have with this topic is my thoughts, and from what I have observed – I think India will follow nature. If God and the laws of nature decide to dry up the Ganges, India will bow their heads with love and see what happens. They might be scared, but they have the will power and the heart to accept that certain things such as nature and spirituality are stronger than they will ever be.