A Modern Pilgrim in India

by John W. Wohlfarth


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Softcover
$9.95
Softcover
$9.95

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 8/22/2000

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 5x8
Page Count : 200
ISBN : 9781587214431

About the Book

I was fortunate to have lived in India during those last days of the British Raj. The focus of my journal is, however, with the indigenous peoples of India. Not only their cultural characteristics of times past and present, but also their struggle to achieve independence and emerge, once again, as a Nation. That their goal has not wholly been fulfilled, has not lessened my hope.

Shall an Occidental mind ever understand the Orient? Perhaps the question itself is purely academic. For example, ancient India and ancient Greece were different from each other and yet they were akin, just as ancient India and ancient China had kinship in thought, in spite of great differences. We have all developed individually and as peoples, in accordance with our racial genius, influenced by natural environment. In their different ways, each has tried to express the fullness and beauty of life, though not always alertly searching for its meaning.

Nevertheless, I believe I have achieved some degree of progress, in my effort to understand the ways of the Orient. Perhaps, not as completely as Rabindranath Tagore would have wanted. He once wrote, "How I wish you had known Bengali!"

Our Earth has many rivers. But none more sacred than the Ganges of India. Our Earth has many peoples. But none more patient than the people of India. An attribute the Western World lacks--patience, India has in abundance. And too, its way of thought, character and conduct is distinctively different. As distinctly different as the tea grown on the slopes of Darjeeling. In each, a very likeable characteristic.

Of course, the Western World prides itself on having wakened the Orient to Western ideas, though not all of them have proven worthwhile.

To a large extent the blame for American ignorance of India s story, (some might call it indifference) rests upon the successful propaganda machinery of the British Raj. When a child has both hands in the cookie jar, and is rapidly filling his pockets, he doesn t want others to know of it too soon, if at all.

With this book, I sincerely wish to enlighten my fellow Americans. I wish too, to give thanks to my friends in India for their help and hospitality.

I have eaten your bread and salt.

I have drunk your water and wine.

The deaths ye died I have watched beside,

And the lives ye led were mine.

Was there aught that I did not share

In vigil or toil or ease,

One joy or woe that I did not know,

Dear hearts across the seas?

I have written the tale of our life

For a sheltered people s mirth,

In jesting guise--but ye are wise,

And ye know what the jest is worth.

Rudyard Kipling (Prelude)

To "Departmental Ditties" 1885.

John W. Wohlfarth

Cloverdale, California

February 2000


About the Author

On assignment with the Army of the United States, I lived in pre-partition India during 1945 and 1946.

I observed firsthand the agony on the streets of Calcutta. Sights that appalled the stoutest of hearts went unheeded by those latter-day heirs of Baron Clive.

I also saw the beauty of India: its people, its monuments, the Taj Mahal, the Himalayas, the many bazaars, the tea gardens and the cities of Agra, Delhi and the British creation New Delhi.