The fly goes for the sore.

[Guest guest]

> Certianly, this term 95% is being used by Srila Prabhupada in the sense of

> "most Indians", or "most all Indians", and my experience in India for six

> years (and not in place like Vrindavan or Mayapura, where westerner

> devotees have facility to avoid or minimize their contact with the locals)

> is that this statement of Srila Prabhupada is still true.

>

> I would have to ask you this: what is your experience in India?

 

I have been living in India for the last 10 years. I moved to punya bhumi,

the land of dharma, with very high ideals and lots of regard for vedic

culture. I still believe in the same ideals and I still think vedic culture

is vastly superior to western materialism but after ten years of firsthand

experience of socalled vedic India I have to admit that I became quite

disillusioned with the India of today because it appears to be almost as

materialistic as the west.

 

Yes, there are still millions of Indians who are by their very nature and

upbringing pious and devoted to Krishna, but at the same time the statistics

that Madhusudani Radha presented are definitely factual not fiction. I dont

know about Vrindavana and other holy places in India, but in Mayapura and

Shantipur there is a good deal of prostitution and alcoholism. Nowadays it

is not anymore completely safe for a western mataji to go to the Ganga

unaccompanied. There are too many shady characters and drunkards who are

simply waiting to sexually harass a white skinned girl.

 

I have also firsthand experience of the numerous scandals which are going on

in the Indian village setting. Murder, kidnapping, rape, incest, divorce,

child abuse. You name it, it is all there in holy India. We have experienced

it right there in Mayapur, what to speak of in other places. Several times

have I been approached by indian village girls who were desperate to get

remarried to a western devotee because they had been beaten, cheated on and

ultimately dumped by their drinking husbands. How many times have I been

approached by young Indian men who wanted to get married to a western girl

or pleaded with me to help them get a visa to the holy lands America,

Germany or Britain. Once a twenty year old Indian told me: "Every Indian

youth wants to have a girl friend like Bo Derek or Brooke Shields." At the

time, I did not even know who Bo Derek or Brooke Shield were. Yes, India is

still watching Mahabharata once a week on Durdarshan (Indian national tv)

but they watch cricket, Hindi movies and the Bold and the Beautiful on STAR

TV every day.

 

Madhusudani Radha has pointed out that not everything is sweetness and light

in India. In India,there are wonderful remnants of dharma and just so much

ugliness side by side.So much so that it is becoming more and more hard to

see much of a difference between India and the west. That is why I do not

understand why Madhusudani Radha is drawing so much flack from Kk das and

Guru Krishna.

 

As Atma Tattva das (born in India in a brahmin family) used to point out

time and again: there is western nonsense and there is vedic nonsense.

Believe it or not,living in India has increased my respect for certain

aspects of western civilization and I am now at a point where I can see that

there is actually not so much of a difference between a sincere Christian

and a sincere follower of the Vedas.

 

The debate between KK das and Madhusudani Radha seems to be simply a matter

of seeing the glass half full or half empty. He sees it as half full, she

sees it as half empty. But is it really necessary to call her offensive and

a shameless madwoman?

 

ys Anantarupa

 

 

 

 

And