Fighting with the Windmills ...

[Guest guest]

This has nothing to do with what is going on in Internet reality, perhaps, but

images and memories surface and I MUST share for good or for worse!

 

When barely a teenager, I read a European novel that I thought was rather funny

but never really paid much attention to in a serious sense -- just as I found my

attention hypnotically drawn to something called Grain Elevators in Prairies in

Canada when I was in grade 5 -- which ended up being the most formative 13 years

in my life, but let us leave that aside.

 

Don and Sancho particularly the latter seemed funny back then kind of like the

man-servant of Phileas Fogg in 'Around the world... "

 

When I visited Portugal and was informed about Don and his creator suddenly I

remembered about Goa, Daman and Vasco DaGama and even though very strong

emotions, ambivalent ones given the history of the Portugese invasion and exodus

that I read about but never really personally or directly experienced -- what

struck me was how SIMILAR the portugese and indians look! Now, I realize that

there is no typical Indian, in looks or speech or culture for India is a collage

of cultures and religions and languages and customs and hence suffered from its

diversity over the centuries and we were exploited by so called foreigners and

so on and on and on...!

 

In fact the tour guide when he stepped into our bus almost gave me a heart

attack! He was the spitting image of my friend Chatur! Even the voice matched

but not the accent of course. And it was just the beginning. Now why would

people thousands of miles apart in where their origin and heritage and history

began would be so SIMILAR in their superficial appearance (arudha!). And why the

heck would one of these end up visiting the western coast of India of all

places? They could have gone south and the similarity would not be there! One

wonders if all of this was just a random accident or just a matter of economical

convenience or is there something that runs deeper? Even if it ended up being

adversarial because that is how we greedy human beings are, plain and simple!

 

I can sense and explain all that readily to myself when I think of the Mongols

attacking and occupying the east of India, the caucacians (British and French)

taking over most of India, North and the French -- the south and the Persian

invasion and all that, but the Portugese invasion of Western India seems

different!

 

Maybe the obvious maya of Arudha is too superficial and can give wrong signals?

 

Rohiniranjan