CHAOS AND COHERENCE: REFLECTIONS IN OUR LAST DAYS IN INDIA
Mary Ann and I are entering our last three days of teaching
at South India Biblical Seminary, and our last week or so of being in India. I
find myself reflecting on how life here seems to move between the poles of
chaos and coherence.
Take traffic on most roads, but especially on the streets of
megacity Bangalore with its maybe 8 million people. In addition to buses,
trucks, motorcycles, an occasional bullock cart, pedestrians, and more and more
cars, three-wheeler taxis are everywhere. These agile motor cycle rickshaws
slip into impossible little slots between vehicles. It looks like primary
requirements for a driver are nerves of steel and excellent peripheral vision. I
observed a street sign in Bangalore appealing for “traffic lane discipline.”
But it wasn’t working! Traffic seems like chaos. But most of the time it works,
especially if you aren’t in a big hurry to get anywhere. But occasionally
things grind to a halt. Lots of vehicles switch off their engines and wait till
things move again. Seeming chaos, but some level of coherence!
Take politics. These past few days have seen 15,000 plus
people from NE states, who have migrated for Bangalore jobs flee the city to
their home area, a couple of days away by train. All this was because of some
violence in Assam (a NE state) between local tribes- people and Muslims.
Retribution was threatened, rumors spread on social media, and central
government appeals notwithstanding people began to flee major cities like
Bangalore. India is a patchwork quilt of entities, many formerly ruled by
maharajahs, put together by the British and now functioning under a federal
government. There are at least 15 major language groups and multiplied other
languages. It looks like chaos. But it mostly holds together. Who are Americans
to critique others for occasional outbursts of violence and increasing cultural
and social division?
The tendency of westerners like us is to think we should fix
the chaos and make it work like it does in America. I have begun to say to
myself-If 1.2 billion people do it like this and it works at least some of the
time for them, who are we to tell them they must do it differently?
Thanks to any who have waded through these thoughts typed
under a ceiling fan and with gratitude for electricity on tonight.
Mary Ann and I leave from Bangalore on Sunday for a
side-trip to Cochin in far-southwest Kerala state. This is where St Thomas
probably came in the first century. It is where Europeans made their 16th
century entrée into India. I am told Vasco Da Gama was buried in a church here.
We return to Bangalore early Thursday morning, August 30 and catch an evening
plane for home with an overnight in Dubai.
