What an 'unholy' mess!
JPR:
Say where is your 'buddy' Tidy Bowl these days, I am sure he/she would have licked this 'column' up like a stray bitch.<g>
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Saturday, October 9, 1999
What an unholy mess!
By Abu Abraham
LIVING in God?s own Kerala, it is easy to forget the dirt and squalor of much of the rest of India. Here cleanliness is an obsession. The women who come to cook and sweep the house and garden here at home and in the neighbourhood are spotlessly clean. They come dressed in fresh clothes and are well-groomed. Nobody in Kerala goes out of the house without a bath. Most people have two baths a day, morning and evening.
In respect of cleanliness (next to godliness) I think Keralites are close to our own North-East people or to South-East Asians. I was in Saigon in 1970 during the worst part of the Vietnam war. I wandered around the city quite a lot, and also travelled to nearby villages and to the port city of Danang. While the Americans kept bombing and destroying, life went on in South Vietnam as if nothing unusual was happening. The sweepers swept the parks and streets. Shops and restaurants served people at all hours. Plenty of fresh vegetables were available in the market places. But what astonished me was the cleanliness and quietness of the markets. Nobody shouted, nobody urinated in public. It?s a totally different culture from ours.
I find it difficult to understand why we as a people show little respect to our environment, let alone to our poor neighbour's. Someone once said:"Love thy neighbour, but choose your neighbourhood first." This is true of our rich and well-to-do middle classes. Once they find their own congenial neighbourhood, they ignore their fellow beings. If not deliberate callousness, it is wilful selfishness.
The Hindu way of life, it seems to me, is almost totally preoccupied with personal salvation. For this no amount of prayers and pujas are sufficient. Our swamis are daily asking people to devote their whole life to devotion. 'Total surrender' is what they recommend. It is, therefore, not surprising that some of the dirtiest places in India are our holy places. Instead of cleanliness being next to godliness, our national motto seems to be 'other-worldliness is next to godliness.'.........
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