Meaningful
tourism
When
all life is a journey, and when all our endeavours will make us learn
something, then tourism and taking a trip cannot be otherwise. Needless to say,
all those who travel, travel for the sake of understanding and learning, as
there is nothing in life more interesting than learning. Travel, will help
people understand people, culture, food, tradition and the like.
The
world is shrinking, like in business world, and in other works of our life,
standardization is becoming a walk of everything, but, the differences is what
is making life beautiful, the thrill of living is in meeting different people,
when we say different, not only in dress, food but also in their thinking
style, the values that they hold and the like. For a westerner, it will look
preposterous if they meet people who believe in joint family system, or meet
people who firmly believe that marrying at an young age will solve many of the
social problems. If one is open minded enough to entertain the thinking of
others, then, it will be interesting to think through a matter from different
perspectives.
India
is a country not only consisting of people from different backgrounds, but also
with rich cultural heritage, one need to dig deep to find out as to why they
believe in whatever they believe. This is not possible by just reading books
from India or from watching movies of India; one should live in India like an
Indian, a typical unadulterated Indian life and experience.
The
outlook from an Indian perspective is not based on some blind religious
belief, for a true Indian, there is no
belief, it is based on huge amount of evolved research, which has happened over
thousands of years, and these have become norms and practices, and these
practices even though practiced blindly, is pregnant with meaning. To
understand the same, one need to reside and live it, without inhibitions.
For
example, if you consider a festival like Deepavali, on the one hand it is a
celebration, people enjoy that is at the outset, and the day will mark the
beginning of winter, if one watches closely, one can see, that the temperature
drops noticeably, such a drop in temperature is bound to have a psychologically
depressing effect, by enriching one’s experience by getting into a catharsis
and celebrating, the depression is countered. And there are more dimensions to
it, the cold wind moves from north to south, to slow down the process of its
movement; it is advised to light lamps, generating heat which can counter the
cold wind.
Ayurveda
believes in three basic combinations of elements that which makes us, and that
will be influenced by weather, food etc, and Deepavali is a time, when there is
a menu being followed, which helps in taking care of health. This is true of
all menus of all festivals, every festival has a typical menu which is in line
with what one should take to be healthy according to Ayurveda.
I
am S.K.Sundararajan, with a post graudate degree in philosophy, along with one
more in Economics and few other degrees, is curious to share this wisdom called
India with anybody who is desirous of going through this experience.
