{"id":3665,"date":"2018-06-28T14:39:12","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T18:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crosscultural\/?p=3665"},"modified":"2018-06-28T14:39:12","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T18:39:12","slug":"india-rite-or-ritual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/2018\/06\/28\/india-rite-or-ritual\/","title":{"rendered":"India: Rite or Ritual"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Rite or Ritual<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Divine – Sacred – God – Spirit<\/p>\n

With our words we sew a suit for it<\/p>\n

but it always bursts the seams<\/p>\n

no regard for blush or shame, it seems<\/p>\n

so it’s fitting that this thing unnamed won’t stay cinched<\/p>\n

in the western clothes we’ve carefully stitched<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Toothy temple bracelet tiers,<\/p>\n

Jama Mosjid’s twisted spires<\/p>\n

ghat-descending funeral biers<\/p>\n

and haunting red cremation fires \u2013<\/p>\n

All things meant to awaken or inspire<\/p>\n

a newfound belief in a power, higher<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But just as with every story or sword<\/p>\n

there’s a second side, one not as heard:<\/p>\n

the labor behind every mug poured<\/p>\n

or the hours spent on a title word.<\/p>\n

In this, religion cannot be ignored \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n

it has its own unheard, where meanings are blurred and emotions stirred<\/p>\n

a lesson we learned when a Sikh’s wrath we incurred.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hot, heavy, and sudden \u2013 like a cloud, it came,<\/p>\n

before you could blink, no time to think<\/p>\n

covering all with a bittersweet stink<\/p>\n

marked by traces of jaggery and shame.<\/p>\n

We broke a rule never spelled out in ink,<\/p>\n

but that doesn’t excuse us from taking the blame.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shaved head, robed in red, prayer beads, back bent<\/p>\n

He shoves me aside \u2013 this monk is intent,<\/p>\n

nothing will dent his spiritual ascent,<\/p>\n

too bent on finding enlightenment<\/p>\n

to see the ones for whom the light was meant<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And while the tourists on vacation \u2013<\/p>\n

just a few with constipation \u2013 sit to watch the celebration<\/p>\n

the priests with adulation all recite their incantations<\/p>\n

and the fathers and the brothers watch the flames of the cremation<\/p>\n

the souls of their relations now released to incarnation<\/p>\n

flame and spirit cycle ever-turning, no cessation<\/p>\n

This enunciation is how the Hindus praise creation<\/p>\n

But now their holy river sits in putrid desecration<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The people choke the river and the water chokes the people<\/p>\n

Bathe in it, it’s sacred, but drink of it, it’s evil<\/p>\n

a river drowned in trash, the matter mostly fecal<\/p>\n

and how about the dumping? Oh, that still happens \u2013 it’s legal<\/p>\n

The human and the natural in embrace, locked and lethal<\/p>\n

A deadly combination for the river and the people \u2013<\/p>\n

A mutual expiration by ash asphyxiation<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now trace the Gunga from this Varanasi ghat,<\/p>\n

Away from the bodies beginning to rot<\/p>\n

Down to Kolkata, where it’s humid and hot<\/p>\n

and the water runs free in the streets a whole lot<\/p>\n

But drinkable? No, definitely not \u2013<\/p>\n

or upriver now, to our whitewater spot,<\/p>\n

where workers build roads and new vehicle lots<\/p>\n

heedless of the noise and the trash that they brought.<\/p>\n

Big changes \u2013 by whom, and for whom, are they wrought?<\/p>\n

Just a little food for some thought.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shiny new shopping malls<\/p>\n

and plastic bag snack stalls<\/p>\n

Machine-woven shawls<\/p>\n

and unlimited calls<\/p>\n

Urine-sprayed walls<\/p>\n

and traffic at a crawl,<\/p>\n

How can we have the gall<\/p>\n

to say this is progress?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We’re the last link in this long chain reaction,<\/p>\n

a nuclear bomb that the Brits set in action,<\/p>\n

a centuries-long ploy for power<\/p>\n

that culminates here, now, in this hour \u2013<\/p>\n

“Please, sir, won’t you buy a flower?”<\/p>\n

with a fifty-rupee cash transaction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He’s smiling, I’m smiling, decisions are made,<\/p>\n

but I feel like I’ve been played \u2013 “It’s handmade?”<\/p>\n

“Smiling is universal,” they say,<\/p>\n

but in this instance, as I pay,<\/p>\n

it only colors our relationship gray,<\/p>\n

a gray tinged with green<\/p>\n

as the factor of cash seen<\/p>\n

turns the space in between<\/p>\n

from potential pal to money machine<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The great prophet of capitalism, the invisible hand<\/p>\n

the proselytes of progress, the Tata name brand,<\/p>\n

and a government eager to give business a hand \u2013<\/p>\n

they’ve changed this land,<\/p>\n

just as its religious forebears made their own stand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is sacred? What is profane?<\/p>\n

Elephant rides or the truth of a train?<\/p>\n

The rites of a ritual or the rights of the people?<\/p>\n

Or are they the same?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and so I ask you again,<\/p>\n

as mantras and dogmas begin now to blend<\/p>\n

but in India the Gunga still flows to its end \u2013<\/p>\n

What is sacred? …it depends.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-Harrison Horst, India, Spring 2018<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rite or Ritual   Divine – Sacred – God – Spirit With our words we sew a suit for it but it always bursts the seams no regard for blush or shame, it seems so it’s fitting that this thing unnamed won’t stay cinched in the western clothes we’ve carefully stitched   Toothy temple bracelet … Continue reading India: Rite or Ritual<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":3667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4109],"tags":[4039],"class_list":["post-3665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india-2018","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3665"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3669,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3665\/revisions\/3669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}