g-rengar@gumby.UUCP (T.K.Rengarajan) (03/02/86)
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We had a slideshow and a discussion on March 1,86 here in Madison,
sponsored by the UW-Madison India Students' Association. The slide
show was presented by Mr.Vince Rivers, an American artist who has stayed
in Benaras for quite a while(on the order of a year) on a program
sponsored by UW-Madison.
The discussion topics included the portrayal of India by American
Media, the response of the people of Benaras to a Hindi-speaking white
American and the problems of American women students on the UWM program
there.
Throughout the discussion, I had this nagging feeling that I couldn't
say anything in *GENERAL* about Indians. I seem to lack the global picture
of India. That leads me to the following troublesome questions. I'd
appreciate if someone can clarify the issues.
- Is there a description of a TYPICAL Indian?
- Or, can one atleast say *SOMETHING* about an average Indian?
- If so, how does one substantiate such a description of the
traits of the average Indian? Statistics?
- If not, can one atleast describe a typical person from the different
regions of India?
- Talking of statistics, what percentage of Indians are vegetarian?
What percentage of the Hindus are vegetarian?
- Can such information only be estimated very roughly in India?
- What are the error margins on such statistics? (I have never seen
error margins specified on statistics on India)
- How infomative is a value for the per capita income of India?
- Can I get a frequency distribution of people in the poor-rich
scale from some official source?
As you can see, I have just too many questions and too few answers.
All these quetions in my opinion are important for a better understanding
of India.
T.K.Rengarajan
Aliases : Ranga, TK, TKR
ARPA : g-rengar@gumby.wisc.edu
UUCP : uwvax!gumby!g-rengar
USPostal: 215 N.Frances St, #701,
Madison, WI-53703.
Phone : (608) 257-0765 (Home)
=======================================================================sanjiva@tesla.UUCP (Sanjiva Prasad) (03/05/86)
> > - Is there a description of a TYPICAL Indian? > I hope not. One of the unfortunate things that might well be happening because of a Pan-Indian attitude is the gradual quashing of regional and sub-regional cultures. Who, for instance, knows very much about, say, Ladakh, Ladakhi culture etc. > - Or, can one atleast say *SOMETHING* about an average Indian? > That (s)he's average. His/her general living condition. The nature of problems (s)he faces. Think of yourself as lucky that you can avoid categorizing large classes of humanity on the the basis of their "personality", whatever that is. Benares is pretty much that part of India which can propagate its culture through sheer numeric strength, what about the lovely little cultures that get buried in the search for a common / average description ? > > - If not, can one atleast describe a typical person from the different > regions of India? Again, I hope not. What a bore it'll be. > - How infomative is a value for the per capita income of India? Not very. Because several people who own land have small monetary incomes, even though they may be nutritionally prosperous. And then the rich -- GDBirla has no income but is he poor ? Sanjiva
mwg@petrus.UUCP (Mark Garrett) (03/11/86)
++ > Throughout the discussion, I had this nagging feeling that I couldn't > say anything in *GENERAL* about Indians. > - Is there a description of a TYPICAL Indian? > T.K.Rengarajan That is an odd thing to hear from an Indian, but one of the things I concluded from my stay in India was that there was *NOTHING* typical in the whole country!! I constantly found that generalizations I got from some natives contradicted those of others. One man told me about how arranged marriages were historically very stable because each person knows it is permanent and therefore works to make it work. Then I read stories of wife-burnings because of insufficient doweries. Of course, both are true, but the circumstances vary so greatly across the country. Finding a typical Indian would be like finding a typical European who could represent all the countries from Denmark to Armenia!! -Mark Garrett
sanjiva@tesla.UUCP (Sanjiva Prasad) (03/18/86)
> ++ > > Throughout the discussion, I had this nagging feeling that I couldn't > > say anything in *GENERAL* about Indians. > > - Is there a description of a TYPICAL Indian? > > T.K.Rengarajan > > That is an odd thing to hear from an Indian, but one of the things I > concluded from my stay in India was that there was *NOTHING* typical > in the whole country!! I constantly found that generalizations I got > from some natives contradicted those of others. One man told me about > how arranged marriages were historically very stable because each > person knows it is permanent and therefore works to make it work. > Then I read stories of wife-burnings because of insufficient doweries. > Of course, both are true, but the circumstances vary so greatly across > the country. Finding a typical Indian would be like finding a typical > European who could represent all the countries from Denmark to Armenia!! > -Mark Garrett In general (:~), I agree, Mark. In the NY Times, there was an article about the Pope's visit to India which described the country by saying that anything said about India is simultaneously true and false. Needless to say this statement is ...... Cheers, Sanjiva