I have traveled to India once, on assignment. I was astonished by what I saw and humbled by how little I understood. While walking a street in Mumbai I spotted a tiny, ancient woman in a sari, heating an iron on a brazier and using it to iron an enormous stack of clothes. We locked eyes for a moment, and I thought: how wide is the gulf between us? How narrow as well! Especially if I had a wrinkled shirt that needed tending to! As a traveler, India remains the destination I’ll never exhaust or actually get to know, but it instills a yearning for more. It will take several reincarnations for me to truly see it.
Thank you for writing, Peter. There is so much more to write about Paz’s depth of understanding of India. His passage about India’s contrasts are unique. I was awed by how deeply he had tried to understand the trajectories of languages too. He wasn’t intellectually lazy and he expected his reader to sit down to work. This book will need a revisit several times to really get it.
What a brilliant distillation of Paz's thinking! I simply have to read him now, and not be content with having read about him. Thanks for another wonderful piece. A big doff of the hat to you to do this week after week, regardless of what life throws at you. I will read this several times over, and keep it by my side when I do get down to reading Paz.
Wow, I knew you'd enjoy the words on ragas! Yes, the old man is well-traveled indeed. On this particular visit to Nalanda, however, I was with him, surprise, surprise. I'd been wanting to see Patna and surrounds for a while and the visit to Nalanda made it so special. The new Bihar museum in Patna is worth a visit, by the way. I was not satisfied with this post of mine but this is all I could do given the time and given the narrow corridors of my brain, haha.
I have traveled to India once, on assignment. I was astonished by what I saw and humbled by how little I understood. While walking a street in Mumbai I spotted a tiny, ancient woman in a sari, heating an iron on a brazier and using it to iron an enormous stack of clothes. We locked eyes for a moment, and I thought: how wide is the gulf between us? How narrow as well! Especially if I had a wrinkled shirt that needed tending to! As a traveler, India remains the destination I’ll never exhaust or actually get to know, but it instills a yearning for more. It will take several reincarnations for me to truly see it.
Thank you for writing, Peter. There is so much more to write about Paz’s depth of understanding of India. His passage about India’s contrasts are unique. I was awed by how deeply he had tried to understand the trajectories of languages too. He wasn’t intellectually lazy and he expected his reader to sit down to work. This book will need a revisit several times to really get it.
What a brilliant distillation of Paz's thinking! I simply have to read him now, and not be content with having read about him. Thanks for another wonderful piece. A big doff of the hat to you to do this week after week, regardless of what life throws at you. I will read this several times over, and keep it by my side when I do get down to reading Paz.
And I love your husband's photographs that complement each piece so perfectly. Am super impressed by the breadth of his travels.
Also - those lines on ragas....perfection!
Wow, I knew you'd enjoy the words on ragas! Yes, the old man is well-traveled indeed. On this particular visit to Nalanda, however, I was with him, surprise, surprise. I'd been wanting to see Patna and surrounds for a while and the visit to Nalanda made it so special. The new Bihar museum in Patna is worth a visit, by the way. I was not satisfied with this post of mine but this is all I could do given the time and given the narrow corridors of my brain, haha.