More Zen, Less CNN

Many of those we've told about our trip to India have taken pains to tell us how horrible it is to leave North America. And the media, which relishes in uplifting that which is most atrocious, has not helped.

We've been told that India is a country of billions which is primarily inhabited by beggars, drug dealers, pimps, and telemarketers, all of whom are fanatics of one religious stripe or another (knife-wielding Hindus, deranged Christians, and exploding Muslims to name but a few flavors of religious idiocy).

We've been told that we'll be confronted with a plentitude of wildlife--which apparently is almost entirely made up of asps (and other venomous snakes), dysenteric water, malarious mosquitoes, and rabid monkeys. In fact, Anne has spent the last few months gorging like a horse in the interest of gaining the weight she plans to lose in a bout of giardiaisis and/or typhoid.

If there is one constant in all our talks with people about India, it is that we WILL get sick (perhaps twice). Sickness is fate. The bugs there are forces of nature and the bacillus beasties that cause Delhi Belly laugh uproariously at water filters. Coincidentally, Anne bought the water filter that the US Army uses to filter out radioactive chemicals and compounds, and will filter 55,000 liters of water (no joke). We're talking about drinking a little bit of the Ganges, just to test it out. I think I can already hear the biotic giggles.

Oh, and let's not forget the filth. The cities are supposedly knee-deep in human excrement, and the rural areas are supposed to be even worse. Perhaps we'll need hip waders to protect us from all the defecated curry.

But, alas, we are going there anyway.

I guess we're hoping that there is more good going on in India and South East Asia than generally reported. After all, the world media considers "Good" news to be generally indicative of bad news reporting.

And, if the media is to be believed, then none of us should ever leave home. Certainly we shouldn't go to public school in Toronto, or buy a house in Galveston Texas or New Orleans, or take a ride on a Greyhound bus, or drive on the 401 (that's a rather murderous highway in Ontario Canada), or invest in the US stock market…

Madonna said that even negative publicity is good because it gets your name out there. But the truth is negative stories are the only ones the mainstream media tells. (If that's an overstatement, it's not much of one.)

Part of the problem is human nature: We like drama and a sad story is more dramatic than the everyday experience. For that reason, while hundreds of people climb Mt. Everest every year, stories about climbing parties being wiped out by blizzards are the ones you're most likely to hear. We're losing balance when it comes what we think we know about the world.

It's a tall order, but hopefully this blog will be able to achieve a better balance. And I don't think that means being upbeat about horrors. I mean, more zen than CNN; readable and dramatic, yet somehow also edifying and life affirming. Because, at the end of the day, although Everest is dangerous, you should still climb it if doing so constitutes a life-fulfilling dream. If anyone reads of our adventures here and grows afraid to travel, then we will have failed--for fear, not death, is the polar opposite of Life.

So… we know India is poor, but we've also heard that the people are kind and interesting. Yes, there's been some unrest there (very recently), but I, quite frankly, have a greater fear of being stepped on by an elephant in traffic.

NB