Pause, Reflect, Decide and Move

Mirage, in science is considered as an optical illusion; the appearance of water in desert at a distance even though it actually does not exist. A poetic definition of mirage would be, ‘an unrealistic hope or wish that cannot be achieved.’

The second part of Ancient Futures – Learning from Ladakh, by Helena Norberg Hodge compelled me to compare our life today to mirage; the illusion of existence of bliss in a society, which is detached from its core. As mentioned in my previous article, the second part of this book, describes the transition of a previously self – sustained and joyous Ladakh, to its current heart aching plight. Contemplation about the way of our life today has become all the more relevant in these difficult COVID times. It makes me wonder if we have been calling all this upon ourselves for a very long time now? Is it nature’s way of rubbing all our wrong doings in our faces? Are we not reaping what we sowed? Answers to these questions are not straight forward and might not be easy to admit, but we certainly have made serious mistakes.    

Moving on with the book, the author now talks of a time when tourism and the idea of modernization and development invaded the very psyche of Ladakh. She equates westerners (pointing towards outsiders) to aliens, who with their extraordinarily successful looking life, rapidly swept Ladakhis off their feet. The problem here was, incomplete and in some areas, even faulty information. It was because of what the author calls, a ‘one – dimensional’ image of each other’s cultures that the westerners looked down upon Ladakhis as backward and the Ladakhis found the Westerners, enchanting. In the words of Ms Hodge, “To Western eyes, Ladakhis looked poor. Tourists could only see the material side of the culture – worn out woolen robes, the dzo pulling a plough, the barren land. They could not see peace of mind or the quality of family and community relations. They could not see the psychological, social and spiritual wealth of the Ladakhis.”  On the other hand, to Ladakhis, the industrial world was like a dream land, a world where people had inexhaustible resources and did not need to work as hard. This made them feel stupid and ashamed of the way they had been living their lives. The feeling of inferiority made them reject their long standing culture for embracing the symbols of modern life, without realizing what they were heading towards. Sadly, this occurrence was true not only for Ladakh but most of rural India.

This brings me back to the question ‘how often do we introspect about the path we are on?’ I am not against modernization and am in no way trying to belittle the role of modern technology in our current life. In fact, it is because of technology that we have been able to keep our heads above the water even during this current pandemic. Having said that, I still firmly believe that we have absolutely no reasons to not address the paradoxes. Isn’t it funny that ‘working out’ in an air conditioned gym is appreciated and working hard in the farms considered primitive? Our staple diets now consist majorly of international cuisines and the locally grown crops are consumed only when our dieticians tell us to follow a healthy diet regime? Handcrafted and handloom items are now merely gift articles and tourist attractions. And most importantly, wasn’t technological advancement supposed to save our time? If so, why do we have no time for our families and ourselves and why did our forefathers never faced this problem? Is our notion of equating ‘working hard at a human pace in a jovial and intimate social setup’ to being lazy, flawed? And what really is it that we aspire for? If, a societal arrangement, at a geographically challenging location, that has established itself as economically viable and has a truly high happiness index, may still be considered unsuccessful, I fail to understand how apt our parameters of estimating a good quality of life are.                

Our forefathers in different parts of the country, just like in Ladakh, were their own masters till the time they lived off land. During those times unlike today, the effect of an economic crisis in a distant land (where people might not be even aware of our existence) on us was non - existent. However, with the coming of these intruders in the name of globalization, came the indispensability of money. The barter system of exchange of goods and services, which used to be a fundamental characteristic of our closely knit communities, no longer remained the norm. Everything now was up for selling and buying. To quote the author, “At first, people were not aware of the fact that the new economy creates dependence; money appeared to be only an advantage.” But in no time people realized that as a part of the global economic setup, any fluctuation in a different part of the world might impact our own economy. This made everyone greedy for money and slowly everything in life turned from cordiality towards accumulation of as much wealth as possible. Opening up of our economy in 1991 was definitely a well - intentioned move and has had uncountable positive impacts, but it sure has also serious implications. The desire for accumulation of wealth led to drastic changes - demographic, social and psychological. Across our entire country we saw a drastic shift of populace from villages to cities. Ladakh too saw similar changes. People started valuing material possessions more than relationships. Money became a wedge between them, pushing them apart and thus increasing the gap between rich and poor. People turned to cash cropping and the omnipresent festive vibe was now replaced by greed and competition. Relationship equations with everyone including family members, neighbors, friends, even the cattle and land changed. Living in harmony no longer remained the way of life. Most interactions at work now were with machines instead of other living beings and the loss of this connection started making people devoid of emotions and empathy.

Usage of latest machines and gadgets help us finish work faster. But what this ‘time saving’ technology has really done over years is accelerated the pace of our lives, eventually leaving us with no time for ourselves and making us impatient and intolerant. What we have actually become are slaves of these attractive machines. Furthermore, this has divided the society into two groups, one who can afford and use technology and the other those who can’t. As a result, the need of western form of education kicked in, to enable masses understand and use the latest technology, making them globally relevant. Education is one of the most important internationally accepted parameters as a measure of development in any country. There is no denying of the importance of knowledge about universal scientific laws, mathematical concepts, world histories, geographies, languages, cultures, current affairs, etc. but knowledge about one’s own habitat is equally important and would probably be more relevant. If children are aware about the resources around them, they will be able to function in their own world. Today, western form of education is considered essential only because we believe that everyone must compete on a global platform. If everyone keeps going to the cities, how will our rural areas flourish? Children today would know a lot about the rest of the world and nothing about their own city. This lack of knowledge about surroundings has almost eradicated their interest in places of their origin. They are essentially clueless about how proficient and dexterous our forefathers were and as parents and teachers, it becomes our responsibility to eliminate this loophole.

As rightly said by the author the social setup of our ‘global village’ today has large communities and small families but earlier there used to be larger families and smaller communities. As a result, the general sense of belongingness and social security seems to be fading away. Nuclear families mean that children grow up deprived of their grandparent’s company, a void that I personally believe leaves permanent impact on their personalities and cannot be filled in by nothing else in the world. Fewer relations mean more burden on each relation, for example. mothers would now have no helping hands in raising children, thus being forced to choose between family and work, causing a setback in their individuality. With the world becoming a small place, our lives seem to have become more virtual than real. Today, we all compare our lives to ideal situations prevailing in some other part of the world, not even considering that they might be facing issues that we don’t. Instead of being thankful and understanding personal responsibility, we have become passive and even apathetic towards the real people in our life, those we really meet and live with. It is high time that we move back from this hollow superficial borrowed lifestyle towards our culture where fundamental human needs were catered to.  A life where human beings were a part of the natural symphony and did not stand apart – outside the rest of God’s creations.   

Change and Development is inevitable and an everlasting process and we cannot ignore that. Although there is no way to accurately anticipate long term problems consequent to any fundamental process of change, what we might want to consider doing is pausing, looking around and being consciously aware of the changes in our lifestyle. This will help us make informed decisions about the paths we choose. As the author says, “Does development have to mean destruction? I do not believe so. I am convinced that the Ladakhis could raise their standard of living without sacrificing the sort of social and ecological balance that they had enjoyed for centuries. To do so, however, they would need to build on their own ancient foundations rather than tearing them down.” This for me has been the essence of this book and I strongly suggest we incorporate this in our lives – Giving our land and ancestral values, the respect they deserve. In the next article I shall share how can we balance between ancient culture and modern day development, from the perspective of the author.