Delhi - seat of power in India. India - a nation founded in the act of throwing off an imperial presence through satyagraha, the "holding tight to truth". Satyagraha is a paradigm of power through a type of powerlessness, specifically non-violence in the face of aggression. So, when I was in Delhi on Saturday and reflecting on what historic times these are in India, part of me felt sad. Power may corrupt India. New levels of wealth are certainly coming here, although there is one heck of a long way to go before the wealth even touches the lives of the majority of Indians.
India is at a crossroads. Will they use their soon-to-be-realized power in a way that honors their inheritance of non-violence? Only time will tell.
Interesting and horrible times we live in here in Hyderabad. A "fly over" is an elevated road built down the center of a current road. One collapsed last night because the monsoon rains washed away the base of one of the buttresses. Many people died, perhaps 15 or 20. I think some bodies are still pinned in there. We drive past that fly over all the time. There were woman from the countryside carrying buckets of sand on their heads all over this construction site, it always looked like a bunch of bees. The scaffolds are rough structures of bamboo poles on virtually all building efforts in India. This fly over was no different. The building of this fly over was an utterly standardless endeavor. I shudder for the future of these fly overs if one that is a) unfinished and b) touted as havng terrorism-proof, explosive-resistant attributes can be brought down by a heavy rain.
Nawaz Sharif showed up in Islamabad today on a flight. He was leaving exile in Saudi Arabia 7 years into a 10 year enforced exile. He was sent back the same morning. I watched those events unfold from an eliptical machine at our gym.
