Our time in India was the most challenging of our time spent as a family travelling. We found India to be full of energy, but not always comprehensible to us. Perhaps the greatest gift were the questions we all found difficult to answer. Here are a few.
Why do babies die?
Is this food safe for my children to eat?
Can they fall off?
Why does everybody honk their horn all the time?
Why is that moped driving straight at me on the pavement?
Why do we eat meat?
Why do we feel the need for a glass of wine (or 2) at home, but not here?
Why do people bathe in a polluted river?
How can a river be filthy and polluted and yet magnificent and spiritual?
Why do people shit in the street?
What spices are in this?
Why do we all have to die?
What did we take from India when it was a colony?
How difficult must it be to make progress in maths, when lessons are in English, and your first language is Hindi?
What is it like to have to collect your water from a well every morning?
How much does your kitchen roof leak when it rains?
Why is that car driving the wrong way down the motorway towards us?
Is it safe to eat a chapatti cooked in a cow-dung fire?
How can a grown man be happy to have his mother select his wife?
What was it like to be one of 300 concubines?
How will the world political stage look 10 years from now?
Why are we overtaking around a blind corner?
Will we make it?
How can there be such a difference between rich and poor?
How can the gap be narrowed?
Is this fruit juice safe to drink?
Why did people think it was clever to hunt tigers?
How many tigers are left in the world?
Why do people make their kitchen floor from cow dung?
How can you stop country-wide corruption?
How many cow-dung fuel blocks can one cow produce a day?
Do religions all have a common core?
What are we doing here?
How much does a camel cost?
How much does this carpet cost?
Can our children cope with this?
Why is it so noisy?
Why are there beggars?
Why is that mother begging with her child?
How can she be so gracious in her kitchen?
Is this hairdresser qualified?
What is the wifi password?
Does it hurt pulling those paratas out of the oil with bare fingers?
How could that girl's family sell her to be married at age 13, to a man who beats her?
Why are you putting henna on my hand?
Why do so many people chew pan?
Do they go to the dentist?
How many gold coins make a reasonable dowry?
Why isn't there a vaccine for Dengue Fever?
Why is that girl working in a fair and not going to school?
Why do we spend time shopping?
Why do you want me to put petals in the lake?
Is this a scam?
Does that child have a pimp?
Will I help or hinder that beggar by giving them 10 rupees?
Is it a good thing for my children to see death?
How many cups of chai do you need to sell every day to have enough to feed your family?
How is her life different to mine?
What makes her smile?
What makes me happy?
How are her cares similar to mine?
No comments:
Post a Comment