Page Four

SCA.tLET AND BLACK

Friday, November l8. I95.

 

 

l Nee vel—

by Walt Necvcl

AHMEDNAGAR, IN'DIAilndliit (““0”“- of

is known tor its heterogeneous
composition, Languages, customs,
climate and countryside change
continuously from one place to
another. Yet for all this, to the
outsider at least, lndia always
seems like lndia,

Such is my impression alter
having spent three weeks touring
the south of lndia. The diffe
ences provide the spice that en—
tices the tourist; but the cows
and lethargic water buffalo
which roam even the big cities,
the heavily loaded bullock carts,
the persistent beggars, the multi~
shaded people, the streets crowd—
ed with every type of convey~
once, most of them also having a
blaring horn or a jangllng bell,
and the omnipresent shrines to
the Hindu gods give substance to
this delightful dish called india.

My “home” in india, Ahmed-
hagar, has always struck me
as being an overgrown village.
Although it has 100,000 inhabi—
tants, one always ieels close
to the villages from which the
people come. There are few
cars or industries, narrow
winding streets and few shops
that are more than “holes in
the wallt"

“Nagar” is also very dusty be.
cause it is situated on a plateau
which receives inadequate and
unpredictable rainfall, This
makes life very hard tor the

LETTERS
Cont from p. 2
namely my own.

I came to Grinnell in the
year of 1959490, the recipient or
a $900 Brody scholar-ship and a
$300 work grant. Last year’s
raise in tuition raised thc ques-
tion in the minds of my tamily
as to whether or not it would
be possible to continue sending

me to Grinncll, particularly af--

ter having my scholarship dc-

 

 

this arcaicspecially
the water buffalo which seem
cven more forlorn because there
is little water in which they can
loaf.

My first stop on my tour was
to be Bangalore in Mysore state.
the garden city of lndia. it would
take 28 hours to cover the 580
miles—such is the rate of travel
here, As we joggcd along, the
countryside changed from the
dusty but fertile Deccan plateau
to the rockiest land 1 had ever
seen.

That it was still being farmed
was hard to believe, but corn
stalks stood weakly among the
boulders The people could easily
have harvested more rocks per
acre than ears.

As we got tui-ther south the
land got greener, and palm trccs
became more regular. Something
entirely new also appeared in a
most unexpected way. Early in
the morning while we had
stopped in a station, 1 threw a
banana peel out the window.

A few minutes later i slccpily
stuck my head out the door of the
compartment to look around. i
woke up with a shock when an
inhuman face boldly stared at
me from a foot away, it was one
of half a dozen hungry grey
monkeys who were hanging to
the side of the car hoping ior
more peelings.

l scared them back by “Shoots
lug” them with my camera.

lThEse fellows ioined the cows

and buffalo as ubiquitous in-

,hﬂbitams of the south.

in Bangalore city one finds
perhaps the best example of
what the new lndia hopes to
be. One of the most rapidly de-
veloping industrial centers in
india, its progress has been
carefully planned to prevent
its becoming just another dirty
big city

its flowered streets, parks and
gardens, a huge botanical garden,

creased for not having reached many new and striking buildings

a 3-0 grade point average.

The obvious
looking over the family' ii-
nances tiny lather turns 3
600), was no. However,
could not leaver

I couldn't leave tor a cheap
er institution and continue my
schooling because before my
credits can be transferred to
another school, i must repay my
entire scholarship to Grinnell.
Being a 2.5 student. my scholar-
ship, now $700 cannot be raised,
and I am being forced to bor-
row Ssﬂoinexl year 3400, etc.

When i graduate i will have
a debt of over $l,000 plus in<
terest with which to begin life.
1 cannot attend graduate school
but must begin teaching imr
medlately in order that my
younger sister and brother may
attend college
‘ I only hope that they will
have enough sense to choose a
more inexpensive school, one
which may not meet the den
errands of their minds but
which will more nearly ap-
‘ proximate that of their pockcta
books

I sincerely hope that this let—
‘let will serve to point out the
trap which has envoloped‘manv
students on this campus and
will opcn this problem to ser—
ious consideration of the pres-
ent rules regarding scholarships.
In deference to my paren.. i
ask that my mme be omitted

Name Withheld

I

no the Edito

T have read the Scarlet and
Black for better than a year
now and have seen therein sev—
eral things with which i have
disagreed. Never have i raised
my voice in protest, however,
as I believe in the right of the
.press to publish its views.
whether
'Wlth mine or not

Last week’s column by Miss
Tushnct is, howcvcr, the limit.
ing factor. A more abortive
waste oi news paper space i
have never seen and certainly
hope never to see again, in the
slut, or elsewhere.

Jack Morris

i
l

they be: in agreement.

and an extensive cultural pro

answer, after jgram combine to make Bangalore

unique among the cities l have
seen.

Madras was my next stop
it was interesting to find pri
mitive villages of fishermen on
the beaches in the city. Tlmse
were the strongest looking Ins
dians 1 had seen, They fought
the sea on crude little boats
that were little more than surf
boards. They ottercd me a ride
on one, but i was neither ready
nor willing.

From Madras I proceeded to
the most unusual experience of
my life. one of my major con.
cerns here has been to become
acquainted with the religions of
lndia. Many unusual experien—
ces, which will be the topic of
another articlc, have come my
way in this “quest” but none
as strange as my five days at
the Sri Aurobindo ashram at
Pondicherry,

The word “ashram" usually
connotes a comparatively small

Personalized
Chrislmas

Cards

by

Hallmark

"When You
Care Enough
To Send The

5 8 0 Miles in 28 flours

group of people who have clois—
tiered themselves in a sccludcol
-spot. Therefore, the lirst strange
thing aboutiihc Sri Aurobindo.
lashrani was that it did not
‘Scem like an ashram at all There
were about 1400 ashl'amlies who
tlived scattered all over Pondie
chci-ry, a lovely seaside town
or 50,000.

From the outside the ashra—
mitcs’ lives seemed completely
normal. The ashram, being a
1self-contained unit which has
1311 the industries and more that
tsucll a group necds, provides
‘work for its members, who put
in eight-hour days, There are
also ashram schools through the
university level. As one small
boy said to me, “We do the
same things as other people, on.
ly in a diticrcnt way.”

Avowedly, all the ashrainites‘
were there because they wished
to live on the tiighcst spiritual
level possible. To remain in the

i

from sexual activity, liquor,
tobacco and politics To kccp'
the ashram on a nonsl'eliglous
‘b’dSIs, thcse were the only statat
,cd requirements. However, there
were many other points upon
which the ashramitcs werc une
animously agrecd.

These were the points which
made the ashram so strange
to a westerner and indeed to
many easterners. Although ,
Sri Aurobindo's philosophy is i
too complicated for simple
statements, for the most part
it springs from a thoroughly ,

inn—tilepass the lotus,

, Huddle-
’il l dih...

What sell-same New World
Sun the beating heart

VAssYA» “is

ﬂow/mt, met! my
me Jim/t peer/tr Maw/V:
Elli/em, Me my cum:

If ﬁfe. Mfr iii/71!]

aim mm mitt)

theory is too involved [or this

in a iuture article.

A bit bewildered by the
wondertully friendly and gcnv
uino iishrainites with their
strange ideas, 1 next lrnveluﬂ
to Madurai, a city famous tor
its temples. The huge temples
oi the south are unmatched
elsewhere in lndia.

From the outside the dis-
tinguishing leature was the tall
pyramidal tower covered with
thousands of carvings. inside i

lee, ltlt'iit,

Doacettty
man, limit!

wtll thank
me!

a contented water buffalo in

ashram they must also abstain-travelogue but will be included puddle, some cows were inunc

‘ing the grass, a bullock cart w
iwaiting 31. the crossing, the b
lgars would be at the next st
tion and there on a little rais
island among the paddics we
lsome rocks covered with th
‘deep orange powder which Hi
ldus all over India use to sin.
lfy a holy place.

l

went through passage alter paSel

sage in which stone tigures and
paintings told the stories of the

 

eastern viewpoint. Such a
viewpoint includes belief in l
occult beings and in I‘cincarna— :
iiolL
While such ideas make one
feel uneasy, they are by no
means unusual. The ashramites
Ial‘e unique because of their be-,
=llef in the Divine Mother zind‘
ltlleil' conviction that they are,
tworking toward the inevitable
transformation of man into an
tCllllrEly new race.
‘ The Divine Mother is a Fl‘ench'
woman around whom the en-l
ltire ashram revolves. She is
considered to be a complete ine
carnation of the Divine and is
worshiped with the same fcrvor
which Christ receives in con—
servative churches. ‘
l She indeed plays almost ex.
actiy the same part which
Christ plays in traditional Chris.
tianity. Only through complete
surrender to her can one hope
to receive the transforming.
power of the Divine which is
alive in the Mother. ‘
This transforming power, once
mankind is propcrly prepared,
will enter into all men and:
bring about a new race, Thist
i
race will not only have a new‘
spirit but will also have a new
ldeathless body. Howl Thcl

 

l .
GLASSES

Made and Repaired in
uur Laboratory.

Conl'acl' Lenses t
CASES AND ‘
SOLUTIONS

EYES

EXAMINED

E. J. Jensen. O.D.

Optometrist

Across from Post Office

lwatched

gods, peeped into the torbiddcn
doorways through which the
pilgrims went to the idols and
processions of ele—
phants, camels, bulls and idols
as they wound through the tem—
ple tollowed by chanting de—
voices.

in many of the passages there
were also hawkers selling their
warcs. Such is the way in which
daily affairs are mixed lndis~

lcriminately with religion. Some»

times ths is good, but more of-
ten the practice obscures the
beauty oi religion lust as the
hawkers hid many of the love—
ly figures behind their
wares.

So with my itinerary complet—
ed and my funds depleted, I
began my weary way “home."
Outside the train palm trecs and

rice paddles slid by, ll. seemed‘

very different from Ahmedna—
gar. But then againetherc was

STRAND

TUES. & WED.

THANKSGIVING EVE!

The world
fumed
novel is
an the
screen!

 

20.

JERRY
WALD‘S

production

 

 

 

 

 

 

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