India in the 1970s-The Hippie Trail

Although it wasn´t a British colony anymore there were lots of Europeans travelling to India in the 1970s. They came with the ´Hippie trail`, a big movement of mostly young people in search for spirituality. The reasons why they came were several. On the one hand they wanted to leave the money-oriented European world, on the other they expected to find the spirituality. It was like a search for love, peace and yourself. Most of them had become fascinated by the Hindu religion and hoped to get inspiration from Hindu gurus.

This trail was caused by the Beatles in 1966 who got effected by Indian music and religion. Many young people wanted to follow their heros and live on their example. However, most of them failed. Instead of spirituality they found poverty and homelessness. Often they took drugs and suffered not only physically but also emotionally from cuture shock and illness. The narrator of Heat and Dust meets some of those people (Chid) and is confronted with their situations (e.g. the people she sees on the streets in her first diary entry). 

India in the 1920s

As it was a British colony in the 1920s India was ruled and controlled by the British. At that time the British were involved in India for more than 300 years and since it had become a British colony in the 1850s there had been lots of wars and movements for independence.

The chief representive of British rule in India was the Viceroy who was sent there by the British Crown. as the country was divided in provinces and districts there were several chief administrators being reponsible for one district. They collected the taxes, kept law and order and gave advice to people who came to them. In our novel Mr Crawford has this job and Douglas is his assistent.

The British also ruled the Indian princes such as the Nawab in Heat and Dust.

In general, the British had a very good, often even luxurious life. As they were the rulers they belonged to the upper class and lived in comfortable bungalows, often waited on by a large number of Indian servants.  The progress and industry Britain had brought to India was more an advance for the British than for the Indians themselves. They made the law and were the economic winners.

However, the poor Indian people and the farmers didn´t benefit from the new progress. In oppisite, they suffered from the high taxes and the force to cultivate export products like cotton and not their daily food anymore. In fact, the poverty grow higher and there were bad famines caused by aridity and flood. The British did less to help the Indians out of their terrible situation.

Task to the diary entry „28 February“

Imagine you re one of the ´odd trio`. Write a letter in which you wrote to a friend before you went to India, setting down what your hopes and expectations are.

Then write to the same person now expressing how your time in India has affected you.

First letter:

Dear Susan!

I´m so excited! Tom and I are going to India! You may not believe it, but we´re not only going there, but staying and living in this country, that seems to be made for us. India offers everything we have searched for for so long, you know, it´s full of peace, freedom and spirituality!

Maybe you wonder how I should know this… Well, yesterday Tom and I went to a swami, a Hindu religious teacher, and he has really cast a spell on us. Since I´ve met him and got an idea of the Hindu religion I see the world through different eyes. Both of us, Tom and I, are no longer the same, as we now are full of love and peace. I can still feel the spirituality of the Universal Love, which seems to be the ´thing` I´ve always dreamed of. Just imagine: an ocean of sweetness!! The atmosphere and the feelings the swami created were so strong, that Tom and I weren´t able to speak until this morning. And still it´s hard to find word that can describe what I feel. At this moment I´m only sure about one thing: I want to go o India to find peace and finally ´swim` in the Universal Love! Since I´ve experienced what I did yesterday I know that I won´t be happy anywhere else than in India! You can only find yourself and the true peace and freedom by going there. As the Hindu lecture was just a foretaste of life and atmosphere in India, I expect it to be even stronger there. I think everything is filled with music, colours and good smells that open your mind and soul! Finally, my life is going to be great!

Tom and I have already broken up with everything here and are ready to leave soon. I do not care about matierial things anymore, so we won´t have much lugage to complicate the journay!!

Although I will never return to England, I hope to see you again! We will always be connected by the spirit of friendship and love!

Love and peace to you,

Rebecca

Second letter:

Dear Susan!

I´m so sorry that you didn´t here from me for such a long time. To tell the truth, I´ve totally failed. My dream of India has died and I there´s nothing in this world I want more than coming home to you and my familiy. I know, that I´ve hurt you a lot and I can really understand if you don´t want to hear from me again, but please give me a chance to explain myself!

In the beginning everything was great! As I wrote in my farewell letter, we were full of spirituality and peace. The poverty and hopelessness we saw on the streets couldn´t shock us being sure to make it better. I didn´t even feel sorry for those poor, often homeless Europeans as I thought their situation was their own fault and they just didn´t try hard enough to be successful! However, today I know that I was absolutely wrong, because there´s nothing to find and no success anywhere in this country! Who can find spirituality or even peace when he needs all his energy to survive? We have no money and no place to live. Every day is just a new search for food and a corner to lay down and rest…

Ohh, I can´t tell you how much I hate everything here. The food, the heat, the language and mostly the people. They are all the same, dishonest and dirty. I even don´t know anymore how often we have been robbed. You can´t trust anybody.

When I said India would change me, before I came here, I was defenitely right. It has changed me and I´m no longer the same as I lost almost all my happiness and optimism. My lust for life is gone as it is my faith in other people.

I really don´t like to do that, but asking you is our only chance to come out of this terrible life. Please help us!

Love,

Rebecca

Hello

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog about „Heat and Dust“!!

You can find my entries in the different categories on the right!

Enjoy yourself and leave a comment

Friederike

neighbour in the hostel

Appearance

• thin
• paper-white, vaporous
• wears a white nightgown that encases her from head to foot

State of mind

• strong believe in god
• lives only in his will
• hates Indian food

Backgrounds

• came to India 30 years ago
• is always in the S.M. when she comes to Bombay
• lives in Kafarabad
• has seen lots of terrible sights in India -> knows the country
• has known Miss Tietz for 20 years

Aims/ Wishes

• doesn´t want to become one of those poor people
• wants to live up to God´s will and do what he wants her to do

 

Narrator

Backgrounds

• grown up in England
• grandfather Douglas and grandmother Tessie had lived in India for some years

Aims/Wishes

• wants to find out about Olivia and her story
• go to the original places and „re-live“ it

Characteristics

• modest
• curious
• independent
• proud
• tough, strong, energetic
• flexible, adaptebal
• open minded
• self-confident
• has a good knowledge of human nature
• sensitive
• able to reflect on herself, to cahnge point of view
• tolerant
• (doesn´t care about what others think about her)

 

2 February

In her first diary entry the first person narrator describes her arrival and her first night in Bombay. She has come to India to retrack and relive the steps of Olivia, her grandfather´s first wife who lived in the British conlony in the 1920ties.

The first person narrator arrives in India for the first time about 40 or 50 yers later.  All she knows about the country is what Olivia has written in her letters, so of course the modern India is strange to her. She spends the night in the S.M. hostel, where she sleeps in one room with six other woman. When she wakes up at night and cannot find her watch, she immediately suspects one of the woman of having stolen it. This points at the -maybe typical- prejudices she has. However, the watch isn´t stolen, but her neighbour has taken it to show her carelessness. The woman, also European, has been living in India for about thirty years and knows the country and its people very well as she tells the narrator a lot about it. For example she warns her against the food and the water.

Further on she shows the narrator the life on the streets by explaining her what she can see through the window. The narrator sees the poor and rundown people, many of them Europeans who have failed in their search for spirituality. The neighbour has seen so many terrible sights in India, that she thinks living there is impossible without Jesus Christ, who besides plays a very important role in her live. Having seen all the people on the streets the narrator agrees with her neighbour in one big point: they look like souls in hell.

24 February

In this diary entry the I-narrator describes her excursion with Inder Lal to the Nawab´s Palace. By bus they travel to Khatm, the small town where the Palace is build. Until they reach the city they do not see anything but sand and dust. The town of Khatm is almost as empty and lifeless as the Palace is now exept for all the beggars on the streets.

The Palace which is set in spacious ground and has like a park surrounding it hasn´t been used since 1953, the year the Nawab died. From this day on the Nawab´s family tries to sell it without success.

An Indian man guides Inder Lal and the narrator through the inner part of the Palace. However, all the hall, rooms and galleries are empty because the furniture is all sold.

Inder Lal isn´t interested in the Palace and its history at all, but keeps on talking about the problems he has in his office.

His interest is first caught as the watchman shows them a shrine of a Hindu god. The small room in which it is fixed up is crowded with people.  Only because she wants to be polite, the narrator says she likes the statue and takes the bits of rock sugar and flower petals which are given to her. Later, feling unobserved she throws it away.

20 February

The first person narrator visits Inder Lal´s wife and his mother at his place. She is surprised by the untidiness of the roomwhich is swiftly cleared when she arrives. Instead of sitting on the ground as the others do it, the narrator is the only one who has to take her seat an a bench. Because of her not speaking Hindi, the women have big problems in understnding each other. Inder Lal´s mothers appraises the narrator as most Indians do. As the narrtor supposes, the English must look strange to them wearing Indian clothes and living the Indian way of life. Also the narrator has adaped to the Indian society by getting dressed like an Indian woman.

Further on the narrator explains the word hijra (=transvestite), which is often called after her. She knows it from Olivia´s letters, who had learned its meaning from the Nawab.

Hijras seem to be a very common thing in India. When the first person narrator saw them first, she was amused on the one hand, but a little depressed by the sad expressions on their faces on the other.

16 February

The narrator has travelled to Satipur now, where she has found a small apartement, which her landlord Inder Lal, has sub-let to her. It´s part of a house which is divided and sub-divided. Because she likes to feel spacious the narrator has not much furniture and no decoration in her apartement. She just doesn´t feel a need for anything like photographs and pictures. However, Inder Lal doesn´t like her way of living as he doesn´t like her to carry her luggage on her own. Nevertheless he is too polite to voice his disappointment.

As there´s a little slot of Olivias diary the reader gets to know that the I narrator is very different from Olivia, who had decorated her house with rugs, pictures and flowers.

The narrator has already seen the house of her relatives, which is not far from the place she´s living in. It also turns out, that Inder Lal´s department is in the house the Crawfords lived in in 1923.