Today is the day of the wedding ceremony. And the final party in a long series of parties, Father Joe, long-standing friend of my host, is one of the two priests who leads the ceremony - a spiritual blessing. It is lovely. I am very impressed by the thoughtfulness, learning, and care for others expressed by the people I meet. They are privileged people, and are using their wealth skills and connections to build businesses which will bring Indian excellence into the world, are universally hardworking - doctors, businessmen. The whole time that I am in India (and admittedly, for quite a lot of it I am alone, with noone to talk to), I hear not a single conversation about material goods - nothing about what anyone has - no discussion of possessions. We talk of the work that people are doing, in medicine, business, of the new businesses they want to create, of biology, the legacy of the Portuguese, who were the rulers of Goa from the 16th century until 1961, when the Indians invaded and the Portugese left. I think it would be different in England. I would come away with more information about material achievements.
The ceremony includes the Song of Soloman, hindu and Islamic references, and a poem based on a poem by an American poet. Generally, over my stay, I am inpressed by the knowledge and positive reganrd that people ha ve of other religions. Father Joe says that [the meaning of the word “God” is “Joy” . I don’t think I have ever heard this before, and I like it.
I sit next to Father Joe. The Kripa Foundation, http://www.kripafoundation.org/Home.html which he established and runs, has 27 centres for addicts - alcahol, and drugs. Many of them are HIV+. I have already met one of the doctors who works with the Foundation and of all the doctors I have met so far, he is the one who immediately “got” what I was talking about - the importance of apoptosis as the measue of disease progression - something which is not common amongst HIV sufferers or their doctors yet. India has almost 6m HIV+ people, making it the country with the largest no of HIV sufferers afterr South Africa, There is huge stigma, and apparently, because of that, a problem with conpliance - Indians do not want to admit that they are HIV+ and so they neglect to take their drugs…
I can’t judge the poverty of the country from Goa, which is the richest state, but Goa, certainly, is far from black South Africa - in South Afria traditional forms of living have been destroyed largely, leading to social breakdown, whereas here, it seems that society is in good shape, eveloving into the future. There is a palpable sense of pride, of joy. People are warm and have time for others. One sees far more men that women, and some of them do look as if they carry anger. But there is no sense of hopelessness, of victim hood, such as one can find in South Africa.
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