Kokoro, by Lafcadio Hearn excerpt

At times when I think Delhi's not that bad after all the next thought inevitably is wondering why I didn't do this earlier.

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I decided to download one of the free ebooks available on the  Kindle Store today. While browsing I saw this title called Kokoro, Japanese Inner Life Hints by Lafcadio Hearn.

Hearn was a Westerner observing the Japanese, for 24 years since 1890. This was a superb observation he made and I had to share it.

The good stuff kicks in from the second para.

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The Japanese population represents a medium whose particles are in perpetual circulation. The motion is in itself peculiar. It is larger and more eccentric than the motion of Occidental populations, though feebler between points. It is also much more natural,--so natural that it could not exist in Western civilization. The relative mobility of a European population and the Japanese population might be expressed by a comparison between certain high velocities of vibration and certain low ones. But the high velocities would represent, in such a comparison, the consequence of artificial force applied; the slower vibrations would not. And this difference of kind would mean more than surface indications could announce. In one sense, Americans may be right in thinking themselves great travelers. In another, they are certainly wrong; the man of the people in America cannot compare, as a traveler, with the man of the people in Japan. And of course, in considering relative mobility of populations, one must consider chiefly the great masses, the workers,--not merely the small class of wealth. In their own country, the Japanese are the greatest travelers of any civilized people. They are the greatest travelers because, even in a land composed mainly of mountain chains, they recognize no obstacles to travel. The Japanese who travels most is not the man who needs railways or steamers to carry him.

Now, with us, the common worker is incomparably less free than the common worker in Japan. He is less free because of the more complicated mechanism of Occidental societies, whose forces tend to agglomeration and solid integration. He is less free because the social and industrial machinery on which he must depend reshapes him to its own particular requirements, and always so as to evolve some special and artificial capacity at the cost of other inherent capacity. He is less free because he must live at a standard making it impossible for him to win financial independence by mere thrift. To achieve any such independence, he must possess exceptional character and exceptional faculties greater than those of thousands of exceptional competitors equally eager to escape from the same thralldom.

In brief, then, he is less independent because the special character of his civilization numbs his natural power to live without the help of machinery or large capital. To live thus artificially means to lose, sooner or later, the power of independent movement. Before a Western man can move he has many things to consider. Before a Japanese moves he has nothing to consider. He simply leaves the place he dislikes, and goes to the place he wishes, without any trouble. There is nothing to prevent him. Poverty is not an obstacle, but a stimulus.
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Crownish in Delhi: First observations

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Sat Sri Akal from the national capital.

I've been here for more than a month now. First observations: It is frikking hot, I totally understood why the amazing B&B I stayed at in my first week here had a fan in the bathroom, you sweat quicker than you can shower.

Aas paas barse, Dilli pari tarse is true to a large extent, there have been two good days of rainfall in my time here while Mumbai has been getting a drenching every other day. The perks of being a capital are plain to see though, between the Metro and the buses, public transport is excellent even if the rickshaw guys keep telling you stories about how the meter readings are all outdated and my ride costs more under a mythical new tariff rate. I keep riling them by telling them about the honest rickshaw guys of Mumbai, they sneer.

There are plenty of places to go, things to do and people to meet and I will be writing on some for DNA of Delhi.

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The booze, oh the booze. Drinking out is so much friendlier on the wallet than it is in Mumbai!

I'll admit seeing 'No firearms' signs can sober you up quick but the rates and especially the happy hours will drown out any objecting brain cells immediately.

Drive down to one of the farmhouses at Chhatarpur where chances are you'll find a good resort with no other customers at the bar, enjoy it all by yourself with two guys playing live music just for you and not curl into a foetal position, crying when the bill comes. You go straight to foetal curling at the wine shop itself in Mumbai.

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If you're only gonna eat out, Paneer will be omnipresent in your meals but that's a complaint only if you don't rate it much like me. Rajma, Chhole and Kadhi chawal are staple food, something I wish could happen in Mumbai too. Disappointingly, Dal-Khichdi, so popular with the Mughal rulers based out of Delhi is not easy to find at most restaurants.

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I was invited to dinner at the home a friend of my father's in my first week in Delhi, I knew the family from their time in Pune. I politely listened to his cautions about staying outside past 10 pm 'because people are romba aggressive pa' and nodded appropriately in between stuffing mouthfuls. Then he said something that hit me hard. They were going away to visit their relatives in Trichy for a month. No home food, once, twice or at the most, thrice a week for the next month.

Thankfully I found out about the Adyar Ananda Bhavan in Green Park, close enough from Safdarjung Enclave where I was working out of then. About Gunpowder and Naivedyam.

And about the canteens at the Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu state bhavans. Both easily reachable by bus. I even met the information officer at the Andhra Pradesh who informed me he works for the CM of Andhra. He kept addressing me as Moorthy but also insisted that I should not pay for lunch at the canteen so hey, free lunch right?

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The best thing is that I can afford to live in a very central part of the city, South Ex. To buy something in a similar area in Mumbai I would have to sell an organ every week for 30 years and hope the builder doesn't run away with my money without so much as digging a hole.

My daily commute here is about 15 minutes. In Mumbai it's a soul and body crushing 90 minutes spanning rickshaws, buses and trains that feels like purgatory.

Plus there's a heritage structure bang opposite my accommodation where I play cricket on weekends and spend quiet time at nights wondering why mosquitoes aren't extinct already.

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About 95% of my friends cracked a rape joke the first time I told them I'll be in Delhi for a while. You muster a smile the first time but you want to strangle a person when you hear it the 97th time. Then you stop telling people you're going to be in Delhi.

I live close to a big shopping locality (could be one of thousands in Delhi) so most of the people I see are well dressed and made up. They look good but here's the fact, Delhi men do lech, more openly than they think, over the rim of their chai glasses, through the hanging smoke of their cigarettes. You'd have to be blind to not notice.

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More Delhi things: Stray dogs chill out on the roof of cars. All day. At night, when you're walking on a decently lit road except for those two cars under the shadows thrown by the trees and get closer and you hear a nasty sustained low growl, coming from a place closer to your neck than your heel, it's not fun. Then your chappal breaks.

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Here is your change, it's torn. If you're lucky, you'll not get frikkin Alpenliebe or Apollo Pharmacy's inhouse rip off of Hajmola candy for change but you'll get actual money. Even then you're lucky if you get coins and not a torn 5 rupee note. I didn't even know there were so many 5 rupee notes still in circulation in India.

Breaking a 500 or a 1000 rupee note is a lengthy process. Shopkeepers will look at notes in so many angles that would make the Gandhi on it feel conscious. Then every other shopkeeper in the area is invited to pass his verdict on it's authenticity. Then they might want to sleep over it and hold a ballot. Hence I kick the ATM whenever it spits out only the big denominations.

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It's a huge city, I've barely seen the start of it. As I do, I'll post more.