Sunday, January 14, 1996

Mahabalipuram, the eighty-sixth day


We visit the temples, we eat on the street and we observe the nature. We learn the simplicity and beauty of ethnic life and distance is taken from misery. We will go home and India will have been a wonderful experience. But few imagine or have the opportunity to see the daily life of the Indian bourgeoisie. Tourists go to places for tourists and if by chance there are no tourists, in places where there are only poor. The Indians have an easy way of life similar to ours and this is not the goal of our vacation to see a copy of everyday life.
  Visiting this theme park for children after the crocodile farm and the tiger caves, was more interesting than it appeared. It was the first time I had the opportunity to go to a place where only tourists without the "middle class" seemed acceptable. Only happy people, children who were just playing and none of which seemed to work for his parents, a world apart! All these people did not really seem to exist in touristic areas; they do not mix with the working class. When the “middle class” is present in luxury places where also the tourists are, they lose their identity as Indians ethnic curiosity because we are so similar and we do not even pay attention to them, but finding them in a reserved place, a kind of ghetto, was strange.

No comments:

Post a Comment