When I was in India in 2006 with my class on a study travel, I was sitting in an internet cafe. I was writing about what we experienced and learned thus far. It was in December in Varanasi. Suddenly a consternation and many people came running from the left side of me and stopping right in front of the window I was writing behind.
During writing that report this happened that still is in my memory.
“During writing I heard voices.
During writing I saw a man next to the window being angry and yelling.
During writing I saw an older man becoming afraid.
During writing I saw a younger man coming – arrogant, angry and full with adrenaline.
During writing I saw the older man falling down on his knees, being beaten by the younger man with a long stick of a thumb wide.
During writing I saw panic in the eyes of the older man, not knowing what to do.
During writing I saw other people just looking at it and laughing amused to the situation.
During writing I saw the older man breaking down and crying, feeling abandoned by the world for that moment.
During writing I saw the younger man being ironic and mean, trying to “help” the older man who he just beaten and kicked to tears.
Then the older man scrambled himself together, stood up and fled away, and for some time it was still a point of laughter in the street.
It made me feel sick. I don’t know where it was about. But that doesn’t really matter. It was too ‘incredible’ to see this happen, and knowing that it is ‘normal’. ‘Incredible India’ – yeah… right….
What to do about it?
Nothing. It is for me a helpless situation. A foreigner in India seeing this happening and nothing you can do.”
Daniel Arendzen 