Rural India

Driving back from Surat, Gujarat we took the inner roads. I mean one doesn't get much choice here! Lol

These roads travel through many villages and farm lands. Going from a township ( which is different from life in the city) to villages made up of tarps and farm animals for their daily living is a huge difference one can't even imagine. Here I am stuck in my little car and little world with all the comforts I could have. In these villages, the entire family heads off to work their fields including the children. No school for these children, but they do learn from the lands. They may not be educated in reading and writing, but farming and meeting their basic needs is well known. Sadly, these children don't get to enjoy life as our own children will get to. But that doesn't seem to bother them as I pass children with big smiles on their face.

Often through these small villages, I would see villagers building infrastructure. No hat, obviously not educated and without shoes and proper attire. Even people digging pipeline ditches with a bowl! But it works for them as they seem to get them dug and built! Sometimes this construction is to fix roads. In that case, the road just is closed off usually by putting huge rocks in the way. No notice, just inconvenience. The road travelers don't mind, they keep trucking by but at a slower pace pushing by the cars going opposite way. No one gets angry as they all wait their turn. Some bigger trucks attempt to pass by going over the rocks, but they soon give up! A simple way to prevent passage on a road! Lol

Passing over many bridges as we go, there are no railings on the sides to prevent you from falling off. Drivers with mutual understanding not to be hasty in their driving and share the road. Not like road rage we face in USA. Maybe they have some here with road rage, but for general driving population we encountered...I didn't see one person on a rickshaw, scooter or car upset traffic wasn't moving as fast as they wanted. Maybe our roads have too many rules that we don't give people a chance to use common sense enough to handle driving responsibily. Maybe that's what causes road rage in mour country? Who knows!?

Being in a rural part of India with many miles to travel from a city, there is not a central place to worship, but many people want to say prayers for the things God has given them. Since their faith is different than what I am used to, I will tell you what I see from a Christian stand point. They practice religion on their own. Spiritual faith is an individual relationship with God. No one to answer to, no one to judge you if you haven't attended in a while and no one to comment on your personal walk. One is left alone to pray how one feels is right. Usually this is taught at an early age by seeing the parents or older siblings pray. Yes around the towns there are fancy temples and some do attend, but not a dedicated time like we do on Sunday here. It could very well be due to the fact that Sunday is their only day of rest here as they work six days a week. Or in another hand, this country is very old and has been practicing this way for centuries. It works for them, so why change it. Back to the rural parts of India...every few miles I would see a road side temple. So regardless where you are from in India, you always have a place to worship if one does choose to. Even when I didn't see a soul around, there were temples, so there had to be people near by.

Now at home, some have a small temple for themselves and do daily pooja. Which is prayers. But sometimes in their faith they want to speak to someone who has blessings from one of their many gods. That's when some visit the temples. The ones who are at the temples and offer blessings for these people, actually live at the temple with a usually no luxeries other than pleasing gods. They feel it's their life work to be there for others. One could say that they don't think it's different from Christianity, but from a insider on both faiths....it is. Hard to describe in a blog. One must feel the peacefulness in a temple.