The ugly Indian visits serene and gentle Cambodia

Madhu Jain |
Daily News and Analysis
Friday, December 17, 2010

Each time I return to India after a longer-than-brief spell abroad I want to kiss the soil. This land of ours has given birth to some of the world’s greatest thinkers and religions.

Not to forget the soul-satisfying daal-chaval and roti. But the same precious soil has also given birth to the un-biodegradable caste system. Not even conversion to another religion completely uproots it.

Nor does migration to other continents: I have come across several Goan Catholics or Syrian Christians who boast about their Brahmin ancestry. Nor does death: some cemeteries in India are reserved for Brahmin converts to Christianity.

Normally, I don’t think about such matters. But I have just returned from a blissful week in Cambodia. Siem Reap, located in the north-western part of the country, is the gateway to the millennium-old famed Angkor temples of the ancient Khmer Empire.

The awe-inspiring Angkor Wat, spread over 240 hectares and surrounded by a beautiful moat, is the largest religious monument in the world. Originally known as Vrah Vishnulok — the sacred abode of Lord Vishnu — it was a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu by Khmer king Suryavarman II in the first half of the 12th century.

The eight-armed statue of Vishnu that that once stood in the central shrine was probably moved to the outer gallery when Buddhism became the predominant religion towards the end of the 12th century. King Jayavarman VII, a convert to the Mahayana Buddhist sect, erected Buddhist shrines in Angkor and many Hindu shrines were transformed into Buddhist ones.

But I digress; the point I want to make is that casteism appears to be absent here — to an uninformed eye like mine. And this, despite the brief resurgence of Hinduism in the 13th century. Perhaps, it was offloaded during the transition from Hinduism to Theravada Buddhism later in the century: over 90% of the Cambodians are Theravada Buddhists.

Brought to this region from what is now Sri Lanka, this tradition went against the royal elitism of the Angkor kings, Hindus and Buddhists alike.

There are only two kinds of Cambodians today according to our young and wise — and inordinately courteous — driver: the rich and poor.

Who are the rich? “Government servants,” pat came the answer, “there is so much corruption”. Well, they might have exorcised the caste system to a great extent but corruption is something the Cambodians still share with India.

What we don’t share, alas, is the prevalent gentleness of the people in this lush, green temple-dotted land. God knows this poor country has had more than its share of suffering: the genocide and devastation caused by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge lie just beneath the surface.

Actually, on it as well: museums recount unimaginably horrific evidence of the killing fields.

Yet, you see little but the serene smiles and hear the ubiquitous “sorry” (almost as omnipresent as hello or thank you). Even the pesky, insistent tuk tuk valas (motorcycle-driven autorickshaws) are not aggressive. Nor are the salesmen and women with whom you have to bargain incessantly.

Actually, I caught myself more than once bargaining too aggressively — or worse ticking off a waiter in a restaurant who had brought the wrong order. I was becoming the Ugly Indian.

Fortunately, towards the end of our stay I toned down the aggression and found myself saying “sorry” as frequently as the people of Siem Reap.