I think I had glimmerings of this perception many years ago when I was a graduate student. A group of us went to see the first episode of Star Wars. When we left the theater, one of my fellow graduate students remarked, in an awestruck tone, "I did not realize that the movie dealt with such classical themes." I looked at her quizzically, wondering what she could mean. She returned my look and said, "You know? Classical themes like the eternal struggle between Good and Evil?" As I thought about this over the next several days, I realized that this concept of an eternal fight between "good" and "evil" was not inherent in my view of the world. Indeed, the ideas that there are some entities that embody goodness and others that embody evil, that these exist in eternal conflict with each other, with the good almost inevitably winning at ...
East is East, ...
I have lived in this country somewhat longer than in the country of my birth. There are times when I wonder, as is probably true of many expatriates, what I really am. Am I Indian, American, or some bastardized version that is neither? There is not very much in my behavior now that is completely Indian, at least to the casual observer. But at a deeper level, I realize that my reactions to many situations seem to be informed more by my cultural heritage, than by the culture in which I live. I th
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