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Indian civilization is still in an early stage where tactical values abound. Touch though unconscious is highly developed. Everything in India is handled personally. No plastic wrapped food, feces, body, culture. India is a place of direct contact. Indians are raised in close physical relations. They sleep together, several on a bed, body against body. Crowded streets reflect the mass contact that develops in the family. The tolerance of closeness is much greater than in the west. Privacy does not exist. All human actions eating, sleeping, dressing, latrine are carried on in the presence of others. When bathing, Indian men delight in covering themselves with mustard oil, sensually massaging their limbs and taking turns rubbing each other in the most intimate manner. They sit squat, twist their legs from childhood into contortions that are comfortable to them. These involve much more physical contact with their own bodies. Squatting position used in elimination of waste matter - the left hand in direct contact with the anus and feces. (Psychologists stay this feeling of your own feces develops into a strong sense of modeling: i.e., the fluid modeling of form apparent in Indian sculpture).

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All food is handled endless times (the western concept of hygiene does not exist). Food is eaten with the right hand. Shoes are not worn in the house, feet in contact with ground. Men in public constantly have their hands on their friends. Holding hands, arms around each other, embracing in lover fashion. The "negligent leaving of flesh" is a constant here. Friends sit in shops, on the street, arms draped over each other, limbs entwined in close body contact, even when riding bicycles together it is not unusual for men to hold hands. (no chance for physical closeness is missed between men, in marked contrast to the public relations between men and women which are cold and very separate.) - The clothes Indians wear, of simple light fabrics draped with many folds, make one aware of he movement of cloth against the body. The outside and interior walls of Indian houses are mostly covered in molded concrete, then white washed, which fades and crumbles quickly giving a strong live textured quality. The roads are of brick, stone, or dirt, uneven, nothing is flat or straight or smooth. Everything has a direct manhandled feeling. Tea is drunk from clay cups made to be thrown away, delicately diluted on the potters wheel, it gives the tea an edge, a subtle taste of the hand that made it, of the earth that gave it birth. The intense heat of summer increases one's awareness of his body. Everything conspires to make you tactically aware. May 20, 70