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of knowledge for enlightenment. And what is worse he will teach in the same manner he has learned.
May 24
Indians are used to urinating when they feel like it. If a man is riding in a rickshaw and feels the need, he tells the driver to stop, gets out, goes to the side of the road, squats and urinates, gets back in and continues his ride. At any time or place men consider it proper to relieve themselves. This is done with great privacy even though in public. Squatting and wearing wide pajamas or dhoti provide enough cover so as not to offend even the decency of any passing woman. Indian bathroom habits are free of the taint of repression found in the west. As a result there is also the lack of restraint involved. Also involved is the concept that the street is an extension of one's private person. It is not a place to speed cars and trucks through. It is the property of humans going about human business, part of which includes the elimination of waste matter. Children are raised without underpants, running around till the age of four or so with just a blouse on. Since the size of latrines are meant only for adults most children perform their toilet in the street. Boys and girls will be lined up along a curb, chattering to each other their backsides to the road urinating. As a baby he will just eliminate on the floor and the mother will pick it up and throw it in the latrine, washing some water over the floor. Since the floors in Indian homes are closely related to dirt earth. No rugs, just a flat sloping area of concrete with an open drain on one side. The floor will be washed at least once a day by pouring buckets of water over it. No fuss is made about urine on the floor, Indians consider it little more than water and
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harmless as far as pollution. Children raised without covering the genitals, means there is no mystery about sexual difference. The streets are constantly full of naked children. So they are aware at an early age. The child here is raised with great freedom and pampered, especially male children, they are coddled and petted with delight by parents. Fathers also tend children and take them out showing great affection. But at a certain age this stops, the girls are separated and sheltered, the boys assume responsibilities. I am unclear at what age this happens or the exact pressures are brought to bear. Though Indians must know about sex at an early age, family living so closely, this does not seem to produce a free attitude towards sex for most Indians are sexually repressed. Just what exactly causes this attitude I can only guess: the separation of young men and women in daily life and school, the traditional taboos of religion and caste, the control of the marriage by the parents, dependency on parents, economics, lack of privacy etc. The sexual mores of Indians are fascinatingly perverse and tight, while their toilet habits remain loose.
This rambles too much. I must try to treat sexual attitudes here at great length.
May 24, 70
Personal: the mind is cold. Withdrawn, detached too far, become not objective or subjective but beyond. Beyond photography or thought, capable or action no longer. It happens sometimes, the futility of all being.
men wash their own clothes
[ILLEGIBLE: looks like "Rurka Sehula"] when he visited me slept outside as it was very warm, we carried a cot outside. He asked me which way was north. I told him and he arranged to sleep with his head to the south. In Dubois book p 249 I find "A Brahmin must
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