Ancient Rome had a saying that to cross the Rubicon River was to pass the point of no return. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River in 49 BC, a civil war began in Rome. The previous status quo is gone, and there is no way back. Since my last blog post, I have crossed a metaphorical Rubicon River. The past week in Hampi and Mumbai has ignited a personal civil war. My values and beliefs about the human experience have been shaken. I know not what Finn Meredith will develop from the past week’s experience, but I know it will not be the same Finn Meredith that arrived in India three weeks ago.
Exploring the hauntingly beautiful ruins of Hampi was the first step into the Rubicon River. Seeing Virupaksha Temple, the Lotus Mahal, and the Queens Temple boggles the mind. The intricacies of the statues carved into Virupaksha Temple gave it an aura of power and beauty. I was entranced the entire time we walked around the ruined temple. Amongst the beauty of what was left, I was struck with the full realization of humanity’s destructive potential. Hampi was once the second-largest city in the world. It shone brightly with colour and life. However – as has been repeated throughout human history – two men disagreed on who should rule the land. Over six months 500 years ago, men pillaged and burnt the buildings of Hampi and slaughtered its inhabitants. Hampi was left more destroyed than Christchurch after the Christchurch Earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. People are ultimately good, but it was hard to hold that belief among Hampi’s ruins.
The Rubicon River was crossed during our tour of Mumbai’s Dharavi slum. Dharavi is Asia’s second-largest slum. Dharavi is not what I expected at all. It is both better and worse than I thought. Dharavi is a community with pride in their pain and pain in their pride. The working conditions of some people shocked me as labour laws are close to my heart. It was impossible to tell in Dharavi, who was an innovative entrepreneur making the most of their limited resources and who was a worker being abused by Mumbai’s upper class. As the group journeyed into Dharavi’s industrial sector, Janna (our fantastic tour guide) showed us factories where the workers were doing excellent work to recycle plastic that the rich and tourists had thrown away. However, he also showed workers being paid 12 rupees (less than $1 NZD) per day. Most of that money was sent to their families in rural India. This left the workers with insufficient funds to sleep anywhere but on the factory floors. These abused workers only saw their families in the monsoon season for two months if they were from the rural regions. The local workers had families, and we saw many of their children. Children humble us adults by showing the universal bonds that connect us. We watched a group of (roughly) 10-year-old boys arguing whether the batter had been bowled out in their cricket game. It was a scene likely copied in New Zealand by another of Kiwi boys simultaneously. As my heart warmed at the universality of the boys’ argument, I had the bone-chilling realisation that those boys would likely die before me. The fumes and hazards of the work available in Dharavi lower the average life expectancy to 50-55 years. The New Zealand pākehā male life expectancy is 80 years old. They will die 15 years before I do, despite being fourteen years younger than me. How can I continue with my life as before after such a terrible awakening to the truth?
I am now a week from these events. The Rubicon River has well and truly been left behind. There is a change within me. The Finn Meredith that left New Zealand three weeks ago is gone. The new Finn Meredith is forming.