MUMBLINGS March 17, 2005

Recently, I was told that a copy of Mumblings was reprinted in newspapers throughout Malaysia. This was told to a friend by a friend of his that was visiting from Malaysia and said the article was well received with incredible interest.

Some 20 years ago we visited Malaysia and as usual, a column or so was written about the interesting country but I doubt if this was the one that was reprinted. More recently I wrote a column about the country, mainly about Gurkhas who were employed to actively guard rich people in Malaysia because of their fierceness.

The Gurkhas are a group of strong, broad shouldered individuals, born and trained in Northern India for the purpose of being feared and fearsome. They were employed in WWII at night to go up and down German lines to cut the throats of the enemies. It is my understanding that they are among the fiercest tribe of killers in the world. Although they are not necessarily mean, they are for hire by those who might need them.

Several of them should be employed in Iraq and quietly go around demolishing those who intend to kill every Christian in the world. Just a thought that will never be done.

--------------------------

This brings up the subject of the second largest country in the world, India.

It is unusual for me to write about a country I have never visited. I will make an exception in this case since I have had a lot of study and talked to a lot of people about this country. Frankly, it has never been my wish to go to India because of the known poverty and filthiness. However, in the last few years it has been my opportunity to meet citizens of the country and find them very intelligent and friendly. Now I want to go to India and hope to do so before the year is over. Understand summer is not a good time to visit this highly crowded country because of the heat. Mixing heat and filthiness does not make a thoughtful panorama of interest.

Although India covers only 2.4 percent area of the total world, its population is over 15 percent, according to the statistics available.

According to 1997 estimates, the last available, India's population is 946,000,783. Since it has a fast growth rate of almost two percent per year or 19 births per 1,000 population, it's easy to calculate that the country has over one billion people now.

Births exceed deaths by almost 17 percent, which is another indication of the rapid growth. China, the largest populated country in the world, has an estimated 1.2 billion and has been predicted to become the second largest populated country in a few years; India will overtake it.

Click here to continue

Continued

The reason being, China has a strong birth control policy allowing only one child per family without penalties. India, with 3.29 children per family, has no birth control whatsoever.

In spite of the poverty, the average life expectancy is about 63 years. One source indicates, "India is a land of diversity, spread across its cultures, landscape, languages and religion. India has been invaded from the Iranian plateau, Central Asia, Arabia, Afghanistan, and the West. The Indian people have absorbed these influences producing a remarkable racial and cultural synthesis. Religion, caste, and language are major determinates of social and political organization in India today. The government has recognized 16 languages as official, with Hindu as the most widely spoken."

Hinduism is the popular religion and comprises 83 percent of the population. India is also home to one of the largest population of Muslims in the world; more than 120,000,000.

The country also includes Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and Parsis. As we have always heard, the Caste System still exists and reflects Indian historical traditions and tragedies. Earlier, some of these were called "untouchables." In reality there are thousands of sub-castes, and it is with these sub-castes that a majority of Hindus identify.

India is fighting hard to increase its economic standards and poverty is still one of the major problems. An estimated 30 percent to 40 percent live in poverty. Four out of five of the India's poor live in rural areas and about 70 percent live in more than 550,000 villages and the remaining in more than 200 towns and cities.

Naturally, there are many important cities in India. Senator Shelby told a friend and me, recently in Washington, that we should visit India and particularly the southern part. He said some of the smartest mathematicians in the world live in certain areas of south India. Why this is so, he did not know, but it is an interesting fact as many records show their mathematical abilities.

Enough about this great country until visited. As you might imagine, I now have a great desire to tour India.

See you again soon, I hope.