From Madison to Madurai

A few night ago I attended a performance of a travelogue called "From Madison to Madurai." It is a monologue delivered by HR Britton who is an American who attended University of Wisconsin and traveled to India for a 6 month adventure after he graduated.

The venue was at a government theater which was beautiful although it certainly had a terribly british feel to it. The audience was (no surprise) a majority south indians along with the socialites of chennai and a few random faces such as my own.

I sat and listened with interest and laughter. "H," as people call him is very American. He looks American, talks American, and is in every way I can think to describe him American. Let me certainly state, I don't find this to be a bad thing. What I really got out of the performance is the idea that I identified with him as strongly as anyone I've yet met in India. I got a chance to meet him a couple nights later and I told him that I identified with many parts of his story.

He had come to India in the early-mid-nineties as a 23 yr old college graduate. He'd been reading about buddhism, hinduism, and several other varieties of eastern philosophy and decided to come to India for reasons related to his readings. This will be the biggest difference in our stories.

He made many observations from an American (midwestern even) point of view. I appreciated how EXACTLY true most of his observations rang to me. After the show I heard several Indians mentioning that his observations were "American." I couldn't help but to think, "Well, yes. Yes they were." I sort of thought that was the point and that was where the humor was derived.

I thought that I could make a similar story to his, but he came here to see a lot of south india, and knew a lot about the philosophy. Perhaps what might've been his biggest surprise was that the ancient philosophies don't have a stronghold on life now as much as the scholastic articles and books written on these philosophies might suggest. I can't be certain, but I have to say I enjoyed hearing a different version of my own story told by a good story teller. To be totally honest, he is a phenomenal story-teller and I think Jonesboro, TN would be well off inviting him to come to the story-telling festival next fall...