SoCultures Magazine November 2018
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<strong>SoCultures</strong> <strong>November</strong> <strong>2018</strong><br />
India & Russia<br />
How can we make our young generations more culturally sensitized?<br />
First of all, we in India, have to show greater respect for other cultures and points<br />
of view. It’s India’s traditional openness towards new ideas and our ability to<br />
absorb the best of what the world has to offer that led to the growth of great ancient<br />
civilizations here. India is growing more and more insular every single day. It’s<br />
high time that we thought more global. Let school children learn foreign languages<br />
from primary school, expose them to exchange students from other countries, help<br />
them cultivate a deep interest in both India and the rest of the world. Bring in<br />
foreign teachers and encourage our children and youth to learn what the world has<br />
to offer.<br />
What really inspired you to start a never-ending voyage to understand the<br />
Russian soul?<br />
I was partly raised in the United States and knew very little about Russian culture.<br />
As a child, I always equated Russia with communism and after the USSR<br />
collapsed I didn’t know what to think of Russia. It was only when I met a highly<br />
cultured and spiritually evolved Russian diplomat at the Russian Consulate in<br />
Mumbai in 2001 that I began to develop a deep interest in Russian culture. This<br />
diplomat, who could speak flawless Hindi and very good Tamil, introduced me to<br />
the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Nikolai Berdyaev. I can never express<br />
enough gratitude to this diplomat for the journey that he set me on. Seventeen later,<br />
I am still on this voyage of discovery.<br />
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