Study Tour to India

Wada Kaoru

I have got most interested in religions in the tour. India is a pot full of different religions. I saw Hindu believers, Christians, Muslims, and other believers living together in a place. There are Hindu shrines, Christian churches, and Muslim temples. I have never thought of a place like this as I am typical Japanese; that is, I am indifferent of any religion.

During two weeks, I lived a life surrounded with religious and the faithful. I came to realize the importance of religion. When I work in a foreign country in the future, I cannot avoid matter of religions.

I decided to study religions as knowledge. To believe is another thing for me, though. From now on I will try to identify various problems in the world from the point of religion and try to find a solution to each problem.

Luckily, I had a chance to visit Darvi in Mumbai, the largest slum in Asia. They live in tents of plastic sheet with no electricity. It is dark inside even during the daytime. I saw torn hut-like tents made of broken bricks, tin roof, and plastic sheet continuing endlessly along streets and rivers. I saw a number of women in dirty sari, naked children and old skinny people. I just felt sorry for them at the sight.

However, I learned later that they liked their lives in slums and they were not lazy but hard working. I felt ashamed of myself because I looked them down because they were poor. I biased them with Japanese sense of value. I would like to try to share their point of view by thinking about what is must be like to live as they do so that I will be able to make other Japanese aware of the problem of poverty.