Journey Into Wisdom with Pramila Jayapal

Product Description

India, an ancient culture, has many gifts to share with the western world. Pramila Jayapal, is an Indian-born, Western educated woman, banker turned community activist, who returns to India to explore the complex issues of progress and development, immersing herself in the life of her native land, living in small cities and villages, traveling from Kerala to Ladakh to the holy city of Varanasi on the Ganges River. She witnesses first-hand a society struggling to reconcile tradition with modernity. Ultimately, this pilgrimage places Jayapal on a path leading to a search for self and identity. Through grace and ease we hear what frustrates and delights her about her native land. “There is a phenomenal movement going on in India right now, a philosophy that we are a part of something much larger than ourselves. We’re related to the earth, we’re related to our communities and we have responsibilities to those that we are related to.” These projects are community efforts, taking on issues of the community and not relying on outside funding. “India is both beautiful and terrible, Ö I think the greatest growth doesn’t come through comfortÖ”says Jayapal.

She is the author of Pilgrimage: One Woman’s Return to a Changing India (Seal Press 2000).

Topics Explored in this Dialogue:

• Discover India through the internal and external landscapes of Pramila Jayapal
• What India offers the west and the world
• Swadhyaya: Toward a New World Order – find out about this incredible movement and what your place may be in changing times
• Dive into the rhetoric and reality of the educational system of India
• Listen to Jayapal relate heartfully how it is to see someone with nothing and not know what to do about it
• Go deeper into the ethical dimensions of child labor laws, poverty and unemployment

Host: Michael Toms Interview Date: 5/30/2001