"The real people" was the self-denomination of the Arborigen tribe in the acclaimed (and controversial) book "Mutant Message Down Under" written by Marlo Morgan. For those who havn't read the book, this the story of a woman taking a journey with a secret Arborigen tribe, which lives as close to nature as imaginable, with the most perfect ethics, especially in term of materialism, or non-materialism in the present case.
The Indian subcontinent is supposed to be the place of spiritualism, which indeed seems true when you consider the many religions which have cohabited with very little violence in India for hundreds of years, including indouism, boudhism, islamism, catholism... This didn't happen in the western latitudes. But things are changing fast, and India is getting developed... and materialized at an extremely fast rate. This you can see in the bigger cities such as New Delhi, where some parts looks more like the USA* than the lively and exotic mess of India.
As explained in the former post, I had the chance to spend many day in a small Indian village, only 5000 inhabitants. This was a great experience of what a simple life could be. Most of the ingredients used for cooking were produced in the village, and often inside the Malik's familly (who more or less all leave together). They had a few bufalows to produce the milk, from which butter, ghee, yogurt of paneer where made. The full wheat flour was grown on the familly's land. Vegetables were from the local market. Only the spices were coming from further regions, but thats not a lot of weight! Same, most of the things such as the bed were home-made. Its a fully sustainable life, even if these people are not rich at all neither have great living conditions according to our standarts! For example, due to permanent power cuts (which don't occur often in Delhi...), there was electricity only one or two ours a day, at random hours... So, no hot water nor light...
A bit of money was brought by the selling of sugar cane, which was a great part of the locale economy. This allowed people to buy televisions and other modern apparatuses**... Things are changing in India!
I will add as soon as I get hold on a non-dodgy computer!
* sorry to take the USA for reference of materialism, as the symbol of the consumption society in my mind... I guess Europe is not far behind...
** such as mobile phones... Some people in India don't have enough to buy food, but all of them have mobiles...
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