Interview with Rajesh Mady, local boy in India

This is an interview with a boy I met in India, I spoke a lot with him and I made an interview of it. Here you can read the summary of al our conversations and what I learned from him. His name is Rajesh Mady, he is 26 years old and is living in Pondicherry for all of his life. He lives with his mom and his younger brother from 24 years old. Rajesh was our volunteering cooridinator and spended a lot of time with us, teached us everything about the Indian culture, and told us about his life. You can say he was not a regular Indian boy, because he belongs to the highest cast of India, and there are more very poor people in India than very rich. But, despite of that, Rajesh was a real Indian, in all of his soul. He is so different than the boys in the Western world, and that was very interesting. He never wanted to say much about his high cast, because he was ashame. He was working with the very poor of India and he always had a kind of guilty feeling that he was raised in a rich family. Well rich.. once he told me that when he would finish his Master of Psychology he would be going to earn 48500 rupee a month, thats 580 euro, so in Holland it would be very little. So funny to see this difference. Like I said, Rajesh was in his final year of the Master of Psychology. He first started with Bachelor of Medicine, but he didn't liked that, so he changed to Bachelor of Psychology. He finished that and now he's is in his final year. His job as volunteering coordinator is a kind of side-job, which he really loves to do, but he recently decided to quit his job after three years of working in Prime Trust, because he wanted to find a job as Psychologist in few months. He is living with his mom and younger brother, which he really loves and spend every weekend with. It was not rare that Rajesh promised us to do something nice with us in the evening, like watching a movie, and at the last moment he was suddenly gone and we couldn't reach him anymore. The next day he told us then that his mother called him by asking to come home, and he couldn't ignore his mothers wishes ever. That was also something what was typically Indian: not stick to any appointments. Rajesh told us that the Indian people don't stick that much to appointments like us in the Netherlands. It's not that important for them, they live by day and if something is not possible at that day, they just go to sleep and try it the next day, with no worries. He also told me a very sad story: his father died when Rajesh was 22 years old. He died suddenly in a traffic accident. When Rajesh told me about this, he had tears in his eyes, but he also told me that his father is not really gone, but always in his heart, and he will see him again sometime. I asked him where he would see him again, in heaven of reincarnation or something. He answered me that he did not now that yet. That's another very interesting story about Rajesh: he wants to be a Hindoe, a Christian and a Muslim! From origine Rajesh is a Hindoe, that's how he is raised by his parents. At one night a friend invited him to come to the 'Baba Temple', this is a temple for all religions, based on just a man, a profet, named 'Baba'. In the beginning Rajesh is sceptic about it and don't want to come, but his friend is asking him every week, so at one point Rajesh agreed to go to the temple. He told me that at the moment he entered the temple, he feels a kind of spirit, and that spirit gives him peace. He is going to meditate there, and that is going more better than in other, Hindoe, temples. From that moment, Rajesh only goes to Baba temple, and not to the Hindoe temple anymore. In the Baba temple he also hears about other religions, and mainly the Christianity and the Islam he likes. He decides to become a Hindoe, a Christian and a Muslim at the same time. That's the story about Rajesh Mady, a real Indian boy who became very special to me and who I will never forget. I still have contact with him, by Facebook and Skype, and I will try to keep this contact in touch.