A millennium before Christopher Columbus was born, my people – since I am descendant of the Tamil Kings – embarked to sea without knowing what they would find; explorers, with ships filled with the best spices, jewelry and manufactured goods on the planet.

They were headed toward the dawn, open ocean to the East and South, with probably very well-thought-out research, because we’re Tamil, on what they’d find.

For the next twelve hundred years they met, traded with, loved and engaged with every single culture from my birthplace to the “Wallace line” – end of the Sunda shelf.

This is why, every time I travel in what you call South East Asia, I feel intense kinship with every person I meet. They feel it instantly, and I acknowledge it openly, with deference and appreciation.

My pleasure at the exquisite variations of the cultures here that were born from those now ancient relationships THRRRUMMMMS! with a harmony of centuries.

That I know this pleases everyone – and their cultures flower before me in brilliant ways:

Here’s a current playlist on my travels:

The White Man just. doesn’t. get it. It’s a god damn distant object of exotic fascination from what they perceive of falsely as a lesser culture.

My people had libraries and Universities while the European man was still crawling in the dirt.

Then slowly, they learned everything from us. Then they ran out of room for themselves, built ships and started “colonizing”: calling all other people animals and heathens and enslaving and murdering us. For five hundred years.

It’s certainly political. People don’t like us … Hindus. Because they’re not sure what they’re gonna get when they open the pack. Surprise! Wild card!
Rest assured, what you will get will be deeply civilized and intellectual.

Take me for example, I am not a practicing Hindu anymore, I have been studying Buddhism for three decades and am an atheist dedicated to a scientific interpretation of our universe for the good of all humanity.

Well look, I gotta go. But anyway, I’m in Bali and I love every single person from here to Tamil Nad. But not enough to call you back.