SAP takes our anti-megacorps campaign to India (or vice versa) - the unreported misadventures of the last half year

Mindful of Bastille Day, the lateness of the hour & a lot of friends to whom word is long overdue, we hereby revive our Sacred Animals blog with tales of our 2013 return to India, the sensual wisdom & simmering rebellion(s) here, its potential as a SAP anti-megacorps citadel, and other strange attractor news.

Will devote a few initial posts to our journey back to refuge and relevance in Udaipur, including the unforgettable entry via the great human torrents of the Kumbh Mela (where on Feb 10 in Allahabad 30 million faithful turned out to greet us and also wash their sins, angst and urban illusions away).

Sacred Animal fellow travelers
celebrate our return at Kumbh 2013

Watching 30 million folks flow silently through town toward a sacred swimming hole in search of redemption, peace and divinity tends to make you realize a) you're not in Kansas (or Kyoto or Kennebunkport) anymore, Toto; and b) from Occupy Wall Street & the Arab Spring to Brazil's boiling streets and the Kumbh's vast yearning, the worldwide hunger for transformation may be varied in form and costume, but it's an undeniably growing groundswell of discontent with chronic injustice and corrupt parasitic hierarchies.

Queuing for the great Kumbh cleansing

The Kumbh millions are no doubt the least overtly political, but they invest unimaginable effort in their quest for real change. As one naked Shaivite PhD told me, "our needs and pleas are simple - peace, health, justice and a liveable future for the young. When politics fail you on all those fronts, jump the chain of command and head upstream to the sources of life and consciousness from which real power flows." 

The Kumbh earned the title this year for "the largest peaceful gathering in human history"
but it's not just about quantity as these shots may show.

Less colorful and humungous, but still inspiring are the Indians Against Corruption (IAC) rallies that have mobilizedd millions and rocked India's corporate-corrupted status quo for the last two years. The ferment has birthed a new political force, the Aam Admi (Common Man's) Party, which will play David to the Congress/BJP Goliaths in elections this coming year.

We will introduce you to some leaders of this spreading insurrection as well as the other key players in India's new awakening: the radical socially engaged directors of Bollywood 2.0.

For openers check out Prakash Jha's riveting "Chakravyuh" - the largely true story of the state-abetted corporate war on central India's "Maoists", eg., the Chhattisgarh tribes & villagers who made the mistake of getting born on resource rich lands. Despite the nearly 200,000 paramilitary thugs the gov has loosed upon them, their grassroots rebellion continues to spread.

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Suffice to say, astonishing things are happening here now, things that give the Tourist Department's "Incredible India" PR jingle a whole new ring. So please stay tuned and pass the word - Sacred Animals Party now in India and we invite you to join us for the wonder & the weirdness, and to understand why...