When a neighbor returned from a tour of Europe just days ago, I excitedly stood at her gate, wanting to know more about a photo she had snapped among many others and sent to her husband, who had to take care of their two aging dogs back home. It was a photo of a statue of Agathiyar in one of the museums.
But sadly, she went on for hours, venting her frustrations and anger at having missed the returned flight by minutes, hence losing money, incurring additional expenses for fresh tickets for the family of four, and having to stay longer at a nearby hotel until the day of their flight back, which was some four days later. So I stepped back and continued my evening walk around the neighborhood, knowing that I would not get a cheery and beautiful story of her trip for now.
When I returned from my maiden trip to India in 2003 and wrote about it on my then website, indianheartbeat, a reader who became a devotee of Agathiyar and dropped by my home in later years, commented that I was the only one who never wrote anything "bad" and negative about her country of origin. I told her that I went over to carry out my sole purpose, that of carrying out remedies as dictated by Agathiyar in the Nadi reading and only saw what I wanted to see and I added that I could show her the slums and also dirty streets, and clogged drains in our capital city, too.
Rashmi Narayan writes on https://www.msn.com/en-my/news/other/the-reason-why-i-ll-never-go-on-another-slum-tour/ about why she would never go on a slum tour after a man asked her, ‘Do they think we are in a zoo?’ pointing to a tour group who were taking photos of his house, situated in the labyrinth of Mumbai’s Dharavi. He asked her further if he could go into the neighbourhood of the rich and famous, roam freely, and take photos of their mansions. "How is this fair?’ he asked. He drove a point there. Are the poor and unfortunate mere exhibits to be photographed by tourist walking past without extending any aid or help or bringing a change in their lives? It reminds us of those who picked up people who looked different and brought them back to their country, and exhibited them in their shows back in the past, for their mere curiosity and entertainment.