Letter #8: December 5, 1943 to Robbie and John (India)

Dec 5, 1943

Dearest Robbie and Johnnie:

Thanks so much for your fine letters.  I was certainly surprised, Robbie, to see how quickly you have begun to write.  And Johnnie, I can read your printing without the least trouble.

You would both be very useful in a grocery store or a pharmacist's shop or a cinema, which is just another name for movie theater, in India.  For both of you, by knowing how to write and print, can do something which lots of grown people in this land cannot do.

Only about one in every 10 Indians can read and write.  When they get letters, which is certainly not very often, most of the people must run around trying to find someone to read their letters to them.

You see, for a number of reasons, lots and lots of the people have never gone to school.  If all the people in the world would be put together in one place, you would quickly see that there are more Indians than any other kind of people.  There are even more Indians than Chinese!

Now their country is about half as large as ours.  So that means that all these people -- 400 million of them -- have a very hard time getting enough to eat.

The children very often must work instead of going to school.  Even little boys help to drive cows and buffaloes and bullocks out to the farms from the villages where the farmers live.

Sometimes one farmer has ten or twelve or even 20 little patches of land instead of one big farm such as you have in Nebraska.  Well, what will happen if he tries to look after all these tiny gardens and fields by himself?  Yes, while he is in one of them, the crows will be in another one.  And in a third field the neighbor's buffaloes will be tromping down the rice.  So the farmer is very glad to have lots of sons to look after the fields.

Little girls must also keep busy in India.  They help to carry shining brass pots down to the river to get water for washing and cooking.  These water pots are quite heave when full, yet I have seen little girls of four and five carrying two of them apiece.  And they carry them on their heads without spilling a drop!

Indian farmers live in villages, instead of on their farmland, because many years ago there were lots of enemy soldiers in the country.  By staying together as much as possible the farmers could protect themselves better.  Even today they see many wild animals in the fields and jungles and do not like to be out alone.  India has the biggest tigers in the world, wild elephants, leopards, jackals and, of course, lots of snakes.

You might like to know that millions of people here never eat meat.  And all true Hindus consider the cow very holy.  In fact when a Hindu dies, the family's cow is brought right into the house and the dying man holds it by the tail.  The Hindus believe that the cow can then lead the man to Heaven.

I'm afraid you wouldn't care much for the little milk given by the bony cows.  If you were a little Indian you would probably drink goat's milk which is actually quite good and even better for you than cow's milk.

I think that is enough about India this time.  If there are any questions you would like to ask, just write them in your next letter.  But remember that some of my answers will be hard to believe, so strange is this country.

Love to all,

Daddy