9 months ago
Octavio Paz's First Impressions of India: Beauty, Monsters, and Heat
A famous poet from Mexico named Octavio Paz visited India for the first time in 1951.
When his ship arrived in Bombay, he saw amazing sights like the Gateway of India and a grand hotel.
He thought some things looked like a dream, with both beauty and strange sights.
The heat was very strong, and he saw a mix of old buildings, busy streets, and colorful saris.
He also visited ancient caves with big stone carvings of gods, which sadly had been damaged by soldiers long ago.
Paz felt a mix of awe, confusion, and excitement about everything he saw and experienced, calling it his first 'initiation into the art of India.'
Mexican poet Octavio Paz first visited India in December 1951, arriving in Bombay.
His initial impressions included the Gateway of India, the Taj Mahal Hotel, and vivid descriptions of the city's street life, marked by sensory overload and stark contrasts.
Paz found the Indian heat intolerable but was driven by intense enthusiasm to explore, encountering both 'monsters' and 'flashes of beauty.'
He visited the Elephanta Caves, marveling at the ancient sculptures dedicated to Lord Shiva, despite their defacement by Portuguese soldiers.
Paz's writings reflect a fascination with India's coexisting opposites and an emotional response ranging from dizziness and horror to joy and an inescapable attraction.
- Who
- Mexican poet Octavio Paz
- What
- Described his first impressions of India, focusing on Bombay and Elephanta Caves.
- Where
- Bombay (now Mumbai), India, including the Gateway of India, Taj Mahal Hotel, and Elephanta Caves.
- When
- December 1951
- Why
- To capture his intense and often contradictory experiences and feelings upon first encountering India.
Key facts
- Poet
- Octavio Paz
- Year of Arrival
- 1951
- First City
- Bombay (now Mumbai)
- Key Landmarks Visited
- Gateway of India, Taj Mahal Hotel, Elephanta Caves
- Elephanta Caves Dedication
- Primarily Lord Shiva
- Elephanta Caves Age
- Around 6th century CE (Hindu temples); 2nd century BCE (Buddhist stupas)
Quotes
Octavio Paz
Mexican poet
“...huge grey and red buildings, a Victorian London growing among palm trees and banyans like a recurrent nightmare, leprous walls, four half-naked would-be saints daubed with paint, red betel stains on the sidewalk, horn battles between a taxi and a dusty bus … women in red, blue, yellow, deliriously coloured saris, some solar, some nocturnal, darkhaired women with bracelets on their ankles and sandals made not for the burning asphalt but for fields, monkeys in the cornices of the buildings, shit and jasmine, homeless boys … a stone daubed with red paint, at its feet a few faded flowers: the silhouette of the monkey god …”
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“Corporeal beauty, turned into living stone. Divinities of the earth, sexual incarnations of the most abstract thought, gods that were simultaneously intellectual and carnal, terrible and peaceful … The divine couple [Shiva and Parvati] are the image of a happiness that our mortal condition grants us only for a moment before it vanishes. That palpable, tangible, eternal world is not for us. A vision of happiness that is both terrestrial and unreachable. This was my initiation into the art of India.”
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Jawaharlal Nehru
First Prime Minister of India
“the trimurti in the Elephanta caves might well be the many-faced statue of India herself, powerful, with compelling eyes, full of deep knowledge and understanding, looking down upon us”
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