A Narration of Melancholic Elation

In the tourist circuit of Rajisthan, backpackers can be seen gathered in the evenings at the rooftop cafe of their hotels. Conversations usually go from, “How long are you in India?” to “So what are people in Ireland like?” to “How do Germans feel about Bush?” to talking about other travel experiences, gripes with India, and the beautiful aspects too.

Generalizations & stereotypes cram their way into as many comments as possible. They can be note-worthy and helpful, confusing because they contradicted a previous notion, or complete bullshit because from experience, you know they are wrong.

[Even recently, my own opinion from experience backfired on me. My new friend Vikrum Sequeira asked me for my thoughts on Goa..I told him about my experience…the good things, but I also told him that I wasn’t that impressed by the number of women, and that there were a high number of Indian men in groups on the prowl for some loving. Vikrum had the complete opposite experience - many single women & not many Indian dudes on the hunt. I was happy that he doused my perspective with the alternate.]

I met so many people during my three week run there (Rajisthan), but it was extremely difficult to tell when a connection is made. You could meet someone once for ten minutes or see them a few times and have several conversations - but it’s hard to separate the interesting from the mundane at times, and when have we reached the mutual point of thinking “Yeah cool, I actually want to stay in touch with you and exchange email addresses”? It makes me appreciate the solid friendships I have back home and the few amazing connection I’ve had from brief encounters & interactions while in India.

One evening in Mt. Abu, the only hill station in the state of Rajisthan, I was chillin’ on the rooftop of my hotel with a bunch of travellers, mostly from the U.K. A couple of them had indulged in some bung lassi, and so they were off talking about Pet Shop Boys, London, and other topics. I wasn’t really into the convo that much so I turned to a group sitting next to us and introduced myself. Instantly, one of the fellas in this bunch drew me into his thoughts with brutal honesty:

“I hate India. I hate the food, the people, everything. People here do everything half-ass, nothing is done “the best.” I have no respect for Indians. An Indian would sell his mother for one rupee. But you…you are not Indian, you are American. You are completely American.”

“I guess,” I shrugged, “but I am Indian.”

“Really?” he replied. “Do you speak Hindi?”

“No,” I said.

“Are you religious?”

“Nope.”

“Then what makes you Indian??” He asked this with a cheeky red face and a slight grin passing through the flush.
Wow, this Israeli fella had me completely stumped. “What makes me Indian?” And better yet, his follow up question was, “What is Indian?” “Because anything that’s nice & well-constructed is of British production.”
He was sitting there with 3 other Israelis. Traditionally, after finishing their two year term in the army, Israelis come to travel in India. They go to places like Pushkar, Vagator in Goa, and a few others, and can live lavishly on the rupee, although most are on a strict budget - just like most young travellers here.
He had read V.S. Naipaul and felt that his eyes were being cheated from what he had envisioned through reading.
Well, I tried my best to avoid his question and address my concern with his strong disgust for the country.

“Well, how long have you been travelling in India?” I asked him.

“Less than two weeks, just here in Rajisthan.”

“Well, Rajisthan is a rough place to get an all-encompassing view of India from. People here are like vultures and want everything they can possible from the many tourists coming here.”

He answers, “Yeah, they have their Ganesh on the wall and are willing to rip me off for 10 rupees (25 cents). That’s the height of religious hypocrisy!”

“Yeah, that’s something I wonder about.”

A British guy chimed in, “Yeah, but you gotta do what you gotta do to survive. And even though 10 rupees doesn’t sound like much to you, it is to him. And it can add up from all the people he pulls it from.”

I then asked him, “So what’s your beef with the food?” (I surely didn’t phrase it like that, but I might as well have).

“Well, the food is terrible. I only eat to survive another day. This Thali stuff is crap…I love my meat and am missing it like crazy.”

“Yeah, I feel you on that. I mean thali can get a bit monotonous after a while. But have you ever had Tandoori Chicken? Mutton Biryani? Sikh Kebab?

“Uhh, no, vhat’s that?”

“See come on now. You can’t generalize Indian food by the vegetarian food in Rajisthan. It’s completely different from the veg in the South and carnivorous grub throughout.”

I felt bad for the guy. He still had a few months left of travelling in the subcontinent and he was set on his feelings and not looking forward to the rest of his adventure. He also hated Coelho’s The Alchemist and Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being. Definitely not an optimist. He would not respect an Indian and when I asked him, “So do you respect ‘An American’?” He retorted with a “No. He is selfish and only looking for personal gain.” Extreme views he had many, generalizations he had them, too. But there was something about him that intigued me and I wanted to know his views on even more things. I hope I can find his email and see how his trip has progressed.

I know that nationalism is created by having a shared historical experience(s) and since I’ve obviously not grown up here, I have no Indian national identity. It’s gotta be something more than the color of my skin and the fact that “I like the food.”

I didn’t get to answering his question although I felt like answering his question with a question: “What makes you Israeli?”
If I learn Hindi and become religious, then am I suddenly Indian. By this time next year, I could be Indian, yes!

“India is both heaven and hell,” a Dutch man tells me on the train from Bangalore to Madras (Chennai). And this is so damn true. It can be a brutally difficult place for travellers with the language barrier, the scorch, “vultures”, etc. It is a rough place for the native as well, but even after travelling outside of his home the Indian national knows that there is something that keeps him on the soil of the subcontinent. Even if he/she had the money to move to the States he wouldn’t (Yes, I’m generalizing now - there are plenty of Indians wanting to come and make it in the States). They know the mentality, the rat race, the social norms, the people. There’s something that causes him to kiss the street when he returns home from abroad.

Generalizations can be helpful but many of the ones I’ve heard can now be squashed. It’s like when Mister Muckerjee asked me, “So what are American girls like.” I could tell him that they’re pretty superficial, blonde, dumb, etc. But come on!!, I don’t know what the prototype of an American woman is. I feel like I know some very intelligent, ambitious, beautiful, and progressive females so that completely annhilates any stereotype that can be made regarding American women.

Back to India being both heaven and hell. It’s those hellacious facets that make the heavenly ones that much more intense & awesome. Unfortunately, we human beings tend to remember/accentuate/emphasize the negative qualities & experiences. I feel like I might do that as well in conversation, but I try not to.

It kills me when women (particularly foreign travellers) tell me about the harassment they receive in India. It causes me to feel ill, shame, and contempt for the Indian male. One of the Icelandic girls in Gangtok told me that of Latin America, Africa, and India - India was by far the worst sexual harrassment she’d experienced. That’s terrible and causes me to take a completely opposite & chill approach during my social interactions with females - meaning I try to act like I don’t ven notice that they are there. India seems to be in multiple transitions, especially in the social realm. Men are not used to women wearing skirts & tanktops so they don’t know how to react. But wait!!..isn’t the entire mid-section shown when a sari is worn!!Can you say double-standard? Or is there just that universal myth that foreign women are “easy.” It’s ridiculous that guys here will get a cheap thrill from brushing up against a woman. Then what? Does he go up to his buddies and say, “Hey, I came within 5 inches of her boob man (accent included).

Vikrum talks about a “vivacious” Londoner he met he Palolem Beach, Goa. She tells him:

“I was in Rajastan during Holi. It was not easy. Holi seems to be an excuse for Indian men to molest women. One man ran up to me, threw rang in my face, grabbed my face, and then moved his hands down and groped my breasts. Another guy ran up to me, threw color in my face, and grabbed my crotch. I punched both of them afterwards.
In Calcutta people would walk up to me and say, ‘Are you married? No? Do you want to have sex with me?’ But I slapped those guys as well.”

My point from all this is that it’s quite unfortunate when a foreigner goes back home, forgets the phenomenal aspects of their experience in India, and only conveys/reiterates/expresses the negative - like male groping. I’m even sure that when I return could and rattle off my peeves that I have to my friends… but I hope I can balance it out with the other end of the spectrum. I also hope that the Indian man can evolve and be calm with the progress & liberation of women in India.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” ~Albert Einstein

In the spring of 03′ I took a course for Third World Studies called “Islam and the Modern World”. During its duration, I realized how interested I was in the religion, its teachings, and for it being an anti-western idealogy, like Marxism. Sure, socialism and islamism have many flaws in their current states, but they both provide an alternate route from consumerism, capitalism, westerization, and materialism.

Each morning at 6:00a.m. in Karachi, I awaken half-way to the AZAN from the nearby mosque. AZAN is the call made by the Muezzin to summon Muslims to pray five time daily. It’s been incredible to see the piety expressed by people over the past few days. A deep piety that is rooted in a spiritual grounding. In the late afternoons I have sat and watched the cook do her prayers. The concentration and meaning that she puts forth as her forehead touches the ground each time, going back to child’s pose. As she whispers the prayers, I feel how deeply involved and dedicated she is with this daily ritual. I admire this.

I want to read the Qu’ran and understand why over a billion and a half people in our planet revere this text. Why is it so beautiful and why is it said to be so prefect? Like my grandfather, Anant, I find some beauty in all religions and I’m not sure if I will ever profess to strictly one. I like to say that I am agnostic, but we’ll see where I end up… I am currently reading “The Meaning of the Qu’ran”- By S. Abdul A’la Maududi. Muslims must read the Qu’ran in Arabic (as it was originally spoken by Muhammad) in order to interpret it’s fullest, most powerful meaning. But many Muslims speak and read another language: Urdu, Farsi, Russian, etc etc… Therefore, in order to grasp its full meaning, most Muslims read the Qu’ran in Arabic, which they do not understand. Hmmmm…
My Nani-ma said that she too was one of those people reading the Qu’ran without understanding the meaning, until she met Anant, who knew it inside out. “It was Anant who helped me truly understand the Qu’ran.”

My Grandfather grew up in Kerala, India where he was born into a Brahmin family- Brahmins are members of the Hindu priestly caste. He was force-fed their teachings and so he dismissed its qualities early on. When he was seven, he visited the Haji Ali mosque in Bombay and asked to be converted to Islam. He was fascinated by the people and its religion, more-so than the hierarchical system of the Hindus. Despite his intrigue with Islam, his first wife was Catholic. His love for his family had been forsaken by Islam? And his fascination with Islam had been taken over by his love for an English woman named Daphne? Perhaps… I’ll discuss his life more in another post, right now we’re just talking about Islam in Karachi.

I saw a French opera the other night with some friends of Anant’s: Moen and his wife, Marish. The following evening we went to a play funded by the British council. The issue that the play discussed was “Honor Killings” and the goal was to raise awareness and provoke discussion regarding it.
Wikipedia describes Honor killing “as the practice of males killing their female relatives or spouses when the female relative or spouse is considered to have damaged the family honor through unwarranted sexual activity. The males involved in the sexual activity, which might have been a rape, are not adversely affected, in general. The execution is considered to be a private matter within the affected family; rarely do non-family members or the courts become involved.”
“Islamic law prescribes severe punishments for zina’ (extramarital sex) by both men and women; premarital sex may be punished by up to 100 lashes, while adultery is punishable by stoning. The act must however be attested by at least four witnesses of good character, punishments are reserved to the legal authorities, and false accusations are themselves punished severely. The term “honor killing” refers specifically to extra-legal punishment by the family against the woman, and as such is forbidden by the sharia.”
“Interpretations of these rules vary. Some Arabs regard it as their right under both tradition and sharia (by the process of al-urf), though this contradicts the views of the vast majority of Islamic scholars (fuqaha). Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran has condemned the practice as “un-Islamic”, though the punishment under Iranian law remains lenient. In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, honor killings are unknown, as also in Muslim parts of West Africa. According to Sheikh Atiyyah Saqr, former head of the al-Azhar University Fatwa Committee (one of the oldest and most prestigious in the Muslim world):
“Like all other religions, Islam strictly prohibits murder and killing without legal justification. Allah, Most High, says, “Whoso slayeth a believer of set purpose, his reward is Hell for ever. Allah is wroth against him and He hath cursed him and prepared for him an awful doom.” (An-Nisa’: 93) The so-called “honor killing” is based on ignorance and disregard of morals and laws, which cannot be abolished except by disciplinary punishments.”[4]
After the play finished, audience members got in line to comment and question the actors on the material and of the details regarding honor killings. This was intense. Most people gave their point of view, which was more-or-less on the side that “Honor killings are bad. Do away with them.”
But one guy stood up and said, “Well, its very political. You must account for the politics of this and why this is happening to women.”
This got an already emotional old lady to stand in tears, shouting “Don’t mix women and politics!” From there she rambled in an emotional rage and people had to eventually grab the mic from her hand like a bad freestyler who thinks he/she can flow well. People were definitley passionate about the topic and had strong opinions about its current state and legitamacy.
All in all I was impressed with the Urdu play. I couldn’t believe how progressive the Muslims were in Pakistan. Ouch…Yes, I was making a mistake. I was thinking that these elite, progressive Muslims of Karachi, were the Muslims in all of Pakistan. It was analagous to living in the San Francisco Bay Area and thinking that these like-minded individuals spoke for the United States. I would have to make a better observation and analysis later.

Servitude:

As you might know, a semi-decent salary in India (& Pakistan) can give one the cushy luxury that one could only dream of in the States. Most people in the middle to upper-class range here will thus have a servant/cook, maid, and driver. These workers get paid a monthly salary and depending on whether they have their own family to care for, they might also sleep at their bosses’ home. One can only hope that they are treated with the decency any human being deserves.
For someone like myself (and you as well), who has lived on his own for a few years and likes to independently take care of most things- this type of servitude is difficult to receive. To have another person open the door, turn on the light switch, and pick up your dishes just seems a bit ridiculous. And does this servant despise these tedious tasks or does he/she feel they are not doing their job diligently if I, for example, want to pick up my dish and rinse it? I am struggling a bit with this question because I think it is the latter. When telling people around here that I am having some trouble in allowing someone else to do my daily chores, they answer with “You’ll get used to it.” Forget that. I don’t want to get used to it. It almost seems like the faulty argument that gets used to justify sweatshops like Nike’s in Indonesia- “Well, isn’t it true that Nike provides them with a better job than they could get otherwise.” “Yeeeeah, but it’s still not right ya jackass!” There is a better counter, but that one is more fun.
Fortunately, this servitude dilemma is different. It is usually way more positive than any sort of sweatshop condition . If someone works for you in your home and you pay them with money, food, and shelter- how can this be terrible? My Nani-ma here in Karachi likes to give them something more. Each Muslim is supposed to go on HAJ (the pilgrimage to Mecca) sometime in their lifetime, if they can afford it. I’m sure that with the unemployment and poverty that plagues the middle east, many people cannot fulfill this obligation. My Nani-ma has paid for 5 people to go on HAJ…the young man who is currently trekking to Mecca has been paid to go for two months. I think that’s pretty cool.
So I am trying to realize that having servants in this part of the world is okay, but I will stilltry to open the door and turn off the light myself.

Arranged marriages:

My grandparents who live in Calcutta have been married for over 60 years now. But the fact that my grandfather had a mistress for over half of those years, has probably caused me to look at arranged marriages with great skepticism. Most people in the western world also look upon that process as being incredibly flawed and outrageous. I mean “Where’s the love!?” It does seem like such a paradox when you see the storyline of almost every Bollywood film.
Coming to India in the twenty-first century, I thought that this old tradition had been chucked out the window (along with the garbage that everyone throws out their window). This was until an Aunt spoke of her daughter.
“I am trying to arrange something for her. She is twenty-five now and it’s high time. We have three gentlemen who will coming to meet her in February. One from Toronto, one from San Francisco, and another from the UK. I hope that your parents will be able to come out next year for the wedding.”
The last line was what gave me the big shock. Whaaaaaaat?!? How can you expect that out of three fellas, one is the match for the rest of your daughter’s lifetime? How can you be so sure that the sparks are going to fly and wedding bells are gonna be chimed in 2006? I still feel this is way, but I have since understood a tad bit of how an arranged marriage might work. Mr Phillip, the Serbian, who is obsessed with Parsis, (the community of Zoroastrians) gave me some insight. “The parents are giving the daughter a chance to find someone. If she doesn’t, which she hasn’t, then they will arrange something. They feel 25 is way past the age for a girl to be married. The arrangement won’t feel arranged. It’s like a friend setting you and another friend up for a date and hitting it off. People can find ways to make it spark if they try.” Alright, I’ll try to understand. Any thoughts?

1) It seems like most people who inhabit an area know very little of its core or periphery. For example, most of us young folks from the Dub-C East Bay Area, wouldn’t be able to take someone through San Francisco-From North Beach, to the warf, on to the Mission, up to Haight, and back without getting lost. Okay, maybe that’s just me…But I think it’s just been in the last couple years that a handful of us have made the effort to try and befriend one of the best cities on the planet, while others nearby choose to stray. Example number two, is when I stayed with a homestay family in Salamanca, Espana for 3 months. The parents whom were in their forties hadn’t been anywhere in Spain- Barcelona, Sevilla, Portugal- which was only two hours from Salamanca!! I mean how does this happen? How do people get so comfortable in their surroundings that they have no interest in exploring or knowing their home?
Example number three is Bombay. Especially so…because here in India and Pakistan anyone who has a decent lifestyle has a servant/maid, cook, and driver. This means that the driver takes them to and from their destination in air-conditioned luxury. They (anonymous) aren’t able to express any detail when someone asks them about Bombay and its intricacies.
Lucky for me, I meet someone like Mister Phillip- a fifty-year old Serbian man in the petro-chemical business who lived in Bombay for 8 years a while back. “Taizun and I will be going far down under after all the environmental damage we’ve caused in our lifetimes,” he laughs. I had lunch with him and my Uncle Taizun’s secretaries and he was hysterical. Lots of stories and very animated. After lunch, I was planning on going into Colaba…Mister Phillip said he was heading that way and that we could walk there together…From Horniman Circle we cruised…he knew Colaba inside-out… it was like taking a guided tour of a college campus. “This is the Church of England, but was renamed Church of India after independence. These lads are selling generic perfume in designer bottles. The guy who just sold me this pack of cigarettes would have given me a cheaper tabacco if I didn’t speak Hindi. Indian girls don’t want American guys. If they are seen with an American, then everyone thinks they are a slut. If an Indian guy has an American, then he is macho.” Keep going my friend. We talked about Serbian politics, Indian society, and his life all over a couple pints at Leopolds. “This is a Parsi establishment. You know that right?” He was fascinated by the Parsi culture and he was much more versed in its history and tradition. “The Parsis will die because there are so few of them and the marriage rules are too strict. They should change this.” Why so you can convert?

2) A girl named Suchi. You know those people who are usually of the opposite sex and who have an incredibly sassy, spunky, sarcastic, energetic sense of self? The people you can instantly joke around with. I love those people. Although since sarcasm is usually at the foundation of the relationship, its hard to dig beneath that towards sincerity. Or so some have told me…
She is a good friend of Melissa’s (my aunt’s daughter) and I met her my first night in Bombay. She was singing to songs on the car radio and yapping away about this and that. I later played her a track by Annie called “Heartbeat” and she was dancing and playing it over and over again. “How did you know I would like that song. That is a great track! Music, I love music. When I hear good music I feel like I can do anything!” Whoa. A couple days later she steals my hat, thinking that I am nice enough to give it to her…Well, she has still has it, but I better get it back. “It’s not everyday you meet someone so similar. It’s so great. I mean, you and I we are the same. What’s the word I’m looking for?..ummm…NOTORIOUS, yeah.”
“Notorious? I don’t think that’s the right word,” I replied.
“Yes, notorious,” Suchi says.
“Okay.”