Taxiing through…

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The 40th Auckland International Film Festival concluded on Sunday 27 July. It was my best festival so far. Yes I did fall sick in the last week-I expected to because I was overwhelmed with work and ‘studying films’ 🙂 Every single film I saw had something to offer me. Most were exceptional. If I name one then it is doing injustice to another. A highlight was meeting Yung Chang, the super-intelligent and articulate director of UP THE YANGTZE. A well-made documentary about the human cost of the Three Gorges Dam.

For me, all films (actually everything) is political but apart from Yung’s film, there were three others I saw that stood out with their clear political content. Hana Makhmalbaf’s feature THE BUDDHA COLLAPSED OUT OF SHAME, Ari Folman’s WALTZ WITH BASHIR and Alex Gibney’s TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE. Each film was intense and made me uncomfortable and sad. But with TAXI… I was getting angrier and angrier.

Guantanamo Bay, an entire generation of mentally disturbed Americans who served in the military, more chaos in the Middle East and more ‘terrorists’ (sorry, enemy combatants ya?) are the legacy of white men who think they are superior to the rest of the world. These men are the real war criminals who carry out their actions with impunity and make a lot of money. All in the name of civilisation, democracy and religion.

Whose civilisation, democracy and religion? Maybe they forget that Jesus was an Arab, not an effeminate looking white male with blue eyes.

I find it interesting how in spite of these obvious issues governments around the world continue to pay obeisance to the Americans. Condoleezza Rice was in New Zealand over the weekend. She described New Zealand as an ally. So does that mean we are with them and not against them? That we do not and should not, in the larger scheme of things protest against the actions of war criminal George W Bush?

The same goes to the Indian government. What shenanigans to be subservient to the Americans! All for a nuclear deal that is supposed to give space to India in the elite nuclear club and allow for progress. How, when as a nation that has a trillion dollar plus GDP, India is not able to pull her people out of poverty, is this nuclear deal going to help? By lifting ‘sanctions’ that stop other nations from providing nuclear knowledge and material for civilian purposes? Or basically letting America dictate what we can and can’t do with our own nuclear expertise?

Last week a friend Skyped me to say how the political representatives were making a mockery of democracy in Parliament. I watched it live on the web. The world’s largest democracy in action. Impassioned speeches for and against the deal. Poetry, film songs, wads of cash and Hindutva ideology. (If only the great orator L.K. Advani had not built his career on the platform of hatred…how smartly he segued from talking of the Indian Constitution, Non-Aligned Movement etc to Amarnath pilgrims…) Now India is an American slave. Forget about traditional and historic ties with Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan…forget about resisting imperialism and finding her own unique path…

Now the equations in the subcontinent and the Middle East have changed forever. Maybe there is a potential Guantanamo Bay somewhere in the Andamans? Extraordinary rendition in the Rajasthan desert?

A posterchild for us ethnics once told me that my writing is too India-centric. ‘No one cares for that in New Zealand.’ What a pity. When Kevin Rudd is now planning to sell uranium to India after this deal there is not a single India expert in the current government or in the Opposition. (Unless you count doddering old community leaders and political ‘Indian’ appointees on various boards.) Even the NZ Herald has not bothered to analyse the deal or how it affects the ‘Allies’. Whether I agree with India’s subservience to America or not, it is still a deal with long term geo-political impact.

The three films I mentioned are all from or about the Middle East. WALTZ WITH BASHIR talks of a massacre from 1982, with blood on the hands of Ariel Sharon. BUDDHA…is more immediate, about a little Afghani girl who wants to go to school and TAXI…of course won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2008. Wonder what stories will come out from those affected by the nuclear deal or shall the Indian Muslim p-o-v ever be told? Of how Americans pushed for the nuclear deal and were wheeling and dealing with politicians of all hues; of criminal MPs being let out of jail just to vote; of the impact on the region; of whether the deal really alleviates poverty and brings electricity and power to poor Indians; of New Zealand floundering between not supporting the Iraq invasion to being an ally and turning into a Chinese outpost…maybe I should talk to a producer. There is a story here….of socialism, a nuclear free country that could not be bullied, of Non-Aligned Movements and subservience, of white men who are war criminals but will never be punished…..

Gorging On Films

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Life is busy. Madaz busy. And the Auckland International Film Festival started on 10 July. This is my time for absolute self-indulgence in the name of audio-visual education. This is the time when I weave films into my life and work, rather weave my life and work around film sessions. It is a process I have mastered now after attending so many Auckland International Film Festivals.

Get a programme, mark all the films I want to see (about 50) and then eliminate them according to whether they will come back into theatrical release (French films, German films, Michel Gondry and assorted cult filmmakers etc always do), clash with my work or with other sessions. That brings the number down to about 30. One year I did 38 films and was completely filmed-out. So much so I could not bear to watch/update myself about Bollywood films. Its another thing that Bollywood films are quite unbearable after gorging on world class cinema and storytelling. I watch Bollywood cinema because it is what I grew up on and if fascinating in the way it includes so many ideas within a format. It is also fascinating in the way so many ‘other’ (‘non-Indian’) ideas are stolen from across the world and turned into Indian stories. I watch Bollywood cinema for cheap thrills, for the songs and to keep in touch with what is going on back in India. I still think of it as my own popular culture that goras would never understand. Oh and there is a gem or two in there that is really worth watching.

Anyway, back to the film festival…after 38 films one year I decided to be a good girl and limit myself to 25. So far I have managed. Some films I usher for, some films I buy the tickets for, some films I am invited to and some films I get tickets in lieu of ushering. All good I say. Just the way I like it aha-aha.

This year the festival opened with TAKE 3, Roseanne Liang’s very simple and very clever short. That Roseanne is talented is without any doubt and that she brings her Chinese-New Zealand sensibility to her filmmaking is amazing. The feature that followed APRON STRINGS is an indication of festival director Bill Gosden’s foresight about New Zealand filmmaking and the shape of this country. Multicultural. Another story by the immensely talented New Zealand director Sima Urale. I feel proud for the cast and crew involved with APRON STRINGS. These are my mates, my colleagues and my teacher, scriptwriter Shuchi Kothari, who has created space for the likes of me. I feel happy for Leela Patel, who brings so much depth to the role of Tara. (She plays Indian nurse Shanti’s mum on Shortland St.) A well made film with great acting. Nathan Whitaker reminded me of a young Shashi Kapoor from SHARMILEE etc. This dude would do well as the chocolate hero in Bollywood. 🙂

Of course watching these films at The Civic just adds to the experience of cinema.

I worked with Sima, Shuchi and some of the crew members on COFFEE AND ALLAH, playing in the HOMEGROWN section of the festival. I did the protagonist’s costume (the blue burkha) and played the nasty Mrs Indian for all of thirty seconds. The first time I saw myself on the big screen (cast and crew screening) I cringed. It was horribly embarrassing. The second time I saw myself on the screen (yesterday) I wanted to hide under my chair. Although I debuted as an actress in Venice dahlings I don’t think I want to be seen on a film screen. Gosh no! Not that I cannot act…just that I think I don’t look ‘good’ on screen. Prefer to be behind the camera. Absolutely!

Now it is three days into the festival and I have stopped counting how many films I am seeing/have seen. In my diary I have only marked the dates, times and theatres I have to go to. The countdown ends at the closing night film WALTZ WITH BASHIR. Until then, I shall gorge on cinema, work on auto-pilot, do some work, earn my living….and vomit at the end of it all.

Then have visions of my mother lecturing me on over-indulgence.

Migrants, victims and affirmative action

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I have been following the Gujjar agitation since May 2008. The Gujjars in Rajasthan want to be ‘demoted’ from Other Backward Classes (OBC) to Scheduled Tribes (ST) and they have been ‘agitating’ to be reclassified for a long time now (well, from 2006-2007 as far as I am aware). In the vast, complicated world of Indian castes systems and classifications based on caste letters like BC (Backward Classes), OBC, SC (Scheduled Castes) and ST mean a lot. Jobs, promotions, reserved seats in educational institutions…and eventually equity in a society ridden with differences and discrimination. All good intentions.

But somewhere something is wrong when a community asks to be downgraded.

While I have never been affected by caste based reservations-one could say that maybe I don’t even know what centuries of oppression and injustice are being from an ‘upper caste’ and all that-it does not mean I have not ever faced discrimination. Any kind of bias and inequality needs to be corrected and I am all for affirmative action. Affirmative action does not widen chasms or increase divides but makes this world a better place, provides equal opportunity to as many as possible and allows space to make up for past injustices. Whether in India or in New Zealand.

So why then if processes are put in place and ‘positive discrimination’ is made mandatory do people not think it is an chance to unshackle themselves? I don’t have the answers. Just possible reasons.

One being that the processes do not filter to those who really need it and hence they are constantly fighting for it? And then as happens one gets attached to the ‘fight’ itself rather than goal and the little triumphs on the way there?

Another reason being that these processes do not evolve as they should in a democracy. They gather rust and then have committees review them only to offer ‘symptomatic treatment’ instead of solutions. Because everyone is afraid of hurting sentiments and emotions?

The third reason of course is pure politics. Some groups want to maintain status quo because such processes give them power. It is useful to have downtrodden/disadvantaged masses as constituency.

Finally there is the victim mentality. I know I have harped about it before. I have been called an ‘anti-multicultural capitalist’ (yay!) for talking about it. Like I am blaming the oppressed for the way they feel. However it is true that if one keeps telling the oppressed/victims that they are helpless and dependent then they start believing it. Just like us migrants are told that we are incapable of standing up for ourselves or negotiating the dominant culture..that we need the support of various agencies to integrate/find equality/social justice. Yes we do. To certain level. Then we must fight the battle ourselves instead of being dependent/helpless.

I just finished reading Dr Edwina Pio’s book SARI-INDIAN WOMEN AT WORK IN NEW ZEALAND. (Dunmore Publishing). Apart from giving inspirational examples of entrepreneurial Indian women, old migrants and new migrants who came to New Zealand from across the Indian diaspora Dr Pio talks about the need for hand-holds and not handouts in government policy. She says government has responsibility to ’embed migration with appropriate infrastructure that reduces crutches and the dependency cycle which is often based on a deficit model…’ Dependence and the victim mentality are powerful places to be in and often become an end in themselves. Migrants/victims should also work towards integration. However Dr Pio also reiterates that discrimination will not disappear by itself neither will the ‘market place’ take care of it.

Suppose this applies to migrant policies in New Zealand and the caste based reservations in India. For the Gujjars to want to be downgraded interprets as wanting to always be in a place that does not require them to face competition or upskill in order to do well; as keeping lesser beings suppressed. Isn’t education and better socio-economic status supposed to widen the horizons?

Agitations and mob power comes easy rather than dialogue which is such an important part of any democracy. A little bit give for a lot of take? The Rajasthan government and the Government of India both succumbed to the pressure because both want maintain the vote banks and neither have any intelligent solutions that evolve as times change. I wonder how the Labour Party here is going to evolve its multiculturalism from the celebrate-and-go-back-to-the-ghetto attitude to a participatory engagement by the coloured migrants in Aotearoa now that the hurdles of making-people-see-colour-and-treat-it-right have been overcome?

There has got to be a middle path somewhere yeah?

Transculturist, yeah.

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A friend and I have endless discussions about what transculturalism means to us, to mainstream New Zealand, to wannabes and government bodies dedicated to multiculturalism.

He is a New Zealander of Chinese origin and I am the nowhere-belonging Indian. A bunch of us recently met for, what my friend terms, a Creative Cool yum char. Not just any Creative Cools but Crasians, Creative/Crazy Asian dudes and dudettes here in Auckland who want to change and rule the world of art/creative industries. The schmoozer/arts administrator, the hip hop singer, the filmmaker, writer, actors etc etc. Asians who were studying socialist governments in South America and Asians who studied acting the Lee Strasburg way in London, doctor turned wannabe creative Asians….

All of us transcultural. Yeah I want to call myself that because I no longer feel weird for being alone with the idea. Neither here in Auckland or in Bombay, India. Transcultural; taking from one culture, many cultures, losing something, evolving something and then making your own new something. It does not have to be creative either. Just a way of life. And you don’t even realise it because it is such an unconscious part of your existence. Way beyond multiculturalism as defined by the Labour government here. Not a deliberate attempt to bring people together culturally. Y’know the usual food, clothes and dance…and then we all go home until next year. All controlled expression of how the ethnics should be. And subsequently subservient for ‘allowing’ us our space. Bless your kind heartedness 🙂

Not here, not in the streets of Auckland. Or amongst the Crasians. This is natural, smooth, complex. First self selecting and then a habit. Very trendy until it becomes common and everyone jumps on to the bandwagon dahlings!

At the bottom of Anzac Avenue in downtown Auckland is the Hulu Cat Tea House. Retro European decor-cream walls, plump cream leather couches to sink in, little cream stools…and pictures of cats all over the place. The crowd is young, mostly East Asian, playing cards, hanging out and obviously noisy. The pearl tea is served in tall beer glasses with hip hop music playing in the background. Transcultural?

The (East) Asian fashion shops all over downtown Auckland store cutting edge fashion including the Kiwi take on Japanese lollipop. Just bought a pair of red lace-up boots from one of the shops (yeah yeah, naughty:-D). Transcultural?

If clothing is media and arts then ISBIM is even more local than these shops. High end urban and street fashion owned, designed and made in Aotearoa by my Korean friend Joshua who is also a music producer and singer. His music sells mostly in Japan with Korean, English and Japanese lyrics and produced in Aotearoa. Transcultural? The dude would not bother with the word. He just knows this is his way.

It is happening all over the world. If Asian underground music is now mainstream then it took a long time to get there and was not pushed by political agendas of governments. That just made ghettos and made the patriarchs more powerful. MIA is a top notch rap artist of Sri Lankan origin. It was her politics that made her not any government agencies. Then she would probably be doing her Sri Lankan exotic thing at some festival for the ethnics. Anyway what she says is too radical for hush-hush, tread-on-eggshells but pat-us-on-our-backs-for-the-good-we-do suits on taxpayer money.

It is essential to create awareness and push for visibility and equality. Many times government legislation is needed. But when in a democracy ‘official multiculturalism’ begins to stagnate, does not evolve or perpetuates mediocrity and patriarchy within ghettos then one has to question whether such policies are the means to an end or the end product itself. Of course this argument might elicit the usual response of selling out from the PC liberals but it is not me alone or just my rant.

I am comfortable with my transculturalism. And I don’t have time for government types that just waste paper and taxpayer money on do-good festivals and play our-favourite-ethnics games. Just would love a lot more people to experience the same. Unafraid of losing their native culture. It is just evolution.

Ode to the known and unknown.

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Or, staying true to yourself.

Vijay Tendulkar passed away on 19 May 2008. He was (is) an icon/pillar of modern Marathi literature and theatre. Every Maharashtrian I know has spoken about him or his work only in awestruck tones. Even the Sainiks (Shiv Sena members/followers of the Thakerays). Growing up in hardcore, conservative, Marathi-speaking Girgaum, Mumbai in a family that loves its culture, with a grandfather who enjoyed movies, a grandmother who had memories about watching sangeet natak (musical plays) shows during British Raj and parents who not only attended Marathi theatre performances but also took the kids along the influence of these arts was unavoidable. I am not sure how much I have learnt/know 🙂 but every time I go back to Bombay I make it a point to see a play or watch a Marathi movie. It is like a proud and silent acknowledgement of the continuum of my language and roots that Maharashtrians patronise in spite of varying political ideologies and the North Indian/Punjabi hegemony on all popular Indian culture. But I digress.

I saw Vijay Tendulkar’s Ghashiram Kotwal in a rare season, with a lot of its original cast (Mohan Agashe as Nana Phadnavis!), many years after it had been first performed amidst controversy and Bal Thakeray’s usual windbag threats about riots because he deemed the play insulting to brahmins/upper castes. I was enthralled. This was much more than mere storytelling, rather, this was superb storytelling. Mainstream Hindi cinema and Indian films in general use songs and dances to advance a narrative, based as they are on traditional folk theatre but in Ghashiram Kotwal the style was so unique, so multi layered, so ancient and yet so modern, just like the Mahabharat and Ramayan were intended to be, that my little brain, my subconscious, decided that this is what I want to do, to be. A storyteller. When Tendulkar wrote Kamla and Kanyadaan he pissed off a lot of his communist colleagues, those fighters for democracy, equality and against all things capitalist. It was not kosher to call investigative journalists and Dalits anything else but saviours of the world and victims. Then in Sakharam Binder he took a swipe at power structure amongst liberals and how women can be enslaved in the name of liberalism . Unfortunately I have not yet watched a performance of this play. Many of his other works continue to haunt me. I remember feeling uncomfortable, not understanding how my mind had been moulded to fit the workings of a patriarchal society or that do-gooders get attached to their do-gooding which negates all the good intentions they had or that ‘victims’ seek equality but often don’t know how to deal with it or that one can become accustomed to being secondary.

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A couple of weeks ago I heard a radio documentary on Chico Mendes. He did what he did before green-ism and environmentalism were fashionable middle class consumerist statements. So you drink chai latte at Starbucks and vote Green dahling! Anyway, I sat in my car parked on my street, reluctant to go into my warm flat because I was riveted. Chico was a leader who fought for his people, for their right to tap rubber and to save the Amazon rainforest yet he was also superstitious and completely human. He knew the enormity of what he was doing yet remained true to his roots. He was trying to save the world without the haute couture and cosmetic endorsements. Without economists with World Bank agendas.

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I sort of knew Vijay Tendulkar through his work but did not know about Chico Mendes until I heard the radio documentary. They both had one quality on common. They were FEARLESS. Tendulkar had the ability to make both sides of the political spectrum uncomfortable. He spoke the truth, he analysed human behaviour and society, that no one was infallible and no one completely right. And who knows what Chico might have done or become. More than a song by Paul McCartney?

This probably reads really soppy but I feel small when I look at the work and the qualities of Vijay Tendulkar and Chico Mendes. The only thing I can manage is to be true to myself,. I think. At the cost of and risk of making The Man and The Saviour mad at me and thrive in the discomfort of it all. That then would be my ode to these great humans.

The industry, the victims and the ex (or me).

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A couple of weeks ago, at a programme organised by a government department, a Pakeha woman explained the importance of retaining and maintaining one’s native tongue in New Zealand. ‘Your language is very valuable. It is your culture. You must not lose it in New Zealand. You must speak your own language’, she implored to a mostly, inherently (I would like to think) multicultural audience. She was earnest and meant well. Us three South Asians huddled after and had a bit of a laugh. That woman was telling us what we already knew and were doing. Somewhere in the hallowed corridors of PCdom it was time to tick the multicultural box and this was the bureaucratic exercise. We should to tell the migrants that they need to maintain their language, culture, etc, whatever. Tick. Job done. When’s the next festival 🙂

A posterchild for us ethnics here in Aotearoa once warned me about the state of (mental) ‘purity’ and stirring up s**t. ‘No one will take you seriously.’ So I call myself the ex-victim. I mean I continue to be a victim. Try being single and a brown woman. Or just a single woman in Indian society. Anyway. Weird, eccentric, irreverent, ex-victim, victim. PCdom says, you are either with us or with them. We are fighting for justice, for you! And you tell us we are wrong? We stand up, for you! This world order needs to be corrected. This is for you! We protest for you!

I don’t oppose the motive. Thanks for fighting for me. The world order does need to be corrected. Thanks for fighting. But should I not also decide how to fight this battle? What if I say I want justice but also to move on? You say justice first and foremost, forgiveness after. It is the method with which I disagree. The method and the power structure.

That standing up for your rights, demanding justice, moving on/reconciliation/forgiveness and introspection go together, hand in hand has been amply demonstrated by Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. That is also stimulates dissent rather than silence it is well documented in history. (Bastion Point commemorations this week are about reconciliation. Not like all tangata whenua, Maori, the people of the land, have got all the justice they seek yet. Bastion Point photo; Bastion Point)

I don’t want to be a victim, sure. And it is not my fault, of course. Don’t blame the victim! But I stand up and say that if you, my friend, my benefactor who fights for me keep calling me a victim, poor thing; keep telling me how I can survive in the big capitalist world, make me dependent; keep telling me that I am a sweet innocent thing, incapable…then it just makes me that.

The colonisers told me I was useless, a savage, less civilised than them. My colour, my language, culture, customs all inferior. You beckon me once a year during my festival to prove how wonderfully multicultural Aotearoa is. My colour, my language, culture, customs all lovely, coo-worthy and…exotic. Still stereotyping; reducing my complexity to singular-easy-to-consume-multicultural-byte. Giving me space (thanks); not letting me create and own it because you want to decide how ethnics/migrants should be, poor things.

Equity within the power structure?

And then the blind eye to the cultural baggage within the ethnics. Oh of course we are not supposed to have capitalists, fundamentalists, racists etc amongst us. That does not fit into the the scheme of victim things. Gee and if there is then the ethnics/migrants can sort it out themselves. It is too complex…we just save their souls. Actually ours.

I am going to hell, got my ticket, it’s laminated, on my wall. I’d rather not be a victim all my life, even when I face injustices.

The ‘vicitim’ industry.

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Last week I put up a notice for ‘unpaid’ Indian extras on our local Aotearoa Ethnic Network (www.aen.org.nz) . This is a network of ‘ethnic’ types and those not-not coloured or refugees or migrants…basically politically correct gora government and academic types (lovely people some of them, really). It is a useful forum. Quiet for days with only notices for events, research and ethnic activities and then a burst of drama, arguments, controversies and opinions. I have ranted often on AEN and usually got away with it although it has pissed off a few mostly government babus. (Oh and the Hindutva forces in New Zealand-but that’s another post.) The reality of work and putting my energies into other stimulating activities (such as this blog yeah) means that I don’t say much on AEN these days. But without meaning to be immodest 😉 controversy is like my shadow.
So I put up this notice calling for ‘unpaid’ Indian extras for an episode of our local soap Shortland Street yeah. I am associated with Shorty for some time now. I did not think anyone would take this seriously. I mean this is telly, the movies, glamour and what not right? 15 seconds of fame etc? This is not a perfect world and I made a mistake.
I did not reckon with the ‘victim’ mentality. Or the victim industry.

New Zealand is a beautiful, fascinating country. For a former British colony it has different attitudes towards many issues, unlike Australia. It is stubbornly non-nuclear (so far), did not directly participate in the invasion of Iraq and it has the Treaty Of Waitangi (www.treatyofwaitangi.govt.nz) . An amazing document that sets out an equitable relationship between the Crown (government/colonisers) and the Maori, the indigenous people of Aotearoa. That the Brits did not stay true to it is another story. Te Tiriti O Waitangi lays the framework for a bicultural nation. And now New Zealand is a multicultural nation with a bicultural basis. Not complicated at all. Because the rulers/government/goras are still superior to the rest of us (Maori, ethnic, coloured, whatever).

Politically correct liberal types always amuse me. These are the people who feel guilty about colonialism, colonisation, greenhouse gas emissions…just about everything that ‘bad’ Western nations indulge in where African, Asian, indigenous and all other types of non-whites suffer. It is a worthy occupation. Of course reparations for past injustices must be made, apologies must be given for wrongdoings, there must be awareness of human rights, gender equality, religions freedom, democracy and all people must be sensitised towards another’s culture etc etc. That is why New Zealand is multicultural-because all immigrants (coloured/non-English speaking) are given space and sometimes funding towards celebrating and maintaining their culture-because we would otherwise feel intimidated and left out and would not assimilate. Not a bad idea and indeed an appropriate one. So it happens all the time, this celebration. All the festivals, the clothes, the food, culture…exoticism. Because we are the victims of colonialism, racism and all the other bad things that Western (or sometimes our own) imperialists did. And we have to be grateful for this constant celebration, for the political correctness that allows us this space, for liberals and government agencies that feel sorry for us. Because we are the victims and these others our saviours. Because we apparently do not have the ability to stand up for ourselves, to ask questions, to fight for our rights, to work in the thick of the mainstream without selling the soul…and we believe it. There is an entire industry built around perpetually endorsing this mentality. The victim industry.

It is interesting, this victim industry. It’s heart is in the right place but for all the PC attitude it projects, it still preserves the colonialism it purports to correct. The power equation is of the victim and the saviour, the definer and the defined, the ruler and the ruled, benefactor and beneficiary. It is still lopsided, still about the government agencies deciding who we should be-best in our safe ghettos so that it all looks bright and wonderful and exotic and everyone feels good.

So the victim mentality came to the fore when I put up this notice. It was the usual drama, arguments and opinions but it was the lack of trust that stung me and the victim mentality, rather that it existed, so embedded in the brain it hovered over every interaction with the mainstream. So smug in itself that shouting victim would make the producers pay. They were going to anyway. It was my mistake I took it lightly, that the cheap thrill to be on telly would be more appealing than an analysis of the economics of the television industry and how it uses ‘victims’.

So colonialism lives on. In our colonised minds. Thanks to the victim industry.

Oh, I’ll need to update the readers about the next free Bollywood dance performance that Indian kids give to enthralled audience that need reassurance about multicultural New Zealand. :-*

HINDI-CHINI, BROTHER BROTHER

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In 1962 China invaded India from two sides. On the north-west through Ladakh and the north-east through Arunachal Pradesh. It was a horrific war between two countries that were pretending to be friends. India lost the war, her sons and some territory. As a consequence of this loss the Chinese in Calcutta were interned/incarcerated by the then Government of India. A very shameful act. The Chinese have been in India, mainly Calcutta, since the 1700s. I have never been to Calcutta but the Chinese there are famous for their food, beauty parlours, shoes and furniture and expert dentists.

( Check these links for really interesting stories especially the letter from an Indian-Chinese. Or Chinese-Indian? Or Chindian? 🙂 http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/90590/1/ ; http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/rssarticleshow/msid-2830153,prtpage-1.cms)

When I was little my mother would take my sister and I to Eve’s Beauty Parlour in Sukhsagor to cut our hair. It was run by a Chinese lady and her Chinese staff. Then one day the parlour shut down. Now I think back maybe they followed their Calcutta relatives, who might have been incarcerated, to America/Canada/Australia? I recall getting my hair cut at the Hong Kong Beauty Parlour in Colaba by another Chinese lady. She spoke impeccable Bombay Hindi. Wonder if the place is still open? Then there is Dr Chang, the dentist in Chira Bazaar who has been there for as long I remember and whose son apparently runs the clinic. Last time I went through Chira Bazaar, in March 2008, the clinic looked shiny and prosperous with Dr Chang’s board very much in place.

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In 1959 the Dalai Lama crossed over from Tibet into India through Arunachal Pradesh (if I got the route right). Jawaharlal Nehru offered him and his people a home. The Tibetans settled in Dharamshala and then in Karnataka. Every winter they came (come?) to Bombay to sell warm clothes to hot, harried Bombayites whose winter is experienced at 25 degrees. 🙂 They were a curiosity, these Tibetans. With their smiling faces, wiry bodies and sad eyes. Not all monks but still surrounded by an aura of peace. Even cynical Bombayites could not resist the woollens. It was like we knew what they were suffering and helping them meant serving Gautam Buddha himself. For years after encountering them I wanted to visit and live in Dharamshala. Far away from Bombay, in the Himalayas. I was actively discouraged by the family. Which good Indian girl just wanders off to the Himalayas to live like a ‘monk’?

I visited Sikkim in 2000. Just me and my backpack. The good Indian girl. 🙂 I was ‘allowed’ to go only after promising my mother that I would call her every day. Sikkim brought me closer to Tibet than Dharamshala. A trip towards Nathu-La, above Chhangu Lake, nauseous with mountain sickness, eating sheera in the army camp and listening to stories about how the soldiers defend the country I imagined Tibet. A hop, skip and jump across the border, far above the clouds, literally the roof of the world. The Sikkimese are not fond of the Chinese. They revere the Dalai Lama. Sikkim, in independent Himalayan kingdom, was annexed by Indira Gandhi in 1975 but was once claimed by China too.

www.sikkim-adventure.com/sikkim_map.html

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The weekend before last young Chinese students were protesting against the bias of the Western media towards the China-Tibet issue at Aotea Square in Queen Street, Auckland. While there is no doubt that media is biased-anywhere and in any country (I mean Rupert Murdoch rules right? Or whoever has more might and money?) the students seemed to believe what the Chinese government was telling them. Would they know about Tiananmen Square?

I have a lot of Chinese friends in New Zealand, many generations removed from China or fresh from the mainland. We have always worked together for better representation of Asians but never discussed democracy, Tiananmen Square, Tibet, Falun Gong, human rights, Sudan, Burma…or Kashmir, the Red corridor, Nagaland…or just relations between India and China. I wonder why. Because it is uncomfortable? Because these things don’t matter when the white man and colonialism are the ‘common enemy’? Because we rely on government agencies to bring us together and tell us what we should do? Will there be space to talk ever?

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It has taken me some time to figure out an ‘unbiased’ view. Reams have been written by experts and those not. Frankly, I sympathise with the Tibetans. Not so much because I am a bleeding heart or because I understand the teachings of Gautam Buddha (but I am not a Buddhist-for those who would want to label me straight away). No. It is because I have seen the Tibetans as refugees in my motherland. (I have also seen the Kashmiri Pandits as refugees in their own country, in India.) I have felt the warmth of the Dalai Lama permeate a section of Eden Park. Yet I also reminisce about the Chinese women who cut my hair. And stories my grandmother told me about Chinese tradesmen selling their bundles of silk. If I feel sick about the way the Indian Government treated the Chinese of Calcutta after losing the war, if I feel that as an Asian and an Indian in New Zealand I should take charge of my own representation and negotiate my culture and complex identity in this space, then it is natural for me to empathise with the cultural genocide of the Tibetans.

The Beijing Olympics, like any massive sporting event are an exercise in nationalistic jingoism and so called sportsmanship, a money-making occasion, a tourism opportunity. Just like the Commonwealth Games will be in 2010 in Delhi. That is no excuse to crush ‘undesirables’. The Dalai Lama has always asked for dialogue with the Chinese Government. It is the latter who keeps putting in condition after condition.

I am a sucker for sweet endings. Perhaps it is naive of me to think that the Chinese Government will talk to the Dalai Lama or the Tibetans. China is not a democracy. Those protesting Chinese students were using a tool of democracy to talk against Western media but were probably unaware of other tools and requirements that are attached to democracy. I can sit here and type this because I come from a country that has chugged along on a democratic path. Never perfect, never quite understanding how to deal with many issues yet having the space for discourse and argument. I live in a country that is a democracy. Imagine not being able to ask for your rights and representation, not being able to tell a bureaucrat who actually pays her salary! 😀 Chetan Anand made HAQEEQAT, a film on the Indo-China war of 1962 and how India lost the war. I am not aware of any literature that has openly come out of China that speaks about Tiananmen Square or Tibet.

A democratic China would be make an immense difference to Asia and the world. I think then India and China would be real friends rather than be cautious of each other like two sparring partners. It would also keep meddling Western powers at bay. Otherwise, imagine if Western/vested interests infiltrated the region and turn it into another Israel-Palestine or Iraq. It would be easy to arm Tibetans after the Dalai Lama dies. Then the Tibetans might not want to be non-violent. But if there was dialogue and if India lead the way and if we should recognise our cultures within rather than just fighting against Westerners, then it would be hard to beat Asian ‘power’.

Or is it just a stupid, unattainable dream?

LOVING INDIA-9 Never Say Goodbye.

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I am at home in Auckland typing on my own keyboard. I am glad to be home. I was sad to leave home. One is my matrubhoomi, motherland. The other is my karmabhoomi, the land that is shaping my destiny. Home is where the heart is?

Home is where you know the sequence of the electrical switches. The first and last for plugs, the second one for the fan and the third for the light. The same in all rooms of the house. Home is where your mother stores her stock of detergent soaps in the same place for as long as you remember. The bottom shelf of that wooden cupboard in the hallway near the bathroom. Home is when I walked through the labyrinthine maze of Khotachiwadi, Girgaum, Mumbai. The old bungalows, Ideal Wafer Company, narrow lanes still same-to-same. Home. The bus routes, bhel-puri at Chowpatty beach, sizzlers at Kobe, hawkers in the ladies’ compartment of the local train selling bindis, combs and hair clips. Some of the local trains are now painted an appalling McDonald orange (or red?). Nine to twelve carriages advertising fast food that is meant to be aspirational but which very few Indians can afford. They still go from Churchgate to Virar though. Home.

The domestic airports have to deal with air traffic. Air traffic! Indians are travelling their country like never before. Train bookings were always tough to get. Now three-three flights fly to and from one destination at the same time. Budget airlines on which you have to rush to ‘catch’ a seat and buy chana-singdana, peanuts, for Rs 20. And there is that benchmark in local luxury, Kingfisher Airlines (so I’ve been told). The sour-faced service at Indian Airlines continues. Home.

A group of villagers from a remote area in Maharashtra flew all the way to Delhi to meet their representative member of Parliament. He asked the women if they had flown before. This is the first time they had been out of their village, they said.

Waiting for her flight to wherever, while I waited for my flight to Delhi from Bombay, a matron munched on bakarwadi, a savoury. Her trolley was packed with her boriya-bistara, all possible worldy belongings. Like she was taking the Geetanjali Express from VT, Bombay to Howrah, Calcutta. Aap ko bhook lagi hai, are you hungry, she asked another women sitting next to her. Mere pass bahut khane ko hai, I have lots of food with me. Home.

That orgasmic middle-class utopia at Phoenix Mill compound continues to flourish. The chawls, where many of those textile mill workers who lost their jobs in the infamous strike during the 1980s continue to live, are rundown and probably spawning new blood for the Mumbai mafia. I had lunch with my school friends and ate tandoori prawns at Gajalee in Phoenix Mill compound. With my jholawala (socialist/bleeding heart) attitude intact. Home.

Then I flew home. The garden is overgrown with weeds. The chillies are a bright red and I will put them out on the footpath tomorrow for passers-by to pick up. For free. Home. One more week for daylight savings time to end. I might go for a dip in the ocean and am looking forward to my weekend walks in the bush. Home. I have to be overtly PC most of the time yet can send of emails to WINZ where I can call an officer obtuse and pedantic. 🙂 Home. I can do any kind of work and not be looked-down-upon. And I don’t have to keep up middle-class appearances. Home.

Bombay is home. Auckland is my space. Can’t ever say goodbye to either.

LOVING INDIA-8 Me, Just Marathi?

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Some nights ago, on our way home after dinner, my friend was stopped by the Mumbai Police at a check naka. The Mumbai Police has become very strict with drink driving and metes out the treatment on weekend nights to Bombayites. Anyway, my friend had had a couple. He was not drunk but did not want to lose his licence. A constable asked him to get out of the car and show his licence. Have you had any alcohol, he asked. My friend got out of the car, fished out the driver’s licence and spoke to the policeman. In Marathi. How are you today, he smiled. The constable was pleasantly shocked. A Marathi man! I am fine, he said. And examined the little piece of cardpaper that is the driver’s licence in Maharashtra. Come watch my play, requested my friend. Conversationally. The policeman scrutinised him. Oh, you produced that Marathi play, he said. An acquaintance saw it and liked it. I would love to see it. Of course, said my friend. And the conversation ended with my friend noting down the policeman’s name and phone number. We were stopped twice that Friday night. Both times my friend ensured he had new audience and the driving licence was intact. Only because he was a ‘local’ talking to a ‘local’.

Years ago when a patient was stalking me I made a police complaint. A ‘local’ talking to them in their language.

So far so good. Being a local has its advantages. Like the system is skewed towards the Pakeha (Europeans) in New Zealand. It is an ‘inherent advantage’ for some people. Then what? Keep out the migrants and let society, the economy and local culture rot?

Raj Thakeray, the man-who-almost-became-kingmaker-before-he-was-ousted-by-his-cousin, Uddhav, son of Bal Thakeray, wants the bhaiyyas and the Biharis out of Bombay. They are the problem, he proclaimed. Just like the ‘Asians’ are a problem in New Zealand. (Before that it was the Pacific Islanders.)

So is it only locals that make a society? Is it only the Marathi person that has made Bombay/Mumbai a cosmopolitan city? Is it only the Europeans that made New Zealand?

Politicians harp on about migration issues, pressure on resources and anything that is a problem. If there were no bhaiyyas who would deliver milk early in the morning to all the households in Bombay? Who would make the furniture? If there were no businessmen from Gujarat/Rajasthan where ever would the Bombay Stock Exchange even exist? What about the film industry here? If the Punjabis had not come, broke and emotionally torn by Partition, who would have made the films? (Never mind that Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema was a Maharashtrian man.) If the Chinese had not mined gold in Otago would the local economy and hence that of New Zealand have flourished? Or if the Croatians had not dug gum/the Indians had not cut scrub etc etc. Know what I mean?

My friend, who avoided being ‘caught’ is close to the upper hierarchy in the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Our local, right-wing, belligerent, parochial political parties in Bombay. But he too gets uncomfortable when talk of ‘Mumbai for the Marathis’ comes up. Because he knows. It is an obsolete, regressive concept. If Mumbai had been built only by the locals/Maharashtrians it would not be the city it is today. One only has to visit the top floor of the Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Byculla to see how this city was built.

Auckland may have been named after Lord Auckland who was Governer-General of India (and lead a disastrous foray into Afghanistan in the 1850s) so what? It projects itself as a global city but has proposed budget cuts in the area of migrants and refugees. The irony is that the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance wants to hear from ‘ethnic’ communities. Some questions to start discussion, according to an email sent out by The Office of Ethnic Affairs, are:

Do councils respond to the needs of ethnic communities?

Are ethnic communities able to access council services?

😀
The Indian constitution deems that India is for all Indians. They can live anywhere they like in this country. So Maharashtrians can go anywhere they like. Why haven’t they? Afraid of hard work and sweat? Or discrimination? Or to fight for what is right but in a proper, civil way?

What is the meaning of being a New Zealander/an Aucklander? Just hyphenated words? Yeah, I am a female-Hindu-Brahmin-Maharashtrian-Bombayite-Indian-Aucklander-New Zealander….or a transnational, transcultural citizen of the world who would like to contribute positively to whichever country I work/live in?

Yesterday was the beginning of a long weekend in India. Eid-e-Milad, Navroze, Holi and Easter. Four festivals in four days. Three of which could be ‘Marathi’, irrespective of religion. Yet the Parsis also built Bombay no?

As I count my days to return to New Zealand I have reaffirmed one thing. I know where I come from so I can go anywhere I want. And that is more than being Just Marathi.