Ubiquitous Reciprocal Affinity

Until a few years ago it had never occurred that there are other countries that struggle with racism. From news footage I of course knew of “ethnic cleansing” and from history I knew antisemitism and xenophobia as abstract concepts. but until a friend of mine lived for a year in a foreign country, and returned with stories of how the citizens thought about and treated people from the countries next-door (and who’s cultural differences I couldn’t name with a gun pointed to my head) I had never thought really hard about how and why racism exists as an Idea that can get lodged in the consciousness of a country.

In the run up to the “Commonwealth Games” scheduled for the second half of next month here in Delhi, there have been a number of editorials in the dailys on how playing host to a large multi-sport competition will make India look to the rest of the world: a lot of put your best face forward, and tackle corruption while the spotlight is on, sort of stuff. One magazine decided that it would handle things from a different angle. M, local competition to GQ-India and FHM, decided to present a series of essays and photos that discussed the zeitgeist of a striving for modernity yet exasperating republic.

Below the author tackles both his current predicament of feeling like a foreigner in what should be his homeland; but also touches on a not-so-uniquely-Indian problem of how to cobble together a national Identity.

Including the Excluded

By Pradip Phanjoubahm

Are you an Indian? Where was the last time I heard this thrown at me? Difficult to remember, for there have been too many occasions. Not too infrequently and painfully, this is also the experience of most others from the Northeast when they travel abroad, or to the so-called ‘mainland’ India. Mainland? Well, North—east India is almost an island, connected to the rest of the country by just a twenty—and-something kilometer ‘Siliguri Corridor’, or the ‘chicken’s neck’ as this narrow strip of land is more popularly known. Indeed, for most in the North—east, the existential question ‘Who am l?’ has to be renegotiated the day he or she crosses this corridor.

I am reminded of a classic story. Some years ago, one of our reporters was invited to Bangkok for a three—day workshop on climate reporting. He reached the hotel a day in advance, and with religious punctuality, arrived at the conference hall for the opening session, The meeting, however, did not begin for long after he completed the registration formalities. The organizers, it seemed, were waiting for another participant. When he inquired, one of them apologetic calmly told him that they were waiting for an Indian participant to reach the venue.

Ten minutes later, when the Indian man (or woman) still did not turn up, our reporter began to have a nagging suspicion that they could be waiting for somebody who may already be at the venue. He was not wrong. When he asked the organizers how many Indians were participating at the conference in the first place, it turned out there was only one. A look of surprise, a recheck of the attendance register and a hearty laugh later, the meet began. This happened in Bangkok, and therefore evoked nothing more than a hearty laugh. Had a similar thing happened in New Delhi, which is not an impossibility, the hurt and alienation caused would understandably have been much deeper.

The much talked about ghettoization of communities from the Northeast in New Delhi and other Indian metropolises is indeed not just a matter of the northeasterner preferring the security of a Northeast ghetto, but equally one of his or her being pushed into it. For many middle-class young men and women in Manipur, especially among the Hindu Meites who have grown up amidst a devout Vaishnav culture, the question ‘Who am I?’ normally begins troubling them at the college-going age - the time when their parents send them away in pursuit of higher studies to the better political and academic climes of other Indian states. Till then, most would have had no problem in believing themselves to be Indians, by definition as well as culture, without having ever felt the need to reflect on what it means to be an Indian.

They would hence cheer for the India an hockey and football teams without reservation. Cricket is a little alien, although its fan following is on the rise thanks to television and the game’s new packaging. They would celebrate Holi and Durga Puja and other Hindu festivals, and also know that they share these faiths with a lot of others in other parts of India, establishing, in this way, a sense of a loose national community. Unlike other ethnic groups in the region, a good majority of whom are Christians, their sense of a letdown when they discover there is more to the Indian identity then they believed, is peculiar. Needless to say, many end up embittered.

Just to give a sense of Manipur’s demographic profile, the Meiteis are one of three major ethnic groups of the state; They are predominantly Hindus, although seven percent of them are Muslims and an unspecified percentage follows the original pre-Hindu animistic faith of Sanamahi, now given new life by a strong revivalist movement in the 1960s and ’7os. (The percentage of Sanamahi followers will be known after the current Indian census exercise, which has allowed them to enter ‘Sanamahi’ as their religion, although today, it must be said, this faith has become somewhat an extension of Hinduism. The fact that Hinduism is not a structured religion has helped in this.) The other two major groups are the Nagas and Kukis, who are today almost a hundred percent Christian. (This followed the proselytizing path opened

115 years ago by the pioneering and revered American Baptist missionary William Pettigrew.) Their sense of aleinatiation to the idea of India is (or at least was) a substantially different equation. politic secular, is culturally still predominantly the land of the Hindus, or Hindustani. In modern times, Hindu nationalist political parties.,by trying to give this cultural identity a political use, have only accentuated this belief.

Not so much In Mipur, but a good majority of the Nagas in Nagaland, for instance, would even today say they are not Indians. But then there would have to be finer distinction made here. The ‘Indian’ that the Nagers in Nagaland say they are not Las an imagined ethnic category and not a citizenship status. So when a Nagger says he is not an Indian, more than citizenship, he means he is not a non-mongoloid, Dravldo—Aryan, generally dark-skinned plainsman, which he believes is the ethnic profile of an Indian. In Manipur, there is a separate category for the plainsman Indian - Mayan. A Meitei, Kuki or Naga from Manipur hence wll say he is not a Mayang (obviously), but wall have less trouble calling himself an Indian, for Indian here signifies citizenship. This is also true of th other Northeastern states. In Mizoram, the word for Mayang is Val, In Meghalaya it is Dkhar etc. So am I, a Meitei from the Indian state of Manipur, an Indian? On the face of it, yes. I am a citizen of the secular republic called India. I fulfill all the obligations of being an Indian citizen and, in turn, enjoy all the benefits (although with some hiccups such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA—1958) the Indian state guarantees its citizens. But the trouble is, being an Indian does not end here.

In fact, it only begins at this point. Quite to the contrary of what the republican Constitution of India says, ‘lndianmesn’ is often quite intuitively also projected as the state of belonging to a civilizational, historical and cultural stream. By this definition, to be Indian is a primordial state of being: Anybody can become an Indian citizen, but he cannot become an Indian, he has to be born as one. The case of the wide opposition some years ago amongst a good section of Indians to Sonia Gandhi emerging as a Prime Ministerial candidate is just one alibi. Quite ironically, even former Lok Sabha Speaker Puma Sangria, from Meghalaya, was one of the staunchest campaigners against this possibility, and he had even resigned from the Congress party on this count. This was, perhaps, a demonstration of the psychological phenomenon of self-hate that Frantz Fanon explained in Wretched of the Earth, in which the oppressed identifies his own degradation in others in a similar predicament, and despises that image.

This 5ooo-year-old historical mainstream of Indian culture is what the Northeast has never belonged to. The image oft Indian man projected both abroad as well as in the country has little of the northeast, which is why our reporter in Bangkok and other overseas travelers from the region are called upon to apologetically qualify their claims of being Indians every time they hold out their Indian passports. This may be just another unfortunate fact that the North-east man has to get used to and not be too sensitive about, but he cannot also prevent the hardening of the deep sense that he is a different Indian, The North—east has always belonged to historical stream that have flowed separately, and if there has been a forced confluence it is thanks to British colonialism. which yoked them together for its own ends. Under such circumstances, and especially when the boundary between ‘Indianness’ and ‘Hinduness’ is sought to be thinned down through political overtones such as ‘Hindutva’, the North-east finds itself recoiling.

This fact of the northeast being distant from the ‘mainstream’ is evident in the familiar appeal to it, to ’join the mainstream’. The question is, how about widening the Indian mainstream so that Northeasters do not have to leave their streams to join the ‘mainstream’? They can then remain in their old streams and still be part oft ‘mainstream’. To be a proud Indian, politically and culturally, then would only mean to be proud of what you actually are. And to this there would be no dispute, there would be no resistance, for then there would be nothing to resist. Nation building would then not involve either leaving any stream or joining another ‘mainstream’. In one stroke, the excluded would have automatically become included.

(The author is editor of Impala Free Press)

For the last two weeks i’ve listened only to two albums: Matt Alber and Neko Case. While I had been anticipating Middle Cyclone for months, Hide Nothing was a suprise. Comming from seemingly opposite ends of the musical spectrum they both acheive resonant emotional heights by pairing super-human vocal abilities (Neko has a third lung I swear) with tender poetry (Matt’s ability to capture the excitment and confusion of a first crush stirs long forgotten twinges).

I first heard Matt Alber when my favorite news agregator/blog posted a video for his “End of the World”. Reading about him recording/producing/mixing the album in his apartment filled me with awe and that the video, directed by his brother, features a waltz with two men made me fall in love. The rest of the songs are beautifully instrumented and feature well his warn tenor. The have a timeless classical quality that I suspect comes from his involvement with Chanticlear, a Grammy winning choral group. At first listen I was wowed just by his technique, and have been repeatedly impressed by the song structure and lyricysim.

The themes of love as a natural world phenomenon are everywhere on the album - the opener “Monarch” connects being in a relationship to the migration of butterflies. And like Case he has the ability to bring to mind a prairie field teeming with life.

Many people have noted a fondness for animals in Neko Case’s songs. I came to her first after hearing “Tiger on a chain”, and have been folowing ever since. There is nobody that sounds quite as good with such uncatagorizable a body of work. Earlier in her career she sounded pretty old school country and honkey tonk but over the course of 6 albums has crafted a niche all her own. She seems to be heading in a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot direction but still keeps it all organic. Referencing magpies and killer whales the new set of songs fits in with her earth mother aura (and a cover of the Sparks’ “Mother Nature” adds just a slight bit of hippy granola crunch).

Still I’m glad she’s getting the attention she deserves. Cyclone was even sold at Target. In a few years maybe Matt will be as well known.

This last Friday (12am showing thank you very much) I saw the highly anticipated moving-picture adaptation of seminal graphic novel Watchmen. Making this movie was a unique enterprise in that it was not just another comic book movie, but  from the onset, publicized itself as being as faithful as possible to the source material.

This poses a problem for the director, in that the material was itself a piece of visual storytelling, and what, if anything, does a director need if not a unique vision. It seems fittingly poetic that the main flaw of the movie was that its director tried to prove that he was a necessary element of the production — Gibbons should have received a director credit because of the number of sequences that were lifted directly from his illustrations.

The only place that the Snyder seems to have had visual input was the extension of some fight sequences and the unnecessary gratuity of female nudity. (The blue nudity makes perfect sense for the character and is part of the source material.) Which is blatantly an attempt to keep what, without the massive existing fan-boy base, would be it’s target demographic, teenage boys, happy.

What fan-boys already know is that Watchmen is more complex than a typical super-hero story. Contained with it’s 12 issues were the “origin stories” of half dozen characters, the the sketching of a parallel history where the US was not unsuccessful in Vietnam, the zeitgeist of impending nuclear doomsday, an exploration of existential determinism, the duality of female characters in the medium and a pirate story. 

Even at almost three hours, the movie could not possibly keep all this detail, but I was happy to say that it got most of the high-points right. (The “Black Freighter” meta-comic looks to be an extra on the DVD.) The characterizations of Rorschach and Night Owl were particularly well rounded, and with the emergence of motion capture technology as a viable tool for enhancing performances a new Oscar category seems ripe for Billy Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan to take home (or to become model for). 

The art direction and FX were awesome and I was happy to see so much of the novel brought to greater detail. But while it was good to see these drawing brought to life; the conceit of the mission statement, bring the graphic novel to the screen, was  its greatest flaw. (My review of 300 compared it to an animated David painting.)

While the serial novel poses its own sets of problems, Moore worked well within those to make each issue sufficiently self contained, but still be contained enough momentum to give each issue a cliffhanger. I think that the movie stayed to close to that narrative pattern, so that there seemed to be a sort of climax every twenty minuets or so. It would have been better if the screenwriters could have adjusted the pacing a bit for a more cohesive arc.

While I will confess an appreciation of multiple chronology storytelling, found that, on screen, the lack of narrative pattern to be jarring. I remember my first exposure to Moore’s work and having an immediate affinity for his ability to collapse and expand narrative time, which I later realized had been learned from the best of the 20th century, Woolfe, Joyce and Proust. Their lessons: the past is never really past and that writing allows anyone to be their own version Dr. Manhattan. (I’d be happy to be half as sexy without hair as Billy Blue. Sitting in a theatre however is not the same as sitting in an armchair and the movie cannot function in that same temporal environment.  

Pacing is just one way that a movie needs to be different than a book. The most successful adaptations understand this and edit accordingly. The few movies that have been better than the books from which they were taken apply a light approach to their sources. (example: Cider House Rules and Wonder Boys.) Taking so much directly from the series chopped up the action and the addition of unnecessary sequences dragged out run time.

However I am happy to say that one small detail was changed that I completely agree with; changed I assume because, even for a super-hero movie that postulates a consciousness made up something other than a brain, it was just to far fetched to believe. The original story used this as a way to make a conspiracy once discovered implausible to those who would read of it in Rorschach Journal. (I too am glad that was kept Justin.) 

Other reviews I’d categorize into those that applaud the reverence, those that applaud the direction that the movie takes the superhero genre and those that were annoyed by Akerman’s inadequate performance. I’ll give it 3.25 stars B- only because it tried to please the wrong audience - those fan-boys slavishly praising the faithful transcription - but movies being the business they are that was maybe that was a wise decision.

Gran Torino After writing yesterday’s rant on the vagaries of culture,  I decided Clint Eastwood’s racially charged revenge drama might be just the thing to snap me back to the realities of my all to segregated city.  Not so much.

The deftly hard-edged yet unashamdely ”bittersweet”  screeplay, written by a native Minnesotan was what the local press had been spinning. (How awesome if two MN’er won an Oscar back to back.) And I was not disappointed by this story, the attention to cultural details, and the epithet filled script - from which I appalled by more  racial insults in an hour than I had forgotten in the last 10 years. The story of cultural and generational tensions in an old neighborhood being repopulated by Hmong immigrants is one that I have been witness to. I was delighted to see that some of my own experiences with multiculturalism were getting their due on the big screen. (more…)

Suggestion for the next stuff white people like entry: An afternoon reading the Atlantic in a coffee shop. I would like to have this amusing contradiction of my dying culture documented before it goes the way of the dodo. Because lord knows I’m not having any white kids to pass my mores along to — I’ll leave that to my brother and his wife. I’m one of those deck-chairs on the Titanic people I suppose, facing the inevitable with a sense of calm dignity rather than running around like a Huhn ohne Kopf. 

Of course this is absurd - anything defined as “white culture” is. The cover article is intriguing in that it points out that the demographics, they are a changing, and that by the time my niece and nephews (however many of them there turn out to be) are running the world, America will likely not be THE dominant actor on the world stage. But what that means for American culture is not by any means easily predicted. (more…)

5. David Byrne & Brian Eno: Everything that Happens Will Happen Today. Some People say that David’s voice is an acquired taste. My reaction has always been that I’m glad I acquired it, because with so many more things to express and with such a dense evocative way of expressing it who could  resist. And quite frankly I couldn’t care less if these beats are over 20 years old. 

4. Adele: 19. Why is it that whenever a singer makes an album in the style of last year’s “bright new thing” she’s called a “copy cat”? In most things it’s called an improvement. And lord help me if this grammy-nom is ever hospitalized for exhaustion. And if you need a thought experiment some night try imagining Back to Black without the Dap Horns.

3. Fleet Foxes. Is it wierd to admit that I bought this disc because I remembered the cover art from a visit to the German National Gallery. The Target Bargain Wall is a good place to grab the “up and commers”  In 2008 facial hair made a comeback and this bunch amazing harmonizing bearded guys brought musicality front and center. I want to bring them for a personal concert to Holden Village — wouldnt the Koinanea firepit room be the best place?

2. Erykah Badu: New Amerikah (Pt. 1 4th World War). She’s always pushed hip-hop into new territory - first it was into feminist inspired soul revival. Then it was moved into experimental noise rock and then into world-music samples. With almost 5 years since her last release and a lot having happened in the intervening political landscape I found that she had not been taking any sort of break. She’s been surveying the land and this music captured the mood of the country better than anything else I’ve heard. I’ve been grooving to the album in its entirety since its release in February; and I look forward to Part 2 (Return of the Ankh), which I will (I hope) capture the hope that arrives with the New Administration. 

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Just finished watching the tenth to last episode of BSG (dece-tultimate?) and I will sum it all up: I was blown away. The most distubing/hopeful reveletion was perhapse Dee’s decision to end it. Was the revelation if the 12th worth the wait? Yes! How was Cara’s arrival on earth predictive of the future/past? The “slash” betrays my resistance to that uderstanding.

The Countdown begins.

10. Vampire Weekend. As anyone in finance and market analysis will tell you, the best first step to success is to manage expectations. With a sound like nobody else - likened to a The Strokes, if Hammond had been total-recalled with the music of Johanesburg. And Cassablancas had gotten that graduate degree — the hype almost did these guys in. Fluffy anyone? I can’t help but smile everytime one of these comes up in the shuffle. 

9. Kate Nash: Made of Bricks. With the release of Lilly Allen’s follow-up delayed indefinitely I was wondering where I would get my sassy bird quota.  (My cable package doesn’t include BBC America.) Then I picked this up. The best piano sing-a-longs with attitude enough to keep me going for 45 treadmill min. And the best use of a non-family-friendly insult in a song title.

8. Cut//Copy: In Ghost Colours. The best New Order cover band that never was. Theses Aussies were moving me even before I realized that they could, by themselves, redeem an entire country from the disaster of these other guys. It takes quite a bunch of talents to make a sound so familiar sound so new. 

7. Hercules and Love Affair. Just when you thought that there were no other tricks in Disco’s bag of tricks - the pairing of one of the most unique voices in music (& Mercury Music Prize winner) with backing of a hot red-bear DJ - that bag just got much bigger. And if you were to take to heart the Easy lyrics it would be worth a few month’s worth of sermons. 

6. Jenny Lewis: Acid Tongue. By far the best of recent slew of actresses turning to music in an attempt to prove they have brains as well as good looks. (Sorry Scarlett, Good try Zooey) With the year’s best humanist torch song and the ability to inspire the best performance from rock veteran since 1983; this collection bodes well for a budding career.

This years CD compilation was a debate between singles and albums. Titled “The Single is Dead, Long Live the Album is Dead, Long Live the Single” because I was caught up the ongoing debate between the two camps (it was begun long ago, and looks like it won’t be decided any time soon) as a tectonic shift in the music recording industry drives sales down to 60% of it’s peak in 2005. What do you buy? What do you look for in musical purchases? 

I can see both sides of the debate: “if Albums were uniformly good, there would be no need to pick and choose singles” vs. “not everything an artist produces will appeal to everybody”. And while I have a sympathy for the latter argument, my deeper feelings are such that I hold a single awesome album over the course of a career in higher regard than a 10 great singles in as many years. That’s why my list of favorite singles is up first:

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