...And of Language

B. stayed with me about two weeks. She was on her first visit from India to the US. I was about to write “maiden visit” and then realized how easily I had slipped back into Indian/British English which would be incomprehensible to readers here. During B.’s stay, I uttered words that I had not used in a long time, like “passed out” from college. And most of all, I became bi-lingual again. B. and I chatted in Hindi and English, sentences beginning in one language and ending in the other, and also slipped in words from our respective languages, Bengali (mine) and Tamil (hers).

Growing up, being bilingual was no extra-ordinary thing for us, middle-class children of socialist India. English was the language the British left behind, English was the language of the working world, of incomprehensible bureaucratese, English was the language of the music on our cassette and record players and was the words coming out of improbable-looking (to us) men and women in American movies.

But, our mother tongues were the languages of our sly humor, of our landscapes, of our identity. At home, my mother would break into Rabindrasangeet and would recite verses of Tagore’s poems, for reasons ranging from the weather to her moods. There were no words in English adequate to describe the beauty of the monsoon rain or the golden harvest of Baisakhi. Only Hindi or Bengali or Tamil or another Indian language could yield satisfactory images of our world – rain clouds as thick and dark as a woman’s long hair, an aanchal, “kelenkari” (social stigma). And then, of course, there were movie scenes that were utterly hilarious only if you were bilingual or had some idea of the interplay of English and Indian languages.

But equally importantly, bi-lingualism made us mentally flexible, cognitively agile. My linguistic nimbleness is fading now after years of monolingual English, but it comes back now and then. Such as when confronted by Indians of a certain age in shopping malls who hesitate and ask me in broken English for “the lift”. Unlike many monolingual others who gape at them, dumbfounded, I know that they are asking for “the elevator”. I require an approximation to comprehend, not absolutely exact words in a language. In another life, back in India, that’s exactly what I used to say: “Where’s the lift?” On the other hand, I still need more elaboration when one of my kids demands, on an almost daily basis, “Where’s the thing for that thing?”

Of Visitors...

Recently, an old friend from India came to visit. I was able to see my home of ten years, my country of residence for nineteen years, through new eyes and to revisit the time when I was a newcomer to the land. To her, America was a nice break from her usual routine. She felt cold in May, for it was much cooler here than in India where the parched land was sweltering, still waiting for the monsoon rains to break. We spent much of the time, chatting, chatting, chatting, making up for time not spent together in the last thirteen years.

Through B.'s appearance and actions, I recalled my slow adjustments in the early years. My friend looked good in her hand-sewn handloom cottons and her big bindi. Her dresses glowed in the luminous spring light at this time of year. But I had looked so out of place nineteen years ago, wearing clothes that looked odd in 1990s Chicago. A lot of handloom cotton whose colors and patterns didn’t look right in the grey fall and winter of the Midwest. A hairstyle that wasn’t quite right either. Like an exuberant peacock in a grim Arctic land. It’s something to do with the way the light falls on the colors in the autumn and winter. I quickly moved to dull plaids and knits, merging my body into the winter landscape.

B.’s little moves also reminded me of my earlier self. The conversion of rupees into dollars and the horrified realization that one had spent so many rupees! The rushing steps to the buses and trains in New York City, only to realize that there was no enormous rush of people all fighting to squeeze in (well, maybe during rush hour, but we went into the city at off-peak times). Her intake of breath and lit-up eyes at the glowing, beautiful buildings on Fifth Avenue, especially the Met, made me remember with affection my similar response to the grandeur and beauty of Chicago’s skyline and Lake Shore Drive. By the end of the trip, I saw B. relax gradually, like I had years earlier, and enjoy the abundance of resources that I now take for granted. What a wonderful visit for both of us!

The Flotilla

So many political posts in a row. I guess I'm a very political person. And yes, although I have not dedicated a long post to the current crisis about the aid flotilla sailing to Gaza, I do have strong opinions about it. I believe Israel is completely wrong to have attacked the flotilla with such overwhelming force. I do not believe that the Turkish volunteers were completely peaceful either as the video shows quite clearly.

I believe in the right of Israel to exist and I also believe that the Palestinians deserve their own, absolutely viable state. Which means no open-air prisons and Bantustans like Gaza. The more I think about it, the more I think that the first post-independence Indian leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru got it right. Opposing the partition of Palestine, they hoped for the establishment of a bi-national secular state. This was radical in its day and is still radical today. I doubt whether the votaries of either a Jewish state or a Palestinian state will go in for a wholly secular single state. In the end, though, this is the only lasting solution to the problem. It may be a pipe dream right now, but the alternative is either a Lebanon-like disaster (which is what happens when you try to create a multi-ethnic state based on religious hedging of bets rather than outright secularism) or else a continuous state of war. And Israel will only continue to win that war while her chief patron, the United States, remains strong. Unfortunately, the chief patron is going through a severe economic recession. There may not be much money left to protect clients in the near-term future. And I don't think China is going to step in anytime soon to fill the budget gap. Besides, as the state of Pakistan should make clear to Israel, one shouldn't base one's existence on one's indispensability as a client state.

There's Something About Nikki

Yes, an obligatory post about poor Nikki Haley. There's nothing Haley can do right, or so it seems. Born to Indian immigrant parents, the Sikh-turned-Methodist daughter of the state of South Carolina is now the target of a witchhunt by the good ol' boys of her state's political establishment. She is accused of having an affair with not one but two rather unsuitable men, if one can call them that. Haley is also slammed for being a "raghead", not fit to occupy the Governor's mansion.

I think there are two things going on here, both of them working against poor Ms. Haley. First, in American politics, one of the surefire ways to derail a political candidate's run for office is to insinuate, assert or establish salacious sexual scandal. Given the odd mix, particularly in the South, of extreme religiosity and sexual licentiousness, Haley was bound to be subject to the test of sexual purity, the Bible Belt's own version of the Agnipariksha, or a trial by ordeal. She must be made to suffer and endure, and if found guilty, banished, exiled, sent away. I don't know the truth about Haley's personal life and choices, but this is not about her lack of morals, it is about the morals of the society she wants to govern as an elected candidate. A society she wants to govern as a woman. Tough society you chose to live in, Nikki.

The second way to defeat a candidate even before the voters decide, is to cast him or her as alien. This is an especially tempting strategy for the good ol' (otherwise unelectable) boys for there is nothing that Nikki Haley can do about her lineage. She was born into a Sikh family, was raised a Sikh and only changed her religion because she fell in love with someone of a different faith. She cannot change her DNA or even the color of her (rather light) skin. Her current, ardent Methodism holds no merit for her South Carolina opponents, for no amount of religiosity can change the fact that she is, well, desi. And she is therefore quite susceptible to being called a "raghead" over and over again. Just ask Barack Hussein Obama.

If ever there was a moment when the politics of race and sex combined, this is one of the leading examples. The way forward, Nikki Haley, is to take a deep breath and keep moving forward, regardless of your private deeds and/or misdeeds. Or, to embrace your desi roots and sing like Guru Dutt in Pyaasa about how, even if you win this world, is this world really worth it? There's one particularly nice line about "this world of societies, the enemy of human beings...so what if you win this world?"