From: pramath@riemann.math.purdue.edu (Pramathanath Sastry)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Going back to Desh
Date: 29 Jul 92 01:27:47 GMT
Organization: Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.


It is getting time for me to leave the US once again. The past two
months have just whizzed past. I had hopes of posting more often on SCI- but
I never quite got the time. But I do want to write about the past year in
India. Beg your indulgence and all that.

I left a few days after RG was assasinated. Friends came up to me asking
if I was absolutely sure I wanted to return, now that the situation was
unstable. No I wasn't sure at all. I was nervous as hell. And RG's
assasination had nothing to do with it. I was nervous about a new way
of life. Seven years in the US is a long time. I had never quite been
an adult in India. Hadn't ever really looked after myself there. Had come
away here in my early twenties, and had learnt the art of running my life
here. My outlook (regarding domestic economics etc) was completely
american. I knew that wasn't quite the way Mom ran things in Delhi
(My Dad- God bless him, was a wonderful man. But he was a product of
his times). I would have to get a ration card. A gas connection. Would
have to travel in slow crowded buses. Would have to put with all sorts
of demands ("So and so is having his thread ceremony. You've got to go.
And what will those people think of us if you
don't attend that marriage...").  Even buying provisions (groceries)
requires diplomatic skills. 
One must start a relationship with the store keeper. One goes up to
him, looking every inch a sahib or a mem-sahib, and tells him,
"Gopinathji, hum yehaan naye hain. Aapki maddad ki bahut zaroorat hogi"
[Mr. Gopinath, I just moved in. I need your help]. Then you start a
lifelong relationship with him. Within six months he will know
your family history. In return you get dal, chaval, atta ... delivered
at home. And every time you go to his store, you beam a smile on him,
and he beams one right back. And then you stand back watch him help
other customers, and then give you his undivided attention.  A far cry
from driving to the supermarket, and loading a cart full of groceries
into your car (Q: What is the politically correct answer to "paper
or plastic ?").

I wasn't sure if I was up to all this "relating" stuff. Didn't
wanna network. Not with actual people. Networking over SCI - that is fine.
The people  ain't real. Not real real. I mean, say Rao gets mad at me. I
feel bad, but at a fundamental level I am not bothered. Because I
don't quite know Rao. Have never met him. If however we had met, and
shared a packet of "mirapkaya bajjis", that would be different [mirapkaya bajji 
=mirchi-ke-pokoday. We Telugus love that stuff. Helps us speak telugu
better. ].

Anyway, there were plenty of misgivings. And sadness. I reached a few
days before the post assasination phase of the straggled elections
began. And tried my best to get used to Indian TV. Was distgusted
with the newsreaders' accents. It seemed far too anglicised, with an
undercurrent of Delhi. I wonder to myself- Is Delhi English going
to be the standard Indian version (because of TV ?). Would it one day
play the role (in India) that the BBC accent plays in Britain ? Was I
seeing Great Tradition being made artificially ? But slowly a transfor-
mation takes place. Begin to appreciate Doordarshan. Join the crowd and
begin enjoying Prannoy Roy's election coverage. Watch the Indian
politician become camera savvy. Was impressed by the camera smarts of
the most unlikely politicians. 

Those were different days. PVN was recieved with mixed feelings ("too
old; too close to RG; too far from RG; too intellectual- doesn't
know how to run governments; oh thank God- finally a well read man; ...).
Those days, in middle class indian circles, the horrible phrase
"Nehruvian socialism" was in the vogue, and the only way to say it was with
a sneer. Patel was given the Bharat Ratna in an effort to please BJP.
Advani wrote (and still writes) articles in the Indian Express praising
Patel, and somehow managing to damn Nehru without saying anything against
Nehru. A famous letter to the editor sarcastically praised the Govt for
giving Bharat Ratnas posthomously to RG and Patel. Said this sets a
great precedent. Now we should honour all our past heros. Beginning with
Maharaja Bharata, then Buddha, Asoka , ... .  That is when the worst
word in the language crept into Indian usage. Suddenly everyone
was talking about the IMF "conditionalities".

What about the domestic front ? Aha- I was takingtime off and staying with
my mother. Gently getting introduced to daily chores desi-shtyle. 
Was trying to be liberal and tolerant about the dust and the heat, and
what seemed like the worst sanitation. "This must be hard for you after
all those years in the US". One puts on one's most indulgent smiles, and
replies "Oh no- not at all. I lived here for twenty odd years. I mean,
I like the dust, the heat and the smell of -- well the smell, and the
general mess. Yup exactly as I dreamed. Buoys me up". The wife flashes a  
grin at me, a grin which has "Liar" written all over it. Avoid the
better half's disconcertingly candid grins. And then in the beginning of
July, wife and I push off to Bombay.

Bombay looked horrible. Rains everywhere- buildings looked old and  
algae ridden. And so many people. People rushing around, crowds in buses,
in trains. People on the streets. Lying around. Sitting around, along
rail-road tracks. Doing things. I ask myself if I'll survive. 

Funny how Bombay changed in a month. Frightening crowds somehow metamorphised
into exciting crowds. Old, crumbling buildings acquired an
old world charm. People didn't seem smelly, and the trains seemed a
wonderful way of feeling one with humanity. 

August and the Loved One pushes off to the US to finish her studies.
This means 10 months of living by myself. Not sure if I like the idea.
But by now I pretty much know that my future is in India. I begin
"networking". With actual people. So many interesting people. I met
a muslim supporter of the RSS. He was about 50, and was living in
Nagpada. He had been the head of the shakha in "Igatpuri". It was
odd- me a liberal Hindu opposed to the RSS, and him a supporter. Have
his photograph.

And then there were H and S. H a liberal Saraswat Brahmin. Totally opposed
to the BJP, RSS, VHP. Married to a Muslim. S a South Indian Brahmin.
Strong RSS supporter. H and S are extremely close friends of each other.
And S would always surprise me. We used to teach in a nearby slum. He told
us that he'd teach anyone, but that he wouldn't teach in a church (which
was one of the venues). As it turned out- we needed him there, and his
co-teacher was a missionary. S rose to the occasion magnificiently,
swallowed his prejudices, and did the right thing. I remember the many
nights S would go out with us for a beer, and our crowd of friends included
everyone- Goan catholics, Syrian Christians, Marxists, anti-communists,
right-wing conservatives, militant Hindus. When I left Bombay for madras 
(took up a new job this March), S and H came to the station to see me off.

How would I rate the year ? Most exciting. I saw things that I somehow
missed during my first innings in India. No pre-concieved ideas work
in India. India is changing very very rapidly. In ways we cannot even
guage. A measure of how much India changed me is this- when I returned
for a two month stint here, I felt lost. I can no longer relate to the
US the way I did. I will always, always, cherish my American experience.
I have internalised many American ways (Joe Montana remains God to me).
But my centre of gravity has shifted. Even when it comes to kitsch I have
changed. Prefer chitrahaar to MTV. 

I rememeber complaining last August to a friend in Seattle (a net.friend,
but one I am very close to) that I can't quite have an intellectual
conversation in India. Not the way I could with Indian friends in the US.
Within two months that opinion changed. Slowly my world-view changed.
Somehow, India became my world, and at some point I stopped trying to
relate it to the "rest of the world" (which was my mind's euphimism for
America). It didn't matter what the great issues elsewhere were (tho' I
confess, the Hill-Thomas clash did catch my attention and took me
back to a world I thought I had abandoned), we had our problems. And
we were, in our own way, struggling to solve them. Gender inequality, 
income inequality ... these are of course universal problems, but the
solutions are not universal. I had to change my way of thinking.
Seven years in the US had taught me that the poor Indian woman was helpless,
and a victim of great injustice, and that one should do this that and
the other thing to have a just society. I still believe that far more than
the middle-class woman, the slum dweller who comes and washes our
dishes, sweeps our house, and washes our clothes is discriminated against.
But she isn't meek. Nor is she unaware of the injustice around her. She
more than our middle-class house-wife (who I also respect) has fire
burning in her belly. It is here that one finds a reaction which is not
meek submission.

My friend Ramanujam runs a literacy programme in Madras. There (as in
Bombay) women seem to complete adult litercy programmes in far
greater numbers than the men. I remember going with a friend to a slum
(Malle-poo nagar) in Adyar, Madras. He was trying to enlist adults into
Ramanujam's programme. It was the same story in every hut. The man of
the house would readily agree to be taught. The woman would sarcastically
ask us if we would do all the work she does so that she may have time
to learn to read and write. She would invariably point out that her
day begins early, and that she had to look after her house and then
go around our houses to sweep, wash and cook. That her husband had only
to work outside the house. Inevitably sh'd refuse to have anything to
do with the literacy programme, and would voice her contempt for the very
idea. But once the programme starts, the story is different. The women
slowly start trickling in. They become the majority. And while the
men give up at some stage, the women stick with it till the end.

-pramath

PS: To all net.friends: If you pass through madras, perhaps we can
do a round of "mirapkaya bajjis" and other stuff ;-).
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian