Apu’s World

I’m halfway through reading ‘The Girl Who Married A Lion’, a collection of African folk tales - collected and narrated by Alexander McCall Smith, that delightful creator of detective Mma Ramotswe. I’m quite enjoying these stories too; they remind me a bit of the Jataka tales.

Reading Itchy’s post about the Mma Ramotswe series, I was also reminded of a post on my old travel blog, which I quite like; so I thought, I’d re-post it here (if thats’s not too lazy!)

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Sometimes the best writing about a place comes not from focused travel writing per se, but from fiction that lays no claim to being any sort of guide to travel. These places could be in a time long gone by, like the post-war Britain of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day , or contemporary, like the desolate Sundarbans of Amitava Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide. In either case, the fiction informs us of the realities of a place, perhaps stripping it of romanticisation, in the process. The Hungry Tide, definitely did that for me, removing any illusions of the mangrove swamps as a broad swathe of communion with nature and instead painting a far more gritty picture where natural forces are at war with human beings.

My reading of Africa in fiction then, has been largely confined to two writers - Ben Okri and Chinua Achebe, both fantastic in their own right, but writing from sub-cultures based in Nigeria. Chinua Achebe, in particular, is not just a story teller, but in some sense, a chronicler of colonization and lost culture.

But surely, beyond colonization, lost cultures, poverty, AIDs, aid and such themes, Africa with its hundred countries must also be a place where people live today ? In a Granta collection , writer Binyavanga Wainaina has this lovely satirical piece on How to write about Africa. The antidote to such stereotyping then, is surely, Alexander McCall Smith, which brings me to his novel that I just finished reading, Blue Shoes and Happiness.

For those who haven’t read this writer before, his novels are set in Botswana, and the main character is Mma Ramotswe or Precious Ramotswe, who runs a detective agency with her deputy Mma Makutsi. The novels are delightful, there is simply no other word to describe them! You literally heave a sigh of relief, on realising that this is not another work on the ailments of Africa. Rather, people living in African countries also have stories just like people on other continents do !

Mma Ramotswe is no Hercule Poirot. She rarely gets called upon to solve murders. Rather, she is the detective of daily life, her cases the stuff that ordinary people’s problems revolve around - theft, adultery, small-time blackmailing, and in Blue Shoes and Happiness, perhaps what is a major case for her, witchcraft. The cases then are what not keep you engrossed, unlike a conventional detective novel. It is the way McCall Smith describes life in Botswana today from Mma Ramotswe’s perspective. It is an ordinary life, this life in Gaborone, like life in any other capital city. At the same time, it is unique to this time and place. She often reminisces about life in her old village, and it is not something central to the novel, but the contrast between urban and rural life seeps in there. It is a sort of constant reminder that atleast in Botswana, life goes on in pretty much an ordinary way. What is interesting is that the bush, the wild is not  just a romanticised place with wild animals and safaris; people live there, villages exist, and one may even find out that while bush tea  comes from the wild, it may not necessarily be served there !

“Mma Ramotswe rather liked the idea of a run down to Molokodi. Although she lived in Gaborone, she was not a town person at heart - very few Batswana were - and she was never happier than when was out in the bush, with the air of the country, dry and scented with the tang of acacia, in her lungs. On the drive to Molokodi, she would travel with the windows down and the sun and air would flood the cabin of her tiny white van; and she would see, opening up before her, the vista of hills around Otse and beyond, green in the foreground and blue behind…She tried to remember if they served bush tea there; She thought they did, but just in case, she would take a sachet of her own tea, which she could ask them to boil up for her.”

Bush tea is ofcourse a favorite of Mma Ramotswe’s along with other peculiarities such as quoting Seretse Khama on everything, and calling her rather overweight self “a traditionally built woman”. Mm Ramotswe’s full traditional figure, and her dilemma of whether she should diet or not, is a matter of much importance in Blue Shoes and Happiness. Finally, one of her acquaintances convinces her that she needs to drop the diet, as a mark of solidarity with other traditionally built ladies.

“Mma Ramotswe!”, she exclaimed. “If you go on a diet, then what are the rest of us to do? What will all the other traditionally built ladies think of they hear about this? How can you be so unkind?”

For all those who consider going to “Africa”, reading Alexander McCall Smith is a must-read. It makes one realise that while civil war is going on in some countries and Darfur may be the world’s most ignored atrocity zone, not all parts of Africa are the same. And Africa is not just about the land and the animals - who knows, on your travels there, you may even meet characters like Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi, traditionally built ladies sipping their bush tea, and debating on whether a new pair of blue shoes are essential to happiness, just like you and me!

apu The Literary life

You would be safe, if only you didn’t wear such inappropriate clothes. They attract attention, you know. You go to unsafe areas, what else can you expect? You go out too late, without a man to accompany you, surely there will be trouble. You go to places that are too crowded, or too isolated. You travelled by bus, or train, or your own car, it was bound to happen. You’re too young to be travelling alone, and you’re too old. You look modern. You look timid. You were walking too fast, or too slowly. And you, you’re just being too adventurous.

Does all of this sound familiar?

It is stated explicitly or implied constantly, that the safest thing for a woman to do is just stay home and avoid the outside world. Giving the lie to that myth is the latest National Family Health survey, which reveals, just how safe women are at home.

apu Women & Feminism

Just a tip, to an interesting post by Laksh, over at Poison Penn, where she asks,

“I wonder whether my life would have been different if my mother had decided to work outside, if she had become disillusioned with the inequities that exist in the pay structure based on sex, if she had tired of the constant battle to manage home and her job outside, would she still have pushed us as she did?”

apu Women & Feminism

So, Barack Obama has won the race to the White house, and there is jubilation all around, with much talk about breaking of racial glass ceilings and so on. Whether or not Obama is a “typical” African-American (after all, his father was a recent, educated immigrant from Kenya, and his mother white), symbolically, it is still a big deal.

Television channels in India have immediately started drawing parallels to the Indian context. We don’t have race of course (or not as a significant issue), but what we have is Caste. So, the obvious question is, is India ready to elect a Dalit prime minister? More specifically, are we ready to elect the likeliest Dalit candidate on the horizon, Mayawati?  

Leaving aside the fact that Indian politics is more complicated than the American landscape, with its multiple parties, both national and state-level, I have to say that Mayawati somehow draws a very polarized response from me. Put simply, these days, whenever I see her on television, I feel a terrible dislike. But, I didn’t always feel this way. I remember the 90s when she first emerged as someone to reckon with, I was thrilled - a woman and a Dalit - mobilizing a constituency that had never been really mobilized before (despite all the lip service paid by most politicians); for the first time, there was a sense that there could really be an India where Dalits mattered. While the Mandal issue had brought caste to the table as a major election issue, the BSP gave out the hope that Dalits could haul themselves up and march to the capital - they didn’t need handouts from anyone else.

As an upper-caste woman who gets to see upper-caste whingeing and prejudice at close quarters, I thought that here was an opportunity for the historically oppressed to really have the power that is needed to create a new social order. Perhaps because my expectations from the BSP, and from Mayawati were so high, I feel all the more let down.

Yes, symbolically, she is a huge inspiration and in a sense, she proves that India has reached a stage where being Dalit need not be a barrier to success. But, beyond all that, how have her stints in power been? Let’s see.

She has built up what seems to be assets disproportionate to her income, and then claimed that these were gifts from party members.

Her government has been in the news for accepting kickbacks.

She got involved in the Taj Corridor case, which could have caused damage to India’s best-known monument.

She has about 40 statues erected to herself.

Now, none of these are unique to Mayawati. Every Indian politician makes money, steals money from public coffers and spends extravagant sums on his/her self-aggrandisement. Should Mayawati necessarily be different simply because she has come to power, promising to fulfil the aspirations of Dalit voters? In other words, should she be held to a higher standard?

On the one hand, as a feminist, I am tired of hearing people say that women have to work twice as hard to make it. Do you have any idea how tough it is to work twice as hard? And that too, when most women actually hold down two jobs, one outside, and one inside the house. Doesn’t expecting a Dalit Chief Minister to be better than every other politician smack of this?

On the other hand, no one can deny that there is so much work to be done. And Dalit or not, can we not ask our leaders to be accountable for the money (our money) that they use?

Apart from issues of misuse and accountability, there is also a worry that in her haste to consolidate power, Mayawati is willing to woo the upper castes - as such, there is nothing wrong in this - having an inclusive agenda can lead to less caste-divisions and progress for everyone. But, is that what it is, or simply vote bank politics and fear of losing out on the upper-caste vote? I’m also surprised that we don’t hear her much on Dalit issues anymore - According to the National Crime Records Bureau, the last data available (for 2005) shows a small decline in the number of atrocities against SC/STs, but even so, we are a long way from caste-based crimes being eradicated. Plus, while she clearly shows prime-ministerial ambitions, we don’t really hear her speak or do enough when there are such cases being reported in other states regularly, which makes me suspicious that she is soft-pedalling the issue to gain wider acceptance.

So. Is a symbol enough or should we be expecting more?

apu Other Social issues in India

First, a break from Diwali, then a viral infection/cold/cough that is making me feel dull and too lazy to post anything. But. I did manage to put together some thoughts for a piece at Ultraviolet, on the subject of female foeticide, something that’s been on my mind for some time now. While I have no issues at all with stating that sex selective killing of female foetuses is wrong, I did have some issues about how it squares with free will and women’s right to their own bodies. So the post (’May you be the mother of a hundred sons’, title filched from book of the same name) addresses some of those issues. Go read it here.

apu Women & Feminism