On Allies: May there be ever more in 2014

Yes, I know. I missed the year-end reflections on all I had learned in 2013. I have also missed the new year resolutions moment.  However given my recent readings and discussions, and in the spirit of optimism, I have decided to kick off the year with a post about allies.

As an ally to various causes that are not intrinsically my own, I come to this topic with some degree of understanding and experience.  When it comes to supporting causes in countries like Egypt or Guatemala or the Democratic Republic of Congo, I am not always fully educated about the complexities. In case of my support for equal rights, as a straight cis-woman, I can't even in my imagination experience what my LGBTQ friends do on a daily basis. And in case of racism, Mandela's death reminded me of my time in apartheid South Africa and how the experience of racism changes by location, period, structure and individual.

And yet as someone who discovered the theory of intersectionality soon after being disillusioned by mainstream Western liberal activism at university, I can also see that there is a way forward. At university, I had found little room for my experience as an Indian woman whose life did not fit the easy 'oppressed over there' category. As a foreigner who did not buy into the 'American dream' and planned to leave after finishing my degree, I could also not be categorised in the 'good immigrant' slot. There was also very little room for an Indian with a 'nice' education in many of the anti-racism groups as many believed my university education and Indian-ness inoculated me from racism in America (To be fair and honest, yes, it did and still does protect me from the worst excesses of structural and individuated racism in the US and various other countries). On one hand, few groupings, both in or outside India, represent my personal concerns and interests. On the other hand, my experience at the margins means I experience a range of micro-aggressions (and major discrimination) based on gender, class, race, nationality and so on on a daily basis. No surprise that intersectionality is the most logical way of explaining my liminal existence.

But living liminally is also a great advantage, I have learned. One finds points of contact, recognition and identification in the most unusual places. Liminality also ensures that I am always aware of my structural privileges and of my acute disadvantages, and am conscious that these are constantly changing based on my location and surroundings. I have learned to negotiate both my privilege and its lack with relative expertise, barring of course the regular, still unforeseen glitches.

This has also taught me how to be an ally, for causes where my support may be necessary but any intervention may well be unwelcome.  In no particular order, here are the rules to be an ally that I developed for myself (and apply):

1. Listen first. And listen hard. There may be points of similarity between struggles but my first job is to learn everything I can about another's cause.

2. Even if I know a lot, or even more than a local interlocutor, keep my mouth shut. It is not my struggle and often 'offering insight/help/suggestions' is seen as and can really be a form of appropriation.

3. Offer tactical and practical support, but do not insist on it. Know about how to deal with tear gas? Offer the information. Have experience about protest safety? Extend that knowledge. Lawyer? Medic? PR expert? Offer my expertise but don't take it personally if it is rejected. At the end, it is NOT my cause.

4. If I am allowed to participate and get involved, don't feel smug. This is not about me, it is about the people who are fighting and will continue fighting when I have left (An aside: my pet peeves include the entire genre of war/revolution/civil war stories and films where the generally Western hero jets in with good intention, 'grows' by being part of someone else's struggle - often even gets to lead it - and the story ends when he/she flies out).

5. Don't make a fuss when I am rejected. And for god's sake don't get on a high horse because my good intentions didn't cut the slack.  Remind myself: this is not about you!

6. If allowed to participate, ensure that I do not - by my knowledge, expertise or personality - end up at the centre of the movement/group/struggle. Even in a protest march or demonstration, my place is to the side of the key players, not at the front and centre.

7. Don't expect gratitude or indeed any acknowledgement. I chose to join someone else's struggle and it isn't their job to reward or even acknowledge me for my 'generosity.'

8. Keep reminding myself: THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU (rinse and repeat as necessary).

However, the biggest lesson that I have learned - and apply to myself - is simpler: compassion. Perhaps I should clarify that I use the term loosely to indicate the range of meanings it evokes for me from the Indic traditions, including that of karuna, samvedana, and dayavirata.

Over the years, I have realised why so many Indic texts describe compassion as a difficult experience and idea. It is because compassion demands far more than most of us imagine: an ability to feel another's pain without centering ourselves in that suffering. In simple terms, for me compassion is about feeling the pain of another, of approaching them with a view to ease that pain, even if only by recognising and acknowledging it clearly. Compassion, in this definition, requires suppressing the need 'to do good' by appropriating another's decision-making and agency. Compassion in this sense insists that we allow the injured party to make their own choices, even if it means they reject us. After all, any pain of rejection we may experience will still be a miniscule fraction of their agony.

As I continue to fight my own battles, and stand as ally for those I care for, I sometimes forget that my allies can offer me the same kind of compassion.  It is easy, I know, when one is hurting to believe that any offer of support is another micro-aggression, another attempt to appropriate one's narrative and suffering. In those instances, it takes an enormous effort for me to accept that I too have allies. After the initial surprise at their response, I am always grateful for their compassion.

I end with a poem written by an ally after I had another unpleasant real world encounter with prejudice. As I raged on twitter, Sandy Nicholson tweeted this to me:

Let's make swords out of things! That sounds fun!

Let's make swords out of things! That sounds fun! / Stare at me all you want. I choose not to give peace a chance.

And the only thing really evolving is information, From matter to animals to humans to technology.

It's all really just about storage space, and if that's all you have planned for yourself then I've already won this fight.

You can talk to me about progress if you want but the end of that timeline is our extinction either way.

so don't be so eager to iron out all the creases.

I choose instead to get pissed off when my friends are cornered

by a the kind of meat and potatoes idiocy that should really be boring by now. Never mind offensive. It's boring.

I choose not to let logic and decency form a callous over the part of me that gets angry.

I don't just want to win the war against casual racism I want to leave it looking like a knife fight

I want to cut trombones from victory laps And I want to have fun doing it

So bring me some sharp stuff I'll forget how to hold it properly and prick all my fingers but I'll do it honestly.

I may not win the battle, but I'll fight it so you know for sure whose side I was on (it was yours)

It did exactly what allies are supposed to do. Offered recognition of my hurt and extended compassion. And it reminded me that I am not alone.
Happy new year!

PS. Another lovely tweep, MJ Berryman storifyed the poem and it does read quite amazingly in tweets so do look it up.

Update on my short story, A Cup Full of Jasmine Oil

UPDATE: The short story is included in a Queer Ink's anthology, titled Out: Stories from the New Queer India, of short fiction, edited by Minal Hazratwala and published this year and stocked in book shops across India.

A few years ago, I was approached to contribute to an anthology on LGBT fiction by Indian writers. I pointed out to the editor that my position was that of an ally and perhaps I was not the best person to contribute to the anthology. The reason for my hesitance is one that applies to much of my writing: the power to create narratives is immense and so those of us with the privilege to exercise this power must behave with responsibility. Marginalising voices, or erasing marginalised voices, is all too easy when wielding the pen and I have always been particularly careful about this issue of ethics.

However, after prolonged discussions, I was persuaded to contribute a short story, titled A Cup Full of Jasmine Oil. As an LGBT ally, I hoped that perhaps my story in the collection could contribute to the discussions around the issues facing LGBT community in India.  For this reason, I set the story in an unnamed small Indian town, in a domestic space. At the time, and alongside the story, I was working on an academic paper on LGBT representations in popular Indian culture and had noticed that unlike western narratives where non-heteronormative relationships were located 'somewhere far beyond the domestic realm' and 'out there,' Indian tradition placed homo-eroticism squarely at the centre of the home. This idea formed the core of my short story.

Sadly, the anthology never materialised and after a while, the short story went to publication in The Drawbridge.  It was in good company, with the issue carrying writing by Mario Vargas Llosa, Jose Saramago and Saadat Hasan Manto, amongst others.

Strangely, as has often happened with other pieces of my writing, the short story then took on a life of its own. I was invited to read it at a conference in Cologne, Germany in 2010.  The reading gave rise to much debate, not only on aspects of hetero-normativity and its discontents but also on cultural ideas, postcoloniality, and art. In a further twist of the tale, the Orientalia Suecana journal of the University of Uppsala, Sweden, put together an issue devoted to writings and discussions from the panel. The issue is now available online in pdf format for download. 

It contains a reprint of my short story, A Cup Full of Jasmine Oil. 

More interesting (for me at least), is the inclusion in the issue of an experimental academic paper by Thomas de Bruijn. The essay "juxtaposes a reading of the story from a more conventional western perspective with an interpretation from the point of the Indian system of aesthetics based on rasa. From this double perspective, it discusses various stylistic and thematic aspects of the story. Diverging interpretations are presented in the role of the characters, the functionality of their characterization, and the use of description and suggestion to evoke the semantic framework of the story."  The essay includes a discussion between Dr. De Bruijn and me on the two systems of interpretations and how they impact our understanding of literature. 

I am particularly happy about this essay as it begins to address one of my political issues about cultural production and its study. For far too long, too much of academic production has disguised its "West as theory, East as object" politics as 'universalist.'  By opening up literary discussion to non-Western theories, this essay begins to overturn this paradigm. In doing so, it also brings together my academic and creative writings.

While I have embedded the links to both the story and the essay in this post, am posting them here again: 

Short Story: A Cup Full of Jasmine Oil

Reading and Q & A with Sunny Singh on A Cup Full of Jasmine Oil by Thomas de Bruijn.

Enjoy the reading. And do comment.

Curious Lessons for an Aspiring Writer: Looking Back at a Decade of Publishing

I just realised that not only are we approaching the end of a year but also the end of the very first decade of this century. Or should that have been last year already?  Regardless, this year, 2010, also marks my very first decade as a published writer. And what a difference ten years make!

Well, actually make that ten years, three countries, three books, a PhD and well over half a million published words.  Phew!  Not sure how I packed all that in, but it has been a fun ride so far.  And yet, today is a good moment to look back at that younger me, at that naive, wide-eyed writer with a bagful of a dreams, no idea of publishing, zero contacts,  and an ambitious manuscript.

There are times I laugh at that younger self, amazed at her absolute sense of belief in her own work (some have, and probably rightly so, called her arrogant).  In my mind, I watch my younger self sending off her chapters to agents who suggest that she make the manuscript more "marketable;" to publishers who respond with a stock letter of rejection that she still does not know means they haven't even opened her precious work; to literary "mentors" who she does not know trade more in sexual favours and big egos than in well crafted words and ideas. And I am amazed that she walks away each time, a little bit stronger, a little bit more convinced that those purveyors of literature are wrong, that her writing will eventually find the sympathetic reader - if only she looks hard enough.

But I also wish I could protect that young writer: from discovering that some of the "big" names in the literary field have feet of clay, that they wouldn't know good writing if it came and hit them on the nose; from realising that many reviewers are driven by their own thwarted literary ambitions and ideology rather than any knowledge or love of stories; from that slow and sickening horror when her very first review in a national newspaper pans her novel based on its chapter headings rather than content, demonstrating clearly that the reviewer could not be bothered to read the book; from the knowledge that much of publishing, like many other industries, is more about who one knows rather than any focus on literary quality.

Yet - now ten years since my first novel was published - I would not change a thing for that young writer.  Those years of fruitlessly pounding the pavement gave me immense strength and the crucial insight that no-one knows my writing better; that there are friends and support in the unlikeliest of places; that the most important quality for a writer is not talent or sensitivity or empathy, but rather absolute grit and obsessive self-belief. Without that messiah-like fervour, few of us can survive the cruel knocks meted out by the coterie of editors, publishers, reviewers (and no, the knocks don't stop with a publishing contract; that is just the first round of the punishing cycle).

But more than anything else, I would remind that young writer of the old Hindi proverb: अंधी गाय का धर्मं रखवाला (Dharma protects the blind cow), that the cosmic law protects the innocent.  How else could I send off dozens of emails to literary agents and yet end up signing up with the only one who believes with missionary zeal in absolute literary merit of my work?  How else would an Indophile reader in Barcelona pass on my first novel to a friend who also happens to be one of the most courageous editors in the country? How else would a naive kid like me, from a nondescript small Indian town, end up with an extraordinary international group of editors, publishers, literary agent, reviewers, readers and academics who champion my work in big and small ways? That in itself is a little miracle!

But most importantly I would tell that young writer-self of mine that she would find champions in other unlikely places: in chance encounters with other writers; in brief meetings and snatched conversations with unusual and unexpected literary mentors.  And perhaps there is no other way but to remind myself of two brief literary encounters with more experienced writers who generously shared their insight and kindness in that first year of my publishing trajectory.

The first would be a series of brief meetings with Ruskin Bond, that gentle chronicler of the Himalayas, in Delhi as well as in Landour, when he repeatedly advised me to focus on my craft and try to block out the distractions of the "publishing circus."  At an early meeting, he pointed out that it was better for a writer to not get early success as it gave them a chance to develop their own craft and ideas.

On one memorable occasion, we escaped a glamorous book event in a five-star Delhi hotel - to get chaat in the Bengali Market. The excitement he generated amongst the school kids when we walked in was the clearest reminder that a writer lives not in the inane chatter of the apparent literati but in the minds and hearts of his/her readers.  Through out that meal, Ruskin got wide smiles and gasps of recognition, shy, affectionate and utterly non-intrusive greetings, and a little kid's loud triumphant announcement: "he does love chaat, he does! Just like in his book!"  No amount of literary praise or prizes can replace that incredible warmth and affection that I noticed amongst Ruskin's many readers that night.  For me, it was an early lesson that good writing is not about royalties or prizes or reviews, but about the abiding affection a reader can hold for a writer.  I have since followed Ruskin's advice, staying true only to my craft, and have been ever grateful for his  gentle guidance.

The second lesson was even shorter and more unusual, with a single brief meeting - again at a book event - with the novelist, Shashi Deshpande.  That she knew me at all surprised and flattered me but the fact that she had not only read but liked my book came as the biggest shock.  I veered madly between pride and embarrassment through the evening, feeling giddy and slightly sick.  We spoke briefly, and later my brother and I gave her a lift back to her hotel in our dilapidated, dog-drooled, student-y Maruti 800 (she graciously ignored the dog toys and crumbs of dog biscuit on the seat, and was unfailingly courteous and lovely).  As we said goodbye, she said a strange thing to me: "Get away from this city; it will stop your writing. Go somewhere where you can continue writing."

For a young writer loving the glamour and excitement of book launches, and literary talks, press interviews and society chitchat, the advice seemed a bit odd. But in the months that followed, and I found myself unable to concentrate on my writing, I realised its importance.  Keeping her words in mind, I began drawing away from the literary circles, refocussing on my own work rather than the "networking." Soon after I moved, first to Barcelona, then to London, and to this day, continue inhabiting the fringes of the literary communities in both cities.

That decision to withdraw has come at a price: for example, only one national publication in India chose to review my last novel despite my editor's very valiant and concentrated efforts. And yet instead of that novel sinking without a trace, given how studiously it was ignored by the press, Indian readers continue to find it, read it and love it.  More interesting is its trajectory overseas where it continues to spark debate and attract readers. (An aside: its Serbian translation also brought back a long lost friend, who found the novel in a Belgrade bookshop and emailed, after over two decades of no contact).  I am now in a strange situation: even though much of my writing is about India, and often for Indians, now European and American critics engage and discuss my work more often and more thoroughly than those in my own country.  I often wonder what Ruskin and Shashi would make of this weird contradiction?

So what next for this writer?

The past decade has taught me many things, but one is more important than all else: my job is to write good stories, to consider ideas, to create debate and provoke thought. And to do all that to the best of my capacity!  The rest is neither my area of expertise nor my remit.  My agent, editors, publishers continue to work very hard to get my writing out into the world, and for that I am very grateful.  They are the ones who take risks, persuade and cajole, believe and hope, and most of all passionately champion my cause.  And they do so while fully conscious that my writing shall neither be the next bestseller, and without advising me to be more "marketable." Those are the true heroes of this journey!

But then, most of all, there are my readers who take choose to spend hours of their time and energy with my books, and short stories, and essays.  And they take the trouble of finding me and emailing me with their responses: indeed, not a week goes past without receiving an email from a reader somewhere (and often in very unexpected places).  And that keeps me focussed on what I need to do: think more, dream more, live more. And most of all, write more.

Happy 2011! And a very happy new decade!

World Literature Today runs issue on Writing from Modern India

University of Oklahoma's venerable magazine World Literature Today (established as Books Abroad back in 1927) has dedicated its November/December issue to writing from modern India. 

Of course, the focus on Indian writing is not new for the magazine. It carried a brief survey of Indian poetry back in 1939 by Vasudeo B. Metta, while its 1954 issue considered contemporary Indian writing more comprehensively in an essay by Mahendra V. Desai.  In 1969, just as the Beatles were discovering India, WLT dedicated its autumn issue to Indian writing, this time with an introduction by Nissim Ezekiel.

The next time the WLT searchlights found Indian was in 1994, again at a critical juncture, soon after the country had launched its long process of economic liberalisation with the corollary of unprecedented growth.  That issue, guest edited by Vinay Dharwadker, devoted a hundred pages to Indian writing from a host of major languages including carrying many original language poems alongside their translations into English.

2010 seems an appropriate moment to return to Indian writing. The hyper-excitement of the western publishing industry about the country's writers in English of the 1990s has now settled into comfortable familiarity.  With clockwork regularity, Indian writers (from India, expatriates and of the diaspora) deliver interesting, powerful, politically engaged and emotionally charged poetry, fiction, essays,  and turn up regularly on international awards nights and bestseller lists. 

And yet, as an Indian writer (who writes mostly in English, for the record),  I am always disappointed by the lack of dissemination of brilliant writing by the country's greatest writers.  Here I must confess that - at the risk of sounding parochial - in my opinion, the country's best writing is done in languages other than English. Writers in the country's regional, autoctonous languages push boundaries of class, faith, gender and sexuality, as well as literary techniques and style, in ways that many of us, writing in English, can barely begin to imagine. 

WLT's India issues have always gone beyond the English language in seeking out writing from India. The current issue is no different.  Guest edited by poet Sudeep Sen, the issue features the some of the best loved writers from Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Oriya and Malayalam, in addition to writing in English by Indians based in the country as well as around the globe. 

More pleasurable for the reader, however, is the issue's exuberant mix of old favourites and new writers, as well as the stellar diversity of ages, genders, regions and interests.  It is this diversity that fulfills Sen's self-declared aim of providing not a comprehensive list of authors but rather "just an introductory show window to the vast array of fine Indian writers and literary practitioners."

A slightly different online edition (featuring an unusual selection of poetry by Rabindranath Tagore) can be found on the WLT website which also has instructions for obtaining the very beautifully illustrated and designed print edition.

All in all, a lovely celebration of India's literary practices.

PS: As full disclosure, I must also inform you that the print version features my short story "Faded Serge and Yellowed Lace," my small tribute to my years of living in Spain and dedicated to (and set in) my old neighbourhood of Gracia, Barcelona.

Le Chateau de Lavigny: First Brief Impressions

So, I just survived my very first writer’s residency!

Three weeks in a Swiss chateau, all comforts catered for, time and space rigged up for writing. With living literary history not only haunting the quaint villages but dwelling within each photograph and painting and sketch on the walls, woven even into the spectacular silks of Jane Ledig-Rowohlt’s bed where I sleep.

There were five of us. All writers. From across the world: USA, New Zealand, Nigeria, and of course yours truly.  

All in a beautiful summer villa, full of books and art and literary memories.  Water colours by Henry Miller; photographs of Lewis Carroll’s child muse, Alice Liddell framed in burnished gold and cream.  Scattered amongst the books are numerous pretty pieces of glass, and china and metal. And little artefacts of whimsy: a couple of dozen porcelain King Charles spaniels of varying sizes, some whose heads wrench off to reveal a pitcher; they unnerve the writer who must sleep in that chamber. A pair of heeled wooden sculptures carved like Victorian buttoned shoes stand on an imposing chinoiserie, too small to fit any feet even had they been real.  In the library, the books seemed to be held in place by hefty vintage earthenware jars from Fortnum and Mason’s marked cheddar and stilton.  Why do they live in the library? No one seems to know the answer.

Our interaction at the beginning is a little awkward, a bit hesitant, like a blind date with no convenient way out.  But slowly we manage to get along, carefully avoiding any rough edges, any potential pitfalls.  It is a diplomatic manoeuvre that I renounced, consciously and deliberately, many years ago and is a great effort to revert to childhood manners; I can imagine I would not be able to retain the façade for much beyond the required three weeks. 

Indeed, midway through I make a long distance, expensive, late night call to a friend. Much like an addict needing a fix. Our conversation is wholly political, heated, silly; wholly inappropriate.  I hang up knowing I will survive the self-imposed isolation.  My sister rather aptly pronounces that I am “volunteering for self-imposed house arrest” although, in all fairness, I do take walks to the neighbouring villages, wander through the vineyards and orchards and sunflower fields.  So perhaps, house arrest with a little electronic bracelet to ensure I don’t wander too far afield?

At the end of the second week, we have a reading of our works, not necessarily what we have been writing but whatever we choose to read.  Strangely the reading does more to break the ice than any other activity we have undertaken.  Suddenly, we can identify each other, mentally find a place for ourselves: our words are indeed our disembodied selves, perhaps far more powerful than any other.   

The rest of the residency passes with greater camaraderie, a great deal of hysterical laughter over the routinely extra bottle of chasselas at dinner.

The end, when it arrives, is a relief; and a surprise; and strangely tinged with sadness.

What an Amazing, Manic 2010! Updates

Okay, for those of you (precious, precious few yous!) who follow my blog and have been wondering why there have been no updates, here is the low down: the past two weeks have been mayhem!

I have been madly working, writing, catching up on chores, organising.  For the first time in my life, I am even re-doing my humble abode to make it more comfortable and fit-for-purpose.  All in all, the blog has had to take a backseat.  Of course, part of running around chasing one's tale is that there is really very little to report or indeed ruminate upon.

However, there are two key updates:

First, I had a brilliant time at the LSE's Fiction of Development event.  As always, LSE has uploaded a podcast of the event that can be accessed here.

Some of the questions were rather predictable (and annoyingly so), but the positive side was to note just how many students are ahead of the curve: the best, most thought provoking questions came from them.

It also threw up the "developed" vs "developing" world divide in stark contrast.  The non-European/US students were far more aware, better prepared and more thoughtful. They were also willing to engage in debate, challenge their own and others' assumptions, and were far more passionately involved in the issues the panel raised.  After the event, over drinks, these were the students who approached me and raised even more issues that they felt had been left out during the session.

Having done similar events before, I guess this response could have been predicted. But one statement by a student made over a glass of wine really made me sad that we haven't moved beyond the narrow confines of the colonial mindset. She told me: "Thank you for being on the panel. Your views made me realise that I am not the crazy one. That there are other people who think like me."

Back in the 1980s, as a student in the American north-east, I would often keep my mouth shut on issues of race, gender, power because my views were so completely different from those being expounded by (mostly American) experts on campus.  I had hoped that this had changed in the past decades; that there was more diversity of voices and views for students who were still building their viewpoints.

Then again, I can't remember hearing/seeing anyone on a panel who articulated my thoughts. So if just by my presence or by my views, I can provide either validation or confidence to some student, perhaps I am doing something right.  And that in itself is no mean achievement.

Second, Palgrave Macmillan has just published Religion in Literature and Film in South Asia, edited by the wonderfully passionate and dedicated India scholar, Diana Dimitrova.  It has some really amazing essays by scholars in Europe, India and US.  It also carries my comparative analysis of Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan's star personas, the ways these interact with the Mahabharata and Ramayana, and how they reflect their respective zeitgeists.

So all  in all, very productive start to 2010. 

On writing, literature, politics: An Interview

The July 2009 issue of the ArtCiencia carries the text of an email interview that Dr. Nilanshu Agarwal conducted with me last year. The interview covers a host of topics including postcoloniality, literature, and writing.

Enjoy!