Last week I walked around the newly refurbished Whitechapel Gallery in East London to go through an enormous exhibition of photography from the sub-continenent with over 400 images dating back over a 100 years. Phew!
First of all, yes, I wholeheartedly recommend Where Three Dreams Cross. It ticks all the boxes: iconic photographs by master photographers like Sunil Janah and Raghu Rai; archival portraits of colonial era Maharajahs; stills and photographs of beloved movie stars; some really good sociological and documentary work; and of course, if you just love photography as an art form, some really amazing work that is at once passionate and intelligent.
As an exercise in highlighting photography from the region, this is an amazing project. One of the curators, Sunil Gupta, himself a photographer and exhibiting currently in London, explained that the project took nearly four years to bring life. And the hard work shows.
Now a couple of observations:
1. For an expat, and definitely a "new" (as in post-colonial, post-Partition) Indian, the ideological agenda for the exhibition is a bit troubling. An exhibition that somehow makes the three nations "look" so similar and thus blames the political divisions on history or some sort of false distinctions is problematic in itself. When that exhibition is held - with self-rightous glee - in the country that carried out that bloody process of history, then one is left feeling distinctly queasy.
Perhaps it is a generational issue: Sunil Gupta is of an earlier generation, and perhaps feels more nostalgia for a "united" India than most of us from the sub-continent. Moreover, I was left wondering once again why racial or cultural markers are somehow meant to make us so "similar." How often do we see an exhibition on the region of Savoy (divided between Italy, France and Switzerland) with a similar intent? Or on Catalunya (divided between France and Spain)? The implicit imperial conceit in erasing our contemporary political and national identity in favour of racial/cultural markers encodes us in well-known colonial boundaries. And those are not only out-dated but also grate.
2. Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie has already expressed some of her unease in her piece published in Pakistan's Dawn and UK's Guardian. As I am not writing for mainstream press, I can be a bit more blunt. No, I didn't find myself trying to find images from India, but then that may be a function of our size.
I also realised that we - as in Indians - are better at representing ourselves than our neighbours. When we got the first camera, we immediately deployed it to "flatten" out the photographs to represent our cultural aesthetic instead of wielding it to re-create the western post-Renaissance three-point perspective. We hand-painted the early portraits, overlaying technology with miniaturist precision to create images that were us.
Then in the 1930s, we took on German and Soviet oppositional aesthetics and deployed them for anti-colonial and then nation-building purposes. The techniques were shorn of their Nazi (yes, that influence does not quite get a mention) and Communist agendas and used the way we wanted, for purposes that suited us.
Recent photographs reflect the same: we are good at representing ourselves, and more at ease being represented, than our neighbours. Perhaps it is a corollary of the past 60 years of democracy and republicanism, or merely our much-criticized hotch-potch secularism. But this exhibition definitely emphasises our love affair with the camera.
3. Another aspect that bothered me about this exhibition, and again I believe this resulted from its ideological impetus: India, at least it seems in the exhibition, ends in the south at Mumbai and in the east, at Bengal! I guess Tamil Nadu, Deccan, Kerala, North East's seven sisters don't quite allow for the easy racial/cultural markers of "unity" with Pakistan and Bangladesh. However, this studied invisibility of our non-north/centrals parts really bothered me.
In making the Three Dreams Cross, I feel that the Indian dream has been purposefully mutilated.
And that brings me to a final quibble: I understand the exhibition is about the three big countries in the sub-continent, but I would have liked to see more from other nations in the same region: Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, especially as, in the final case, issues of political borders formed by colonial heritage are still playing out in horrific bloody detail and are very much a colonial legacy for that that teardrop island nation as well.
Perhaps, I should just put aside my hopes and admit to the one fact I would prefer to forget: that like all exhibitions, this one says more about the curators who put it together than about the region it purports to show.
PS: I spoke to Harriet Gilbert who presents the BBC World Service show The Strand about the exhibition. Fortunately, Sunil Gupta was also there. You can find the chat here (just let the player go past the 16:30 minute mark for the segment to begin).
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
I am soooo sick of this one!
Okay, so this one was just basically a bomb waiting to go off: I have been wondering recently about various (sort of and former) friends who live where they do because its safely "white." They tell me that they think their preferred neighbourhood has good schools, where their kids "learn the national ethos", but frankly when I look at the Ofsted figures, these are the schools that do poorly for one key factor: diversity (read slowly: "good" Home county schools are "great because they are predominantly white").
And then it makes me question why we were ever "friends" at all? Was I their token "race" justification or proof against racism?
Its a bit worrying when you start wondering how racist your friends and lovers really are; and if they have been using you as their token for proving their non-racist credentials: Kills all respect and affection, I promise you!
But the reason the proverbial cup runneth over tonight of all nights (is that WAAAY too many references pulled together in way too few words or its just me being too bookish?), is getting to the Times page and seeing the ultimate F&CKing cliche! Sigh! Really? Are we f*cking done?
How often do you see me - the brown Indian woman, and no apologies for the language - declaring that there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with white people because they think that Haiti's earthquake happened because Haitians made a pact with the devil? When do I expand that one statement to the general populace? But I guess that measured thinking is the requirement only of the "other" and the marginalised!
And when do we - as in the brown people - start using a single dumb statement as a point of explaining how stupid, prejudiced, backward, illiterate, prejudiced, white people were?
See my point? Generalisations are dumb! And prejudiced! And based on a lack of understanding.
So when I see a headline talking of: "Millions Rush to Cleanse in Filthy Ganges" I want to scream! I want to point out to these little white/middle-class (and yes, believe me, few people who are not either/or get employed or consulted at the Times) insular shits that they need to get over themselves!
That poor brown people like me who think nothing of bathing in a "filthy river" think that "their" reverence for the queen and the royal family is just as if not more idiotic! Hell, bathing in that filthy river gets me benefits post-mortem but you lot bow to a some human who is supposed to be greater than all others in the land WHY? So WHY do modern, post-Enlightenment, educated, humans bow and courtesy to these "royals"? Frankly, I will bathe in that filthy river a million times before bowing/courtesying before a pathetic human who has no worth beyond their birth! And PLEASE tell me HOW the Brits can justify that reverence for the monarchy as any more rational and logical than the Hindu partaking of the Mahakumbh (and we are not even getting to religion here!)
One good reason I have always thought for never giving birth to a child on UK soil is that the top post in this country is hereditary! I mean WHAT sort of a loser accepts that as part of human development? And as a life-long republican, I can't see the point of ever raising a child with that sort of absurd limitation. But of course, as the apparently enlightened Brit journo will tell you: certain kinds of "royalty" are okay: funny how the British press is quite happy to talk of their own and other European royalty in laudatory terms but of course anything nonwhite is "oppressive," "backward", etc, etc.
So yeah, I am sick of this one!
I am SICK of getting the bloody colonial British take on India (and much of the world) over and over again. And worse still: you know the Brit press's favourite "uncle Tom yes-life-is-so-great-out-here-coz-we-have-no-clue" British Asian take? Get OVER it: most second and third generation British-Asians (immigrants in general) are people who have no clue about India or the general subcontinent! They don['t speak the language, don't know the traditions or history or literature. Their parents were often illiterate when they got to Britian/USA and hardly in position to talk of their "culture." The first city they often saw was not Delhi or Lahore or Dhaka but London or Manchester. Its like having a random American be an "authority" on Britain simply because somewhere two or three generations ago, their parentage was Welsh or Scottish or English (funny just how much fun the Brits make of the Americans looking for their heritage but then have no qualms turning the lens the other way).
Point being, this is not just about cultures as in east or west but also urban vs rural. I find a 3rd generation British-Asian from the midlands is more backward/conservative than a first generation Indian villager who went from a home without electricity to working for NASA in six years (thats IIT graduates for you!). But that is the point for a different post.
It is the embedded, intrinsic colonial conceit that pisses me off. And I am not quite sure what it would take for the people who peddle it constantly to realise that the empire is over. And frankly such retrogressive headlines don't do any good: the balance of power is shifting. Grow up and deal with it!!!!!
PS: Not particularly erudite, I have to say, but this has been written at the spur of the moment and I am furious (not unusual). I try to not blog when I am angry, but today, I make an exception.
And then it makes me question why we were ever "friends" at all? Was I their token "race" justification or proof against racism?
Its a bit worrying when you start wondering how racist your friends and lovers really are; and if they have been using you as their token for proving their non-racist credentials: Kills all respect and affection, I promise you!
But the reason the proverbial cup runneth over tonight of all nights (is that WAAAY too many references pulled together in way too few words or its just me being too bookish?), is getting to the Times page and seeing the ultimate F&CKing cliche! Sigh! Really? Are we f*cking done?
How often do you see me - the brown Indian woman, and no apologies for the language - declaring that there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with white people because they think that Haiti's earthquake happened because Haitians made a pact with the devil? When do I expand that one statement to the general populace? But I guess that measured thinking is the requirement only of the "other" and the marginalised!
And when do we - as in the brown people - start using a single dumb statement as a point of explaining how stupid, prejudiced, backward, illiterate, prejudiced, white people were?
See my point? Generalisations are dumb! And prejudiced! And based on a lack of understanding.
So when I see a headline talking of: "Millions Rush to Cleanse in Filthy Ganges" I want to scream! I want to point out to these little white/middle-class (and yes, believe me, few people who are not either/or get employed or consulted at the Times) insular shits that they need to get over themselves!
That poor brown people like me who think nothing of bathing in a "filthy river" think that "their" reverence for the queen and the royal family is just as if not more idiotic! Hell, bathing in that filthy river gets me benefits post-mortem but you lot bow to a some human who is supposed to be greater than all others in the land WHY? So WHY do modern, post-Enlightenment, educated, humans bow and courtesy to these "royals"? Frankly, I will bathe in that filthy river a million times before bowing/courtesying before a pathetic human who has no worth beyond their birth! And PLEASE tell me HOW the Brits can justify that reverence for the monarchy as any more rational and logical than the Hindu partaking of the Mahakumbh (and we are not even getting to religion here!)
One good reason I have always thought for never giving birth to a child on UK soil is that the top post in this country is hereditary! I mean WHAT sort of a loser accepts that as part of human development? And as a life-long republican, I can't see the point of ever raising a child with that sort of absurd limitation. But of course, as the apparently enlightened Brit journo will tell you: certain kinds of "royalty" are okay: funny how the British press is quite happy to talk of their own and other European royalty in laudatory terms but of course anything nonwhite is "oppressive," "backward", etc, etc.
So yeah, I am sick of this one!
I am SICK of getting the bloody colonial British take on India (and much of the world) over and over again. And worse still: you know the Brit press's favourite "uncle Tom yes-life-is-so-great-out-here-coz-we-have-no-clue" British Asian take? Get OVER it: most second and third generation British-Asians (immigrants in general) are people who have no clue about India or the general subcontinent! They don['t speak the language, don't know the traditions or history or literature. Their parents were often illiterate when they got to Britian/USA and hardly in position to talk of their "culture." The first city they often saw was not Delhi or Lahore or Dhaka but London or Manchester. Its like having a random American be an "authority" on Britain simply because somewhere two or three generations ago, their parentage was Welsh or Scottish or English (funny just how much fun the Brits make of the Americans looking for their heritage but then have no qualms turning the lens the other way).
Point being, this is not just about cultures as in east or west but also urban vs rural. I find a 3rd generation British-Asian from the midlands is more backward/conservative than a first generation Indian villager who went from a home without electricity to working for NASA in six years (thats IIT graduates for you!). But that is the point for a different post.
It is the embedded, intrinsic colonial conceit that pisses me off. And I am not quite sure what it would take for the people who peddle it constantly to realise that the empire is over. And frankly such retrogressive headlines don't do any good: the balance of power is shifting. Grow up and deal with it!!!!!
PS: Not particularly erudite, I have to say, but this has been written at the spur of the moment and I am furious (not unusual). I try to not blog when I am angry, but today, I make an exception.
Labels:
colonialism,
imperialim,
NASA,
power,
race,
Times
Friday, January 08, 2010
"In Praise of the Delinquent Hero" out now!
This is a good moment to plug a new anthology, How They See Us: Meditations on America, edited by James Atlas.
When I was asked to write for it some time back, I thought it was a good idea. After all, haven't the Americans been proclaiming their confusion about the reasons why so much of the world doesn't like them, or is disappointed, disillusioned, saddened by them, since 9/11? It seemed like a good moment to open a discussion about how the rest of the world sees the US of A. I had no idea who else would be included in the collection, but it seemed like a great opportunity.
Well the anthology is now out. And boy! Whoa! Some serious heavy hitters in there: Mourid Barghouti, Terry Eagleton, Alberto Fuguet, Luis Fernando Verissimo....and of course, the minnow: ME!
Needless to say, I am pretty chuffed!
More interesting for me than the actual publication however is the reaction the anthology is raising from the American press. After all, as a non-American writer, this is an amazing opportunity to observe American reactions in a specific context: a sort of intellectual petri-dish if you will.
Sadly however, the initial reviews of the anthology seem to confirm what I have long thought: that there is a small band of Americans who are interested in actually hearing what the non-Americans have to say. San Francisco Chronicle (even though they got my gender wrong) and the Publisher's Weekly seem to reflect that America (that is the one that I got to know during my years as a teenager in NYC and then as a university student at Brandeis). However, beyond this circle, most Americans don't care about the world beyond their borders (and as such are constantly surprised when that world doesn't agree with their own self-image).
I have also been reminded of a remark that Belgian friend made back at university about how Americans didn't get irony, especially by the WaPo review which ends by quoting Verissimo's piece. Did the reviewer really read that anecdote straight, without irony?
If so another anthology, and another, and another may well be in order!
When I was asked to write for it some time back, I thought it was a good idea. After all, haven't the Americans been proclaiming their confusion about the reasons why so much of the world doesn't like them, or is disappointed, disillusioned, saddened by them, since 9/11? It seemed like a good moment to open a discussion about how the rest of the world sees the US of A. I had no idea who else would be included in the collection, but it seemed like a great opportunity.
Well the anthology is now out. And boy! Whoa! Some serious heavy hitters in there: Mourid Barghouti, Terry Eagleton, Alberto Fuguet, Luis Fernando Verissimo....and of course, the minnow: ME!
Needless to say, I am pretty chuffed!
More interesting for me than the actual publication however is the reaction the anthology is raising from the American press. After all, as a non-American writer, this is an amazing opportunity to observe American reactions in a specific context: a sort of intellectual petri-dish if you will.
Sadly however, the initial reviews of the anthology seem to confirm what I have long thought: that there is a small band of Americans who are interested in actually hearing what the non-Americans have to say. San Francisco Chronicle (even though they got my gender wrong) and the Publisher's Weekly seem to reflect that America (that is the one that I got to know during my years as a teenager in NYC and then as a university student at Brandeis). However, beyond this circle, most Americans don't care about the world beyond their borders (and as such are constantly surprised when that world doesn't agree with their own self-image).
I have also been reminded of a remark that Belgian friend made back at university about how Americans didn't get irony, especially by the WaPo review which ends by quoting Verissimo's piece. Did the reviewer really read that anecdote straight, without irony?
If so another anthology, and another, and another may well be in order!
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