Notes on the Oscars

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Watching the Oscars these days is not what I remember it being when I was kid. Somehow, a lot of the giltz seems to have worn off. Or maybe it's just that I'm missing LibraryGirl, who's my personal movie maven. Without her, it's not as much fun watching. But since we did watch, here's my take on the night of the star:

1. Oh Heath. In retrospect, considering the role he played in Brokeback Mountain, I suppose we should have seen the darkness in him but he players such a sunny character in so many other films that it's hard to comprehend. That's acting for you, I guess.

2. Ousmane Sembene's dead too and I never heard about it. If don't know who he is, you should. Start with God's Bits of Wood, which you should be able to find at any half-decent library. It is - hands down - the best strike novel ever written. I've read it a dozen times now, taught it at least thrice and it never fails to reduce me (and many of my students) to tears because of the intensity of hope it embodies.

3. What on earth was Jennifer Hudson thinking when she chose that dress?

4. What was that thing about the shout-out from the troops in the field all about? Has Hollywood deluded itself that it's so left-wing that it needs to pretend to such cheap tricks to convince middle-American that it's really not? Yeeesh.

5. Way to go, Sarah P. When I come home, yours is the first movie I'm going to watch.

6. Also, also, while Patrick Dempsey looked as delectable as ever, even his presence couldn't make the songs from Enchanted appear anything other than a sucrose overdose. So I was happy with the win for Glen Hansard's song (whose name escapes me now). I found Once - their little independent film - truly moving so I'm happy, if surprised, that it went all the way.

7. Mmm. Helen Mirren. Need I say more? She's my grandmother's age, exactly, and is still stunning. Also Johnny Depp. Mmmm-hmmm.

8. Daniel Day-Lewis. Clever, articulate, elegant and beautiful. What more can we expect of men? I need to go watch My Beautiful Laundrette again, for the *young* DDL on offer there.

9. I thought Jon Stewart was - again - too... sheathed... in his wit. If he's going to anchor the 4hr Oscar telecast, he ought to provide us with some Jon Stewartisms at least.

10. And finally, given that we all watch mostly to comment on the gowns, maybe it's time the men started to wear some bright colourful dresses too. I'm tired of the sea of black suits and bow ties. Or better year, perhaps we could actually have some women nominated for some of the non-acting roles. I think I counted three women getting awards for non-acting things but I might have been delirious by that point. And I did note that there weren't any women even nominated for the biggies such as Director, of course. Or even women appearing in the "past winners" montages.

Let the Games Begin!

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As I spend days lazing away, watching cricket and eating chakli and mysore pak, I am returned to childhood summers. Some things never change. Yet, as I watch, I can't quite capture the ease with which I watched those games. What with my consiousness of the racial and class overtones of cricket (not to mention cricket-watching), I'm contantly reminded that cricket is a game that is deeply entrenched in the traumas of colonial and postcolonial history. I don’t suppose anyone with a sense of the history of the game will really deny that – one of the ironies of this history is that, like the English language, cricket is one of the colonial imports to have taken deep root in diverse ex-colonial spaces – the four cricket-playing nations of the South Asian subcontinent, the West Indies, Australia and New Zealand and a handful of African nations and England are the only nations wherein cricket is still played on a national basis. And arguably cricket is most popular now in India and Pakistan: not only is there no other national game in these countries but it seems as though no other game can possibly encapsulate the metonymic weight of the nation that cricket is accorded. Historians of the game may date this improvement of the qualify of subcontinental cricket in the 1970s and1980s, when teams from Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan began to stake their claims to the trophies but it seems to me that the advent of television across much of the subcontinent in the 1980s also had much to do with the creation of national audiences for cricket’s national teams.

Cricket became the national game and international matches began to take on a fervidly nationalist atmosphere. For instance, the historic rivalry between Pakistan and India – a rivalry rooted in religion, a rivalry that is underlaid with the memories of Partition – has meant that there is no stronger rivalry in cricket than that between India and Pakistan. Other international matches are watched, possibly by similar numbers of people but for sheer partisan intensity, nothing comes close to a close match between these age-old foes. And the size of these audiences (mainly in India, but also in other postcolonial nations) – and the advertising revenues they generate – has meant that the old guard in cricket (England and Australia) have had to give way before the power of these newly fledged national sides and their “boards” of control.
Last week, cricket in India (and by association), cricket in the rest of the world has gone through another shift of seismic proportions. What was once so much the preserve of gentility that a cricket game stood as an utterly comprehensible marker of the leisured privileges of the landed class in England (come on, haven’t you see any of the Merchant Ivory films?) has already become the national pastime of poverty-stricken millions. These days, the audiences for cricket matches in the subcontinent, certainly, but also increasingly across the world, tend not to be ladies with parasols and gentlemen in straw boaters as young men disenfranchised by globalization who see in this sport a last vestige of national pride and identity.
Now, however, the attempt is on to try and convert these questionable national allegiances into city-based sporting franchise audiences. Modelled after the NHL and the NFL, the Indian Premier League has arrived: the 8 city based leagues of the IPL intend to play a series of intense matches over April and May of each year. The games will be in the Twenty20 format, which means that they last for 3 hours or so each – this to ensure that they can be played during the evening hours and on weekends. Much is expected of the IPL; the 8 city franchises were sold off for millions of dollars and yesterday, the successful bidders of these franchises participated in an “auction” of world class Indian and international cricketers. Media outlets in the cricket playing world have since been trumpeting the news that further millions have been spent on “buying” players – the current Indian captain, for instance, has been “bought” for a cool $1.5 million a year for the next 3 years. I’ll repeat that: $1.5 million a year for 3 years, to play in a 2-month tournament that is yet to be initiated. 77 other players, including Indians, Australians, South Africans, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and the odd New Zealander or two have also all been bought, though a number of city franchises have yet to find names for their teams.
So what we have is an intriguing hybrid: a colonial game made peculiarly their own by audiences that are as far removed from its original audiences as we can imagine, a game that is now being shunted in an entirely new direction – a direction influenced more by the enduring popularity of games featuring the Toronto Maple Leafs or AC Milan than the symbolic national pride that has characterized its popularity in postcolonial spaces so far. I’m the first to admit that I don’t know the difference between a Yorker and Yorkshire pudding, but what I do know is my postcolonial history. I’d be willing to bet that this whole cricket thing is a case study of the overarching trajectories of colonialism, postcolonialism and globalization. Go figure.

Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

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Yesterday was madness here. Everywhere we went, there was pink and red. Streamers, clothing, advertisements -- the Times of India (a serious newspaper, that) -- took it upon itself to have kitschy Valentine-related articles and pictures all of last week; at a grocery store, I came across a display of Valentine cards (I think the pick of the bunch was "A Valentine's Day Wish for My Boss and Bestfriend"); all of the local news channels ran Valentine's "specials." We stopped by an eletrical appliances "fair" -- only to be ambushed by an offer to buy two electric rice cookers -- "One for you and one for your Valentine Mother." Schools and colleges and other places where the yout gather have all been done over in pink and red for the big day. But clearly, St. Valentine's Day isn't just about the sickly-sweet sentiment that love is assumed to be by the vast masses of Indian yout for whom sweaty hand-clasps have to be the extent of the expression of love. Oh no, it's become a family and friend and people you don't know extravaganza driven by corporate marketing, disposable incomes in the hands of the young techie demographic and mass media. And it's not just the women; I counted 17 men in pink and red shirts yesterday and we were only out and about for an hour or so. It's nuts. NUTS, I tell you.

Especially because this is still a deeply traditional culture. And I do mean deeply. The norm is still for marriages to be arranged. Gender roles are pretty much still the traditional ones; female foeticide is still a subject of serious concern to the nation -- there are entire states where the ratio of women to men is in the 800:1000 range. So this embrace of Valentine's day is bizarre, on so many levels. But I also suspect that it appeals to the new-age Indian consumer of globalization precisely because of the syrupy sentimentality attached to its global marketing. St. Valentine's day -- or at least its mass-market variation -- is all sickly sweet chemically tasting chocolate, fluffy bunnies and expensive hot house roses with no perfume. It's not about any real change in the deep patriarchies of Indian social life. A Valentine's day date might involve the girl being invited out to the latest movie or the nearest Coffee Day but I'd wager that few of them get invitations to come and meet Mom and Dad (and Grandad and Grandma). The superficial acceptance of love and sentiment hasn't changed the conservative traditions upon which social life is built any.

But you wouldn't think that on the face of public display of Valentine fever yesterday, and because this is India and there is never any kind of a ridiculous embracing of this type of pop culture without an equal and opposite heart-rending somewhere else, there were protests organized by right-wing Hindu groups over "unIndian" Valentine's day celebrations. The irony will no doubt be lost on them, but I think it's worth mentioning -- given the depth of right-wing Hinduism's contempt for Islam -- that in Saudi Arabia, the religious authorities have reportedly ordered a crackdown on the "decadent" practice of St. Valentine's day to the extent that there is now a "black market" for roses and women have been instructed not to dress in red on that day.

Yes, I know. My mind boggles too. Boggle, boggle, boggle. b.o.g.g.l.e....

Of Riots and Racism

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Sharad Pawar of the Board of Control for Cricket in India claims that no Indian can be "a racist." His rationale -- if it can even be called that -- is that India has been at the forefront of the "fight against racialism in its history." After my reaction of "eh?!" I'm tempted to note here that if one of my students offered me such "proof" in support of such an "argument," that student would have had the laws of argumentation explained her. At approximately the same time, and incidentally, in the same city from which Pawar's absurdities flow, there are near-riots on the streets: the people of Bombay, now dubbed "Mumbaikars" are being encouraged to kick others (namely, North Indians) out of their "Mumbai" by scions (metaphorically and literally, since the prime accused in this is one Raj Thackery, whose main claim to fame seems to be his close relationship with Bal Thackery of the Shiv Sena) of the BJP and allied right wing organizations. This isn't limited to Bombay; according to all the news sources here, across the state of Maharashtra, North Indians are being targeted by unruly mobs with the motto "Maharashtra for Maharashtrians."

Though I was born in Bangalore, and all of my family in India live in Karnataka, I have a Maharashtrian last name (courtesy of dad, whose father was born there): so I'd like to know if I count as a Maharashtrian? Having never lived there, and having only been to Bombay to fly in and out of the country, not speaking a word of Marathi, do I count? Am I -- unlike the hundreds of thousands of "other" Indians currently living and working all over the state -- welcome there? If I am, I'd like Mr. Pawar, or anyone else who feels qualified, to tell me how this is different from the racism of apartheid-era South Africa, or indeed, the current policies of the Jewish state?

If not, i.e, if I'm not "Maharashtrian" enough, then surely Maharashtrian-ness is a matter of nurture rather than nature. And surely those who've flocked to the state, who've contributed to its robust economy, who've chosen to live and work there have as much right to be there as anyone else?! So what price "racism" in India?

In the meantime, here in Karnataka -- and for those of you who are unfamiliar with Indian geography, Karnataka, the state in Mysore and Bangalore are located, shares a long border to the north with Maharashtra -- there are all kinds of protests over the lack of "quotas" for "Kannadigas" (i.e Kannada speakers, who are presumed to be Karnataka natives) in the Railways. Apparently too many Railway jobs (and keep in mind that in India, with its high umemployment rate (30%, I think), a job with the central government owned Indian Railways is pretty much a unionized-job-for-life and in the lower ranks, one of the few such things available to those with little education or experience, are being snagged by "North Indians" (those from Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, mostly).

Lest you go away thinking that there is a peculiar animus that "South India" holds against "North India," it's a little more complicated than that. I'm not sure that Maharashtra, until this newest of agitations against "North Indians," would ever have considered itself a "Southern state" -- in fact, even now, it probably thinks of itself as "Central India." The "South" is Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh. And my childhood memories attest to the historic denigration of "the South" by federal politicians in India, who have mostly been of North Indian origin. Historically, it's been a question of language rather than location: and the four states of the South have always rejected the imposition on Hindi as a national language. Add to this the sense of the rest of the country that the South is "dark" -- a legacy of the Dravidians (and don't get me started on the racist connotations of the Northern dislike of "darkness"; "uncivilized" -- because it did not take well to the Aryan invasions; and "hot" -- this last is true. And what we have now is a deeply alienated part of India that in the last two decades or so has suddenly gained economic power and social prestige through its ready acceptance of globalization. The IT industry is headquarted in Banglore, and next in line is Hyderabad, the capital of Andra Pradesh. Likewise, the call centre economy emerges from Bangalore. Ironically, this can be traced back directly to "the South's" rejection of Hindi and stubborn insistence upon English as a medium of education and communication.

My point is simply this: there is a lot of murky social history in India that is being brought to the forefront now as a result of the imbalances of economics. Given this, and given the turmoil against members of various groups -- all on the basis of alleged "origins" and "otherness" -- it is not just ironic to make absurd claims on behalf of all Indians, it is downright ridiculous.

Actually, it's worse than ridiculous but words fail me at this point so I'll leave it to your imaginations.

Poetry and Prose in Politics

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is being used to describe Barack Obama a lot. Someone over at the New Yorker said that his "aura" trumps her "arguments" -- that's a nice way of putting it. But the sentiment has been all over the news and the political junkies might just have a point: Obama is poetry and Clinton is prose. Which, for those who buy into Cuomo's take on political campaigns ("we campaign in poetry and govern in prose" make him a more appealing candidate and her a more effective president. I'd buy that -- at least, think of the words used to describe them or the words they use to describe themselves: Obama is a dreamer, a thinker, an ideas man, an idealist, a visionary, a peacemaker, and so on while she's presidential, a pragmatist, a doer, an incrementalist. He was a community organizer; she's organized. If I were to guess as to their cooking styles, I'd say he's a thrower of various things into a pot and a stirrer until it tastes right (which, in the end, it does often but not always) whereas she's a baker who knows her recipes cold and turns out perfectly only the things she knows how to bake. That's what Clinton's comment about Martin Luther King and the President who legislated his "dream" was about: I don't think it was a racist comment, really I don't. But it was an illuminating moment: it showed that she viewed social change as a reaction to legislation. I'd suggest -- based on his campaign and his personal history -- that for Obama, legislation is the reaction to social change. That's where the "transformativity" of his candidacy comes in. But the question remains: can a movement also be a goverment? Can a poet translate his dreams into legalese? (It's it funny how we talk of "Obama" but never of "Clinton"? Is it because "Barack" is just too un-American a first name for the down-home boys to be able to say? How long do you think it'll take for him to become "Barry"?)

Anyway. Super Dooper Tuesday for the Americans is almost here: so here are some last minute predictions: "Clinton" will emerge with more delegates than "Obama" but by a margin that's too slim for her to carry the nomination.

More later, I'm sure.

Aftermath

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LibraryGirl wants to know if I really spent my time at Canadian weddings boozing and flirting with boys. I suppose the truth is that I didn't, really. But I've consumed my share of celebratory glasses of champagne and been checked out by my share of inebriated men who are trapped at weddings. This seems to be the time honoured way of passing time at a wedding in Canada; in India, this is not a possibility. At least, not any wedding (or wedding-related function) I've ever attended here. Instead, you go around being introduced to people you've no interest in meeting and who've no interest in you except the purely genealogical: witness this one, where I must have been introduced to at least four dozen relatives with the words "this is my granddaughter, you know, my daughter Paru's child. She's thirty, and not married yet, but she has a PhD." Trust me, that gets old fast. Note that while I might be exaggerating here, it's not by much!

The reception itself was... nice. Everyone was all dressed up and they were fun to deconstruct. I got to play at being a glamourous Indian woman one last time, complete with sari (red and black silk with beads) and jewellery (gold) and heels (wobbly). The food was good, though that's already palled for me. I mean, I've been eating wonderful Indian food for 4-5 months now, so what's another such meal anyway. Aunt and I were to spend the night at a hotel in Bangalore and then spend the next day shopping before returning to Mysore. And so we returned back to the hotel and debriefed. And then, at midnight, we were awakened by the wedding party!: they'd decided to come hang with their out-of-town guests after seeing off the stragglers at the reception. That was the best -- we actually got to talk to the bride a bit though I do think she found the 12 or so of us gathered at the hotel all a bit much.

The next day Aunt and I spent wandering around the used and new bookstores of Bangalore. Oh joy! I'm now stocked with enough books to get me through to the end of my trip here (at least, I think so) and I've confirmed that (new and used) books are probably one of the few things that cost as much in India as they do in Canada. The stuff you can buy here though is crazy: I picked up a 70s edition of Mary McCarthy's The Groves of Academe, for instance, for just over $2! It's the kind of book that no one reads nowadays (with good reason) but since it's one of the earlier fictive attempts to deal with questions of academic freedom and political repression in the university, I've always thought I should read it sometime. Well, sometime was yesterday, when we had no power for 12 hours and I therefore had very little to do. So, the book is dated and depressing but interesting in an odd way. And I can't imagine the circumstances under which I'd have read it in Toronto so this was all to the good!

The lack of power yesterday was the last straw. I've been sick, on and off, for the past 2 weeks -- nothing major but just sick enough that I'm always conscious of it. And if you add traveling and meeting relatives reluctantly to that and then garnish it with the irritation of being ill and not being able to turn on a fan, you'll have an accurate picture of my state of mind (and body). So I've invested in an inverter, or UPS, or whatever it's called. It's a little black box that will apparently store enough power to keep us going with a light and a fan for a few hours when the power fails again (as it surely will). It wasn't cheap by Indian standards (about $400).... and it reminds me that quality of life in India is a matter of wealth in a way that it isn't in the West.