The biggest barrier to undertaking activism often isn’t a lack of desire. For example, India is a nation of desperate and disadvantaged children, but the apathy towards their dire situation isn’t based purely in a disinterested and uncaring middle class; it’s also the product of a society who have given up on idealism, perhaps wanting to help but not seeing any practical way to help, and ultimately hoping that somebody else will clean up the mess. With millions of children in need on the streets of India’s metros and all over the country, airline purser Rippan Kapur decided he wanted to do something about it. He decided to found an organisation that wouldn’t simply get their hands dirty for the sake of child rights; they would provide a base for volunteers everywhere to effect positive change. In 1979, with six friends and a base fund of just 50 rupees, he set up CRY: Child Rights and You.
Category: India
You Too Can Travel In Style
That age-old desire to flaunt more wealth and status than your neighbour ties into another growing sector of the luxury travel market: weddings. Shifting your son’s or daughter’s wedding to foreign country is still a rare thing, but if you can manage it, you’ll be the talk of the town. This from the Wall Street Journal tells of nuptials in Macau and Bangkok and bills of up to USD$5 million – that’s over 22 crore rupees – with nearly a thousand guests flown from India, along with full catering staff and a host of top entertainers. The location is not chosen only for a hotel’s willingness to submit to the parents’ lofty requests, but also for its attractiveness as a tourist destination, which makes doubly certain that all the guests will return home with nothing but good things to say.
The Kerala Wedding Experience I: Hindu
A Hindu wedding is dominated by colour: the red of the bride’s one-off sari, the tint of the gold chains around her neck, the white and green of fragrant jasmine flowers, the black of the groom’s hair and moustache – all illuminated in intense clarity by the camera crew’s megawatt bulbs. My first Hindu wedding was on merely my second day in Kerala, my venerable new neighbour eager to have the new saip present at his second son’s marriage, and the whole experience was utterly intoxicating. Some of that initial sheen has worn off after attending so many more, but enough of the magic remains that my enjoyment of each occasion extends beyond simply paying my respects, or ‘blessing with presence’ as one friend’s elegant invite read.
Not just anybody
My day job involves a lot of sitting at a computer, wearing headphones and performing monotonous tasks. In fact, it involves nothing but these things.
When I just can’t take it any more, I like to go for a quick walk to Technomall’s small bookstore. There, I can awaken a few different areas of my brain as I process the new books that interest me, relish the prose of good writers and laugh inwardly at the cheap tack by the crap ones (until I feel guilty, because while I might think ill of these writers, it’s a certainty that someone out there who reads this will mock me mercilessly for it).
Usually I stick to the fiction section, with its stock of prizewinners and the cream of Indian literature in English. Today, however, I stumbled upon a section I’ve always avoided in bookshops: the self-help (or ‘personality development’) section. I mean, I read David Cain because he is actually kind of inspiring and not force-fed down your throat, but I’ve never felt a need to consume chicken soup for the soul, or to read one guy tell all about the differences between rich dads and poor dads like it’s some big secret. Speaking of which, I’ve sure as hell never been interested in The Secret.
But there are so many of these books.
I looked closer at the bookcase, but became steadily more uncomfortable as I contemplated this particular book’s title.
One minute had been enough. Those monotonous tasks weren’t so bad after all. I returned to the office, inspired back to work in a new and unsettling way.
(For the record, Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ gives value and meaning to this entire genre. Have you been inspired or helped to see things in a different way by a self-help book?)
5 Lessons from Gandhiji’s Autobiography
1. Introspect. Throughout the years covered in the book, Gandhi interrogates and investigates himself. He wonders why he dislikes bathing the sores on his father’s feet. He feels certain, for a while, that in order to become powerful one must eat meat. He questions whether his all-natural earth treatments are effective. On almost every page, he remains convinced that he hasn’t yet everything figured out. It is through this constant self-questioning that he attains a deeper understanding of himself and crystallises that understanding into a way of life. With so many distractions around us today, it is surely valuable to sometimes consider why we do what we do – especially the things we take for granted – and then consider whether we have good reason to keep doing them.
Kerala’s Obsession with Gold
There are a few commodities in Kerala that will always be in high demand. Rice, obviously, and the coconut products that invariably accompany it at mealtimes. Liquor, as previously mentioned, is on an upward consumption curve. And then there’s gold. Even as ubiquitous and controversial as liquor has become, it cannot hold a candle to the influence of gold in the average Malayali’s life. The desire to acquire and hoard it seems to be hard-wired, a vital element in the struggle to survive and, if you’re fortunate, to be upwardly mobile. To put it simply, in Kerala, gold – like Gordon Gekko’s greed – is good.
Indian English Class 2 (This Is What I Am Telling)
Since the previous Indian English lesson brought a greater response than expected, The NRI has decided to schedule a second lesson – starting now. After the freeform approach of the first class, let’s try and be a little more focused this time. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and make comments at the end of the lesson.
To get you back into the spirit, let’s complete a brief exercise. In the following passage, there are a number of examples of Indian English we learned last time. Identify them.
‘Kind Madam/Sir, details of concerned products would be arriving in your mail today itself. Orders for Green Bay Packers Hand Glove should be filled at the earliest as product is likely to get over quickly due to demand. Deadline for all orders is by 3:00 PM Friday. Kindly do the needful.’
‘Outsourced’ Episode 3: We talked, they listened!
Last week, I dissed NBC’s new sitcom ‘Outsourced’ for being inaccurate, unfunny and offensive, but said I’d give it one last chance with the third episode. And you know what? Everything turned out better than expected!
It was true to life. Virtually all the characters behaved in recognisable – and interesting – ways. The cross-cultural interactions make sense, as do the intra-cultural ones, even if the show’s basis in American culture and humour means that the dialogue rushes by a bit faster than is natural and some outlandish scenarios are thrown up. Still, those less believable moments are made funny and interesting by good writing and performances. The rest of it seems pretty much right on the mark. All the characters are really growing into themselves now that they each have some space in which to do so, and they are all great to watch.
It was funny. Jokes! Funny jokes! After the cringe-filled disaster of the first two episodes, I was delighted to find myself chuckling throughout. There are several memorable lines – “I just wanted to inform you that Gurpreet is making a personal call”; “There’s no unsubscribing”; “Again… you are not my equals” – and they are crafted into some excellent, laugh-out-loud scenes. The moment in which Todd and Charlie decide to step out onto the dancefloor was classic, and the whole dinner date was hilarious. This was my biggest problem with the first two episodes: the lack of decent humour made the show a chore to sit through. This time around, it was genuinely entertaining.
It was completely respectful and inoffensive (almost). At last, America was removed from the pedestal. Todd was shown to be sometimes a bit of an asshole and Charlie bumbled his way awkwardly through all of his interactions with Tanya, and on the Indian side, the show gave simple, knowing insights into (among other things) the idea of arranged marriage in India and didn’t try to tear any of them down. One problem: Tanya, the token white girl (who also happens to be Australian), is a total nymphomaniac. She’s not above shoving foot into crotch under the table or dropping ludicrously broad innuendos in the street. While this is a stereotype that is occasionally true, it really didn’t need perpetuating.
That makes for one bum note in an otherwise very enjoyable 20 minutes of television. I will definitely be tuning in for the next episode. Things are looking up!
The New Rosa Parks
In 1955, on a public bus in Alabama, a black woman named Rosa Parks refused to stand up when asked to make room for white passengers. Her action was seized upon by a young clergyman named Martin Luther King who organised the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which catalysed the civil rights movement and brought it into nationwide focus; segregation on public transport became illegal the following year. Further laws continued to be passed to make all American citizens more equal, racial tolerance came forward in leaps and bounds and black Americans began to get voted into public office – culminating in the election of America’s first black president, Barack Obama, in 2008.
In 2010, on a public bus in Dubai, an Indian family of four sitting in the front row of seats (marked ‘LADIES & FAMILIES’) was asked to move themselves – along with several large bags from Dubai Mall – to the back of the bus. They did so without hesitation, and none of the other passengers on the bus were moved to speak up, many of whom were also Indian. The event went unreported and the family got on with their lives.
Subway In India: Just Like Home (Kind Of)
It starts as soon as I open the door: that bizarre, enigmatic sensation of being somewhere utterly contradictory. The Subway restaurant on the edge of Trivandrum’s Technopark campus is the only American chain restaurant for literally hundreds of miles around, and this makes it both the starkest example of Western influence on life in Kerala and the most jarring collision between that influence and the steadfast conservatism of this corner of India. The restaurant is right next to the building in which I work, so today I’ve decided to spend my lunch break there.
The music always hits me first. No Bollywood vocoders or Malayali whistles here: the dial is always tuned to an American radio station, generally near full volume. As I walk in, a track by one of my favourite groups, Arcade Fire, blasts out of the PA – a group I don’t think I’ve even heard in restaurants back in NZ, let alone in India. “I woke up with the power out! Not really something to shout about!” shrieks singer Win Butler as I walk to the vegetarian counter. Living as I do in rural Kerala, this line is peculiarly apt.
Jdanspsa Wyksui 