"The Stagnant Traveller" - INDIA CURRENTS (California - December 2013/January 2014)

A whole year would go by before I could visit her grave. It was my first trip back to Goa. Twenty years on, and it is still one of my two biggest regrets of moving to the United States: I could not be there for my grandmother in her final days. Now, two decades later, I have the opportunity to make up for the second misgiving.

My parents named my sister after my grandmother Inacia. When my sibling had her daughter, she named her after Adeline, my brother-in-law’s grandmother. Inacia had passed away on my parents’ wedding anniversary and Adeline on my birthday. A metaphor for life, then, that jubilation is not without counterpart. Though those two matriarchs never met, they may as well have been kindred spirits for their fierce independence and straightforwardness, qualities I already see in my niece. Having not had the chance to grow up with my sister, on this the longest sojourn in my ancestral homeland since having departed, perhaps it is not too late to mitigate that shortcoming by being in the life of her daughter, the latest addition to our family. 

The trouble with being a transnational is not simply the impossibility of existing in multiple places at the same time, but coming to terms with knowing that life and death happen even when one is not “there,” wherever there might be. Yes, there was every joy to be had, this year, in watching my niece take her first steps, utter her first words and, finally, say my name. But on the other side of the planet, in my other life in America, Andy, a close friend, was to succumb to a hit-and-run accident. I had to mourn from afar, again. Only, this time, the geography was the other way around, and I wondered, again, if my presence might have changed something, anything. Around the same time, my godmother came to the end of her life. I was in Goa when she breathed her last, and I wondered – if I had the choice – if I would have chosen to be elsewhere. But how would that change the grief I felt? It was becoming only too clear, that while I had lost loved ones before, I was at that point in my life where the space between those losses might only get smaller.

A neighbour, whose father had died not too long ago, asked about my mother who was being treated for a recurrent illness. It was how I had found out that my godmother had taken a turn for the worse – both women had been referred to the same hospital. While my mother was being attended to by the doctor, I went up to see my godmother. She had been sedated, and the family kept vigil outside the intensive care unit. The priest had already been to administer extreme unction. I tried not to dwell on the future and what it might hold, nor did I want to think about how this scene may be one I might bear witness to again. 

Outside, the monsoons pelted rooftops and turned the streets the characteristic red of Goa’s laterite soil. I recalled how my godmother would come to see me at my grandmother’s house where my family used to stay during trips from Kuwait where my sister and I were born. The last email I wrote Andy was to tell him about my godmother and to share my niece’s latest exploits – he had gotten to meet her on what was his only trip to India earlier this year. It was only after that I realized he never got to read my message. I tried not to be angered by my neighbour’s question, which came from a place of concern and memories of the parent she had lost. “Your mother... Are you looking after her well?” Instead, I recalled with shame what I had said to my uncle nearly twenty years before. It was right before I left for America. I could not have known that it would be the last time I would see my grandmother when I said to my father’s brother: “Take good care of her!” My uncle, a patient man, simply replied, “Do I not?” 

I could not return to Goa when my grandmother died. It had only been a few months since I moved to America and did not have the means. I was saddened, too, to be absent at my niece’s birth. Instead, that November two years ago, I was doing battle with graduate school in London while desperately missing my family in Goa, as well as the relative warmth of the California autumn. I shared news of the newborn with my flatmate, a fellow student of Nigerian and Ghanaian origins. She promptly responded, “Another ogbanje!” 

Our friendship had been firmly cemented when at a conference to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the publication of Things Fall Apart, we both remarked upon the phenomenon of changelings in Chinua Achebe’s novel. The ogbanje of Yoruba and other Nigerian traditions are children destined to die and be reborn in the same family; often considered malevolent, we decided that Achebe had incorporated these babies that traverse spiritual and physical terrains as a postcolonial metaphor. Ogbanje might symbolize the past reincarnated, but also remade in the present – always evolving, but never certain. Achebe’s death this year reminded my friend and me of how we related his use of ogbanje to our own understanding of otherness in the lands we called home – of being transnationals.  Ogbanje became our code word to refer to those we identified as having had similar trajectories to ours: fellow travellers trying to make home in several places, but never really at home in any one place. 

That my friend should classify my niece as an ogbanje seemed apt, named as the little one is for her great-grandmother, born to my sister named for our grandmother. Those names that have travelled through generations allow nostalgia to live on, even as new memories are made and baby steps are taken. Despite the impossibility, I will always regret not being there for those moments in life – both of loss and gain – that happen elsewhere. But what will carry me is knowing that the stagnancy of memory is life’s deepest well, even when life happens in many places at the same time.

This article appears in the print and online versions of India Currents. It also appears on The Compassionate Species Project blog.

"Blacklisted: Racism and the Injustice of Popular Violence" - THE NAVHIND TIMES (6 November 2013)

On 31^st October, the local media was saturated with news of a group of Nigerian nationals who, it was claimed, had removed the corpse of their murdered compatriot from the hearse carrying it, thereafter placing the body on the road, effectively blocking traffic on NH 17 in protest. Policepersons intervening in the protest were said to have been assaulted and, to complicate matters, the Nigerians were subsequently set upon by a mob, and viciously beaten up, such that two Nigerians suffered life-threatening injuries. The statements made by some of the Nigerians, that the protest was spurred by their fear that the police were not investigating the murder seriously nor paying heed to allegations that two prominent Goan politicians were involved in the drug trade of which the murder was a possible fall-out, were largely ignored.

Public reaction was astounding. Instead of being horrified at the mob lynching of the protesting Nigerians, most persons tended to respond with the simplistic question, what else were the locals supposed to do? This question implies that the Nigerians deserve what they got, not only because they were causing a nuisance, but primarily because of their alleged involvement in the drug trade in Goa. It is precisely this sort of rhetoric that demonstrates the double-standards at work in our society and as especially evidenced in this particular case. The assault on the Nigerians as well as the subsequent reportage, not to mention comments on social media, reek of a barely concealed, when not blatant, racism.

Incidents of mob lynching are often presented as spontaneous eruptions of anger against an ineffective government, but are in fact almost never so. Usually the manifestation of a shared local sentiment against a weaker opponent, they tend to happen only when it is convenient and ‘safe’ to take the law into one’s own hands. Why should a blockage of the highway lead to murderous assaults by people armed with lathis and iron rods? If this lynching was really a response to the government’s inaction against the drug mafia, as some claim, why have we never seen such attacks on the police or the politicians who have been frequently accused of protecting or patronising the trade? The answer is that most participants in the lynching are aware that attacking the police or politicians would have very serious legal and extra-legal implications. Lynching is never directed at the powerful but at the powerless. This ugly phenomenon is often directed at the innocent, as in the case at Arambol a few months ago, when a person mistaken for a thief was tied to a pole and then beaten almost to death – again by ‘locals’ – before he was rescued by the police. Media images showed a bound and bloody semi-naked figure whom bystanders were laughing at and taking pictures of on their cell phones. Social sanction for lynching is deeply troubling, and it cannot just be blamed on an unresponsive government.

Next is the issue of the ‘common sense’ that seems to prevail in Goa: that Nigerians are drug peddlers. It should be obvious that the entire population of Nigerians who visit or are resident in Goa cannot be peddling drugs. Such an assumption gains credibility only when supported by a racist logic that tars an entire community based on the actions of a few. Substantial examples of racism can be found in media reports and editorials, while the viciousness of social media is almost beyond description. Nigerians have been described as “hefty”, “boisterous”, “Uncivilized, uneducated pirates”, and one commentator proclaims, “we can't forget what they did to us during Idi Amin times”. As the latter quotes demonstrate, the identities of distinct nationalities – Ugandans, Nigerians, and others – have been conflated while venting frustration. The only common feature between these nationalities is that they are all African and black. Even Goan diasporic history – the 1972 expulsion of Asians from Uganda by Amin – is roped in as reason for retribution. Further, there is the almost classic racist fear of the savagery of African men. One particularly telling comment on Facebook describes them as “massive Afzal Khan brand African giants,” intertwining the fear of the Muslim along with that of the African. 

This is not surprising given our caste culture, which can surely teach racism a thing or two about violent discrimination on the basis of birth. Our society nurtures a biased belief in hierarchy and discrimination, all of which is also tied to skin colour, so that it is very normal for black people to be treated worse than whites. In an interview many years ago, an African living in Mumbai pointed out that while apartheid in South Africa was the law, in India it is human nature. This results in the khapri, or African, being relegated to the bottom of the caste ladder, lower than the lowest – not least because of Goans recalling their times in Africa as colonial collaborators, but also due to the legacy of slavery in Portuguese Goa, both of which have given Goans unacknowledged African bloodlines. Ganging up on Africans, whether physically or politically, brings Goans ‘together’ against the lowly outsider, creating a fake and racist unity. How convenient this racism is can be seen from the immediate attempts to cash in by MLAs like Rohan Khaunte and Vijai Sardessai, with their open defence of the lynching and avowed support to defend those responsible.

The calls for “rounding up” and deporting Nigerians are disturbingly reminiscent of the pogroms carried out against the Roma and Jews in Europe, and against other ethnic minority groups across the world. It is all the more ironic given the contemporary and routine racial profiling of South Asians, Goans included, who travel to or live in other countries. While many citizens see profiling as a logical response of the State, the fact is that such assertions of tough administration invariably come after an incident such as this; they are merely spectacles and knee-jerk responses, not evidence of good governance. In fact, the inherent jingoism conceals the rot in the system that has produced the problem in the first place. If some Nigerians are involved in drug peddling, can they have been doing it without local assistance? Indeed, the incident that commenced in Parra and concluded in Porvorim is an example of how institutions of governance have been systematically dismantled over time to serve the personal agendas of the locally powerful. Some foreigners may have benefitted from the space that opened up, but the truth is, as so amply demonstrated on 31^st October, that eventually they are as much the victims as locals. Tragically, these victims set upon one another while the kingpins laugh all the way to the bank.
 

In the face of this popular support for mob violence, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s assertion that it cannot do for citizens to take the law into their own hands is well placed, and one hopes that his statement that his government may prosecute those responsible for the life-threatening attacks on the Nigerians will be realised. Lynchings become precedents for more violence and, to reiterate, they invariably mete out unjust punishments. 

This article was co-written with Jason Keith Fernandes, Amita Kanekar, Anibel Ferus-Comelo, and Albertina Almeida, and appears on The Navhind Times.

"The General is Resurrected" - THE GOAN: I'm Not Here (2 November 2013)

As I write this column here in Goa, on the other side of the planet – at the University of Iowa in the United States – the latest edition of Peter Nazareth’s novel The General is Up is being ‘cyberlaunched’. First published by the Writers Workshop in Calcutta in 1984, then Toronto’s TSAR Publications in 1991, the 2013 edition has been produced by local publishing house Goa 1556. Yet, despite Nazareth’s Goan roots and his use of Goan characters, it would not be right to say that the novel’s circuitous publishing history has finally brought it home. Indeed, at the crux of Nazareth’s tragicomic novel are the deeply perplexing questions: ‘Where is home?’ and ‘Whose home is it?’

Employed by Uganda’s Ministry of Finance until the early 1970s, Nazareth left the country during perilous times to take up a fellowship in the States. Presciently, his first novel In a Brown Mantle, published in 1972, foretold the expulsion of Asians from Uganda by President Idi Amin that same year. In The General is Up, Nazareth reuses the fictional African country of Damibia, which he introduces readers to in his debut novel. Nonetheless, it is clear that the author draws from his own intimate knowledge of political instability and personal loss, and that the novel’s dictatorial namesake is the very real Amin. Consequently, the postcolonial setting in Nazareth’s work is used to explore themes of nationalism and displacement. Goan characters, such as Ronald D’Mello in The General is Up, find themselves on the verge of being exiled from a land they had thought of as home. Interrogating concepts of national identity and belonging, the profound comment the novel offers is on the use of fiction in politics: the made-up nation of Damibia is as ‘real’ as the manufactured truth of nationalism.

Because of its multiple locations – East Africa, Goa, and the West – The General is Up is both record and allegory of the human geography of Goan identity. The just released Goan edition resurrects Nazareth’s novel for a new generation of readers. But why should this text matter to Goans? I would suggest that the novel still functions as an index of identity issues that continue to inform the fraught relationship that Goans have with the postcolonial nation, as well as class and caste. Take the aforementioned D’Mello’s reminiscence of his time in Goa: “He could not go to any of the Damibian ... schools because ... the colonial government had made sure that there was no racial mixing ... [I]n Goa, ... he had discovered that there was nothing inherently middle-class about Goans. Just like Damibians, Goans could be servants, bus drivers, peasants, as well as the occasional landowner.” 

Through D’Mello’s experience, Nazareth presents a critique of social stratification and internalised racism. By telescoping what his character finds in Goa to the diaspora, while also critically diminishing the difference between the two, the novelist assesses the limited bases of community formation and ethnic solidarity, simultaneously holding the nation to task for its imperious designs – the collusion betwixt these elements hangs thickly in the background of events that unfold in the novel. It is not just the General, that ironic symbol of postcolonial freedom, that Nazareth holds up to scrutiny, but also those seemingly average actors who play their part in perpetuating the status quo. Even now, The General is Up still reads as a cautionary tale of how home is never what it seems.

To see the print version of this article, visit here.

"The Journey Home" - INDIA CURRENTS (California - October 2013)

It was a strange, yet somehow very Indian American moment. In January, this year, I was to meet Andy in front of McDonald’s. “The one across the street from the KFC,” I had said on the phone. The McDonald’s in Bandra, that is. By the time I got there, Andy had already arrived. The post-work traffic whizzed by on Linking Road as we embraced in front of the golden arches. “I am SOOOO happy to see you,” Andy said. “Can you believe we’re here? In Bombay? In front of this?” I asked, indicating the Mickey D’s behind me. “I know right?!” Andy said with that unforgettable chuckle in his voice. We laughed together at the delicious irony of the American fast food company dishing out such fare as the “McSpicy Paneer.”

This was Andy’s first journey to India. It was a lifetime in the making, and the trip of a lifetime. I got to know Andy in 1998, during my junior year at UCLA. In the years following, he would often express his interest in visiting India, knowing that I went to see family. However, after a while, I could not help but think: “Sure… that will be the day.” So, when he emailed to say that he was actually going to do it, I could barely believe it. Having already been in India a few weeks at that point, I was all the more excited at the prospect of sharing Andy’s experience.

 

In 1998, UCLA hosted the South AsianYouth Conference (SAYC) for high school students, primarily. Most attendees were from schools in and around Los Angeles’ Little India: Artesia and Cerritos, for example. The conference had been organized by a group of students who called themselves Sangam, a word in Hindi that means coming together. The organizers who had constituted Sangam solely for the purpose of the youth conference were spurred on by its success, and decided not to disband after. I had attended SAYC, and thereupon was invited to join Sangam. It was where I met Anand “Andy” Shah, a staff reporter for UCLA’s newspaper the Daily Bruin. While there were other South Asian American student organizations on campus that served a social purpose, Sangam strove to educate about progressive causes that had a political bent.

It was a heady time as protests erupted over issues of affirmative action and the dwindling numbers of Latino and Black students on campus, along with other underrepresented minorities from Asian and Pacific Islander communities. What Sangam did was to include South Asian students as activists by building awareness and solidarity within and across lines of race. We were on the front lawns of Royce Hall protesting along with other student groups as the Regents made decisions that would impact generations of Californians. We tried to remind the UC system that as a public university, it had a mandate to serve the community in all its diversity.

These were the kinds of goings on that Andy reported on for the school newspaper, while also being involved in Sangam’s activist efforts. Additionally, he was part of various community outreach and educational projects the group undertook. Among others, these included a SAT tutorial project in the Bangladeshi community in LA’s Korea Town, a mini festival of films from South Asia and its diaspora, and

efforts to expand South Asian Studies at UCLA. But Sangam was not just an organization that was somehow different from other ethnic student groups because it was more political. Like those other groups, we bonded over our commonalities. Andy was part of a community of young South Asians who were not what might be considered typically “model minority.” There is little doubt that what drew us together was the sense of family we felt in our shared differences from the norm: we were the offspring of divorced or separated parents, or parachute kids and new immigrants, or queer and otherwise non-confirming. And it was in knowing that we had each other that we gained an education our classrooms could not provide.

This intimate knowledge of why social justice was so important to us and others like us, and to those whose causes we might have little personal experience of, led Andy to be an advocate for change even after his time at UCLA. Because he knew only too well about domestic abuse, the marginalization of those who are both queer and of color, and anti-immigrant sentiment, he sought to build awareness around these topics through participation in community and national organizations and also by writing about these matters. For Andy, who always had an interest in journalism, the issue was representation. Or, more aptly, how the media skews representation, particularly when it comes to minorities.

On September 5, 2013, while Andy was crossing a street in Beverly Hills, he was struck by a vehicle. At the time of writing, the driver in this hit-and-run incident has not been identified. At the age of 33 when he still had so much more to give, my friend was no more. From India, I made the mistake of watching the online story about his death as it was reported on by a Los Angeles news station. I will forever be haunted. It was not just that my friend’s entire life had been reduced to a nameless image of his face in this report that referred to him as, only, “Norwalk Man.” It was not just that the news channel felt the need to display the crime scene while Andy’s remains were still there. It was that none of these elements bore any relevance to the ostensible reason for the story, which was to bring to public awareness that the perpetrator had fled the scene of the crime. This was a telling instance of the usual manner in which Los Angeles news deals with cases of this nature. There is no thought to how such callousness affects a grieving family and only adds to our desensitization to violence, because of the proliferation of such decontextualized images in the media. What irony that a person so aware of the media’s distortion of representation should be so represented.

I am saddened not to be in Los Angeles with Andy’s mother and brother, and our friends, as they say goodbye to someone who touched our lives so deeply. There is some solace in knowing that in those brief days in Bombay, which would be the last time I would see Andy, I was part of his life’s journey at such a significant moment for him. Though he had never been before, I remarked at how he seemed as comfortable in bustling Bombay city as he had always been in Los Angeles. He navigated the town like a native, hailing cabs and rickshaws, informing drivers where to take us, and pointing out the city’s sights to me. Now, neither Bombay nor Los Angeles will ever be the same for me Andy, because I was lucky to know you. Rest in peace.

The print and online versions of this India Currents article can be seen here. Obituaries for Andy appear in the Los Angeles Times and on the Road Peace memorial website. An open letter to ABC 7 about their coverage of the aforementioned accident runs on Streetsblog.

Anand "Andy" Shah (February 19, 1980 - September 5, 2013). Photo courtesy of Sanna Malick.