are you bengali?

by Guest Wed Nov 16, 2011 5:25 am

yesterday blabberwock asked me this question on chat (are you bengali?) and my first reaction was -- i don't know how to answer this. then i said, no i am not. and then as i was starting to get into the topic, she had to abruptly leave. so i composed a detailed reply and sent it to her via PM. i am reproducing the PM here with her permission.

(to blabberwock)

i don't know why you asked if i were bengali. i'm not sure if you were being serious or facetious. surely you know that i am not a bengali.

merely by living in a place, all of one's life, one does not become a bengali. to become a bengali is a conscious decision which entails, and you got that right, speaking bengali at home. i think this is the single most important criteria. this did not happen with us and does not happen with most affluent families and nor with the not-so-affluent but hindi speaking outsiders. it happens within one generation with economically disadvantaged people -- i have witnessed it. but what i was going to say, but you had to leave, was this: these geographical markers in one's identity are by now old and do not work (at least in hindi speaking india). primarily 'cos geographical distances have become shorter and so have frequent relocations. primarily because these terms (bengali, gujarati) seek purity which is increasingly getting lost. it is with good reason many hindians describe themselves as delhites or mumbaites and ignore the antecedents. and, most importantly, hindia has increasingly become a land, a virtual land, to which many hindi speakers belong. i do not see my kids or their progeny ever becoming bengali because they will never give up hindi and thus they will always live in hindia. even if they marry bengali girls, my hunch is that the family will cede to speaking in hindi at home (kind of like AB and jaya bacchan). but all that is mere speculation on my part. there is an element of bengaliness to my identity -- how can i deny that? and it is precisely this: my identity is that of a non bengali growing up and living in bengal.

it is possible to chisel or cultivate one's cultural identity but i have not done that for i never felt the need or usefulness of doing so. so at different times i will give different answers to the question: are you bengali? but for some it is necessary to cultivate a cultural identity. naipaul is one but a complicated one. another is amitabh bacchan (AB). he has carefully cultivated this eastern UP identity (eastern 'cos he breaks into awadhi in KBC at times) despite his having a mixed descent and mixed marriage and hardly having lived in eastern UP.

the flip side, of course, is that had i been raised and living in delhi, i would have considered and described myself as a delhite -- no change in language. at least my cousins in delhi introduce themselves as from-delhi.

on a more intellectual or studied level, i have, in my later years (i'm an old man) tried to examine my cultural identity and i have mentioned the results in old CH on several occasions. i have always shied of using the term north indian to describe myself. i believe north india is punjab, HP and J&K. and probably haryana too. i have my own reasons for holding so. your perspective might be different. i perceive myself as a resident of the gangetic plains (though actually we are from the doab of ganges and yamuna, viz. agra or, rather, braj bhoomi). and i see the whole culture of the gangetic plain as a monolithic one. bengali evolved from a magadhi prakrit! so it makes no difference if i describe myself as bengali, bihari or UPite.

on a related note, my wife (who is from bihar), her family, till a few generations ago were residents of UP (ayodhya). but in these few generations, everything changed -- their language and culture. however those times are no longer comparable with the hindi times of today. hindi is very seductive and very hard to give up today.

by garam_kuta Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:28 am

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:
speaking bengali at home. i think this is the single most important criteria. this did not happen with us and does not happen with most affluent families and nor with the not-so-affluent but hindi speaking outsiders. it happens within one generation with economically disadvantaged people -- i have witnessed it.

there are some exceptions that I have noticed..particularly in Banagalore and more so in Hyderabad..the local language becomes the family language , irrespective of the economic status. BTW, doesn't FF appear to be a thamizhar than a malayali ?

Huzefa Kapasi wrote: but for some it is necessary to cultivate a cultural identity. naipaul is one but a complicated one.

very interesting, bhaiya.. but isn't naipaul's sense of belonging is grounded on the brahmin ( and adamantly vegetarian in a broader sense of identity) aspects than something based on language/geography

by Guest Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:30 pm

garam_kuta wrote:
Huzefa Kapasi wrote:
speaking bengali at home. i think this is the single most important criteria. this did not happen with us and does not happen with most affluent families and nor with the not-so-affluent but hindi speaking outsiders. it happens within one generation with economically disadvantaged people -- i have witnessed it.

there are some exceptions that I have noticed..particularly in Banagalore and more so in Hyderabad..the local language becomes the family language , irrespective of the economic status.

i see. you mean a tamilian family would take to speaking in telugu in hyderabad? tell me more. ye dil mange more. how does this happen?

BTW, doesn't FF appear to be a thamizhar than a malayali ?

yes. true. but he has lived mostly in TN and is a keralitie only by provenance. i too appear to be more a bengali than a non bengali (that's why blabberwock's question -- and it was a sincere query she later clarified). however ff's cultural identity is a bit "cultivated" unlike mine. i wonder if i am right in my assessment. what do you think?

Huzefa Kapasi wrote: but for some it is necessary to cultivate a cultural identity. naipaul is one but a complicated one.
very interesting, bhaiya.. but isn't naipaul's sense of belonging is grounded on the brahmin ( and adamantly vegetarian in a broader sense of identity) aspects than something based on language/geography

i see his adamant vegetarianism (he is a pescetarian btw) as an eccentricity and as an ever present totem of his brahmanical roots to remind us every day, at meals, that he is a brahmin. it is odd that an intellectual like him chooses to stick to such an inane brahmin practice especially when he has expressed utter disdain (in a book) about brahmin customs (while attending the shradh of one of his family members in trinidad). before i go on, let me reproduce something i had said in a discussion about his perceived nationality in another forum, many years ago:

H K wrote:(i) Naipaul has been smacked by whichever culture he's tried to embrace: British (his only all-white novel was a failure), India (this is obvious - the present homecoming is belated), West Indian (condescending of Blacks, condescending of Trinidadian & Tobagon writers & lit. history). He's been a fugitive and has not-so-covertly aspired for acceptance in India.

(ii) The last sentence of the above point does not mean that he will giggle when India finally accepts him. He may decide to respond by spitting in its vagina ('character'-istic Naipaul). He is V. S. Naipaul, Nob. Laureate. But the gesture does indicate that he acknowledges and reciprocates the welcome.

(iii) He's Indian for all practcal purposes. Here's this talk of assimilation coming from Naipaul (apropos the NYT interview) and here's a vegetarian brahmin eating smoked salmon or magur like any jha from darbangha. He practices right hand bowling and swings the willow to keep fit. ---> that's VERY Indian (crazines) IMHO....it's also very West Indian but do they still play cricket?

(iv) What you are, for a writer, depends to a large extent on what you write about. In other words writers will drop subtle hints about their 'perceived' nationalities in their works or in the pattern of their novels/obsessions - and that's all that matters when it comes to forming an opinion about their nationalities. The perception can change with time. V Seth, when he was just a Golden Gate old, was purely a SF Bay Yuppie writer - not even mainstream North American. Ghosh, OTOH, belongs to South & South East Asia ---> that's his nationality; his mother was Burmese and he harps back to the roots - there is something inalienably Burmese and Cambodian about him in a 'nationality' sort of way. Naipaul is finished with writing. I think we can now form a safe opinion about him - He's Indian alright.

(v) I think pushing him to accept Trinidadian (&Tobago) nationality is plain PC and which is rather bland, unimaginative and insulting to a man's choice in defining, re-defining, or exploring and identifying his own moorings. Arthur Clarke writes sci fi from Sri Lanka. His nationality is ET by my reckoning.

In conclusion, I do not think it is tough or impossible or improper to locate Naipaul in terms of a nation state. I think every human being, let alone writers, would like to have a mooring - a vantage point from where s/he can be taken for granted (what does THAT mean????). Naipaul writes/talks/thinks/marries Indian sub. continent. He's also racially Indian - which is no mean point. I think this question should be asked of V Seth. Very dificult to answer I think. Or Mother Teresa - real brainer. Or Sonia Gandhi - I give up!

now what i am saying (in the context of the above) is this:

naipaul has ignored and put down many of his identity markers and emphasized on some to cultivate the identity he firmly has now. his has been a dogged, though perhaps unconscious, attempt at carving a cultural identity for himself. he has had the overwhelming need to have the cultural identity that he always thought was rightfully his. you can say he felt robbed of an obscure identity that he thought was his. who knows for a fact that he is brahmin? he does not even have pointers to his roots in bihar/UP. so it's been a long, long time! then he had an english wife. so many aspects of his identity he has choked -- trinidadian, british, english; and here he is dissing sub continental muslims and becoming a poster boy of bjp! and there he has a muslim wife. too many contradictions in his life that just stand out to suggest that the identity he has sutured is phoney. its not there aren't trinidadian or west indian writers of indian origin who are firmly steeped in the local culture (in their works) -- there are! i forget their names. even naipaul's brother, shiva naipaul was not a guy so obsessed with his cultural identity as v.s. was. but naipaul is a very complex man (and perhaps i am too simplistic to fathom him).

again, to compare with rushdie, rushdie had a cocooned existence in mumbai till his mid teens and lived the rest of his life abroad. in that sense he is no different from naipaul. naipaul too lived a cocooned life till his mid teens in a similar little india and lived abroad thereafter. but naipaul has this curious obsession with his indian roots (oblivious of his surroundings). i am not talking about their work but of their extra curricular preoccupations. rushdie and naipaul make good comparisons -- both had a failed white-only novel debut, both had white girls for their first wife and both had similiar expatriate lives. then rushdie had an indian-only novel success and naipaul had a trinidadian-only novel/short-stories success. what stands out is naipaul's peculiar disdain for the blacks and africa (he's often described as the voice of the colonials and feted by the whites). this is very incongruous. his lack of sensitivity (that rushdie displays) is shocking. it discounts all other rhetoric of his (anti islam etc.) by many layers. i have this sinister feeling, that this is all a, not necessarily conscious, but cultivated attempt by him to seek his cultural identity that he was denied time and again (not read in indian colleges -- pipped by ghosh; dissed by indian media). and he has achieved this through a complex love-hate affair with india. again, you don't see rushdie repeatedly harking back to his kashmiri origins (as you see agha shahid ali do) but yes he does make a statement for the kahmiri cause but he makes an equally bold political pronouncement in favour of india. whereas naipaul makes a bold statement not for the nation state india but obliquely for hinduism by dissing islam.

coming back to me. my gangetic-plane cultural identity is definitely a cultivated one. however i owe no allegiance to it. if contradicted, i will argue. i see the ganges plains and the indus plains as two hues on the sub continental canvas. of course they have commonalities and of course, even within, madhya pradesh (despite a significant tribal population -- still) has much commonality with the gangetic hue and so does rajasthan, haryana etc. but if painted into a corner, i will gladly drop my argument and return to the indian, nation state, identity that i have cultivated since i became an adult. that is definitely cultivated and so cultivated it is that perhaps cultivated is not the right word for it here.

by Guest Wed Nov 16, 2011 1:27 pm

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:whereas naipaul makes a bold statement not for the nation state india but obliquely for hinduism by dissing islam.

...and becoming a poster boy of bjp

by Guest Wed Nov 16, 2011 1:28 pm

didn't read all in it's entirety... can't relate.. coz am hindi speaking and grew up in a hindi speaking state... used to find odd when husband would call home from a public phone and start talking in marathi.. when I heard it first I objected it... he said very matter of factly, 'I am gonna talk to my parents in my mother tongue, how can u object to that'? With time it began making sense, and sounded most normal.

With his cousins, and some uncles, the convo is in pure hindi.

Here, we speak English with kids a lot of time. They do understand Hindi too. Now when I think back, I find it creditable that many people manage to teach mother tongue to their kids in a pure hindi state (or any other lingo). But the hold is going away now.. e.g. some of my sindhi, punjabi, and even marathi friends didn't know their language so well.

by Guest Wed Nov 16, 2011 2:00 pm

i agree with you tracy.

by Jeremiah Mburuburu Wed Nov 16, 2011 2:31 pm

Tracy Whitney wrote:used to find odd when husband would call home from a public phone and start talking in marathi..

did you know marathi? and if you didn't, why did he speak to you in marathi?

when I heard it first I objected it... he said very matter of factly, 'I am gonna talk to my parents in my mother tongue, how can u object to that'?

how's that a reason for speaking to you in marathi? did you object to his speaking with his parents in marathi?

by Guest Wed Nov 16, 2011 2:41 pm

Jeremiah Mburuburu wrote:
Tracy Whitney wrote:used to find odd when husband would call home from a public phone and start talking in marathi..
did you know marathi? and if you didn't, why did he speak to you in marathi?

when I heard it first I objected it... he said very matter of factly, 'I am gonna talk to my parents in my mother tongue, how can u object to that'?
how's that a reason for speaking to you in marathi? did you object to his speaking with his parents in marathi?

sorry wasnt clear.. this is when we were dating.. and he would call HIS home from a public phone and talk to his parents in marathi... now one would ask why I objected.. coz I would be standing next, and this would be usually from the club's reception desk, where people would be there too.. I just found it odd initially, wrongfully so.. but in my defense, I was 20 then.

by chameli Wed Nov 16, 2011 5:38 pm

huzefa,

My next question to u would have been blabberwock's
Are u a bengali ?

perhaps she asked that following my puchka question

unlike Mumbai and perhaps Delhi which are cosmopolitan cities ..Kolkata is not

hard to imagine any one other than Bengalis live there

by Guest Thu Nov 17, 2011 4:57 am

chameli wrote:hard to imagine any one other than Bengalis live there

https://such.forumotion.com/t3561-we-are-unique-indians#29706

Marwari
One Marwari = The neighbourhood foodstuffs adulterator.
Two Marwaris = 50% of Calcutta
Three Marwaris = Finish off all Gujaratis & Sindhis.
Four Marwaris = Threaten the Jews as a community.

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