The Saffron March

Cassandra… no, wait, was it Cassandra? You know, the lady who warned folks of ill times and was reviled and jeered at for her troubles. Well, if it wasn’t she, it ought to have been, her name has the proper sibilance. Anyway, I think I hear her, but, I’m not jeering, ‘cuz, much as I don’t want to, I’m beginning to see what she is going on about here in, but not limited to, India. Indeed not.

But…

The worldwide [I mean, check out the state of affairs in the putatively non-religious Russia; the 12 Labors of Hercules (beta), Vladimir Putin and his heroic battle against the non-believers as visualized by State commissioned Art. And then there is all too obvious ISIL, the US Supreme Court decision that redefined ‘separation of Church and State’ not to mention North Kores], where was I? Oh yes, the worldwide trend of religion as governance, and the deification of politicians, is making itself more and more visible in the governance of India and that is a crying shame. And that, as Cassandra will have it, bodes for those who have the seeing of it..

Boding is not good. It darkens the vision and saps the spirit. Tomorrow becomes a bogey in the intervening night and can blind the senses to possibilities. Perceptions become selective and it becomes more and more difficult to remember that India is a young vibrant construct that has been more successful in this business of democracy and people power than have any of her contemporaneous bits and pieces of crumbled Empire

India has in 6 and a little bit decades reached a degree of social consciousness it has taken the US two centuries to realize. Largely, I think, because of a long tradition, culture, of tolerance and respect of difference, known as hinduism, the philosophy [h_p].

But…

The same tradition, culture, and philosophy, is being elevated to the upper case status of Hinduism, the Religion [H^R]. As Cassandra is pointing out, H^R is planting its pennons in the halls of power and governance. Saffron is becoming the Office wear of a number, an influential number, of India’s law makers. There are places in India where history is being re-formed into interpretations that suit the purposes of Faith and Belief, and included in school curricula.Local ordinances against hurt religious sentiments are being,  enforced, sometimes forcibly. Zealots, armed with cudgels and bricks, can enforce faith based rules and moralities with impunity and too often immunity. Religion based gerrymandering of the electorate is a fact of the politics of gover…

Wait one second. I’ve been through this once before. Let’s see, when was that? Oh yes, I recall, Ronald Reagan’s triumphant march, Crusader colors, symbols, justifications, and all. Which begat Dubya, a Right wing Supreme Court, the Republican Senate and Dick Cheney. And we can see the result of all of that, live, [you should pardon the expression], and bloody color  on CNN International any hour of the day or night.

I wonder if Cassandra would be willing to join me in a bottle of retsina.

Expat Opinions

Here’s the irritating thing about being a son of the soil expat… that probably requires some sort of clarification, doesn’t it?

Okay – Son of the Soil = born and spent early childhood Here, India, then whisked off to There, USA. Five plus decades, and one citizenship change later, back, semi-voluntarily, to Here; which, now that I think about it, makes me an expatriate squared [xp²], with all of its horrifying implications.

However...

This is about irritation; the expat irritation, the itch, deep in one’s soul, when one has to adhere to Guest Conduct, Rules of; the ones that constrain opinions that might not be in concert with prevailing cultural trends. Such as, to take a completely random, (honest), example, there is this business of the rising tide of religiosity in the public weal. There are folks, good folks, who think that this is a good thing. Folks who, should I suggest otherwise, take umbrage, quite often in an emphatic and loud manner, and suggest, in no uncertain terms, that I ought to keep my videshi, that is to say foreign, opinions to my traitorous self. [Full disclosure – usually when I’m winning the, uh, discussion.] Admittedly, I’d be a lot less itchy if I was to limit my political and/or cultural opinions to generalities; oh you know, things like the universally accepted perfidy of politicians and how things were much better, culturally, back when… etc.

But, the irreducible fact of the matter is that culture, and the politics of that culture, have very little, actually, nothing, to do with national boundaries and visa status. Folks, to paraphrase an ad of yore, is folks. Where folks are from, what they look like, the time zone they live in, have as a commonality, a to-the-bone, written-in-the-gene, as-God-is-my-witness commonality, the human condition. Politics, Culture, and religion are artefacts of that condition. Artefacts re the, as some social scientists will have it, the extelligence, the external manifestations of a particular collective of humans and their conditions. I don’t see what visa status has to do with having the right to comment on the idi…irra…inadvisability of a social current that has proven to be harmful, historically and even as we speak. This seems to be particularly so in the case of Religion and its body functions, the extelligence of Holy Places [public conditionally invited], mass gatherings of piety, governance based on Holy Writings notwithstanding.

I rarely get to make that point. It is generally more prudent to move a few, or more, stools down the bar.

Expatriation

“Back home.” Russell said, referencing some stark contrast with the way things are here, in Bengaluru, and the way they are, uh, back home. Blues Bobby and I nodded in agreement.

We are ex-pats, the three of us, voluntarily – for a given value of voluntary – expatriated from lives of rigorous middle class existences in the land that set the standard for rigorous middle class existences, USA, the putative home.

Between us we have a cumulative 42 plus years’ worth of expatriation, which makes the word home problematic.

I have been in B’luru for getting on to fifteen years.

Blues Bobby has spent the past twenty years in, … you know, he doesn’t really talk about specifics much but I get the impression that it was somewhere along the Adriatic coast. [He keeps looking over his shoulder as he mutters and slurs his way through the non-specifics. I’ve learned that it is best not to get too curious.] Blues Bobby is currently domiciled in B'luru and is showing unmistakable symptoms, and, he has found a blues band that, from time to time, invites him to sing lead.  Anyway, in that span of time, neither of us has been ‘back home’ for longer than the three weeks it took to deal with visa issues; Blues Bobby twice, and I, once. Russell, in his decade here, returns once a year with armloads of grandchildren gifts, all glitter and ethnic chic, but, about 5 to 6 weeks into the mid-western summer he starts missing his lungi and its commando option. Me? I’ve been here since the turn of the century. Though India born, I was whisked off to the US in late childhood and my body and my soul show the unmistakable signs of having come of age in the ‘60s, with all the implications of that smoke wreathed transformative time.

Which begs the question, actually, begs a lot of questions, but right up there on the list is, why? Why would 3 men in the, let’s call it, early to mid-evening of their lives, choose to turn their inevitably waning energies away from all that is familiar to establish, re-establish, their edge-of-curmudgeonly routines into the mad energy that is Bangalore today? And having done so, why would they still refer to the US as home when it is patently not so?

The answer, I think, lies in the aforementioned ‘60s. That was when the three of us began to think of home as the place where nothing happened. The place where same old, same old was actively sought; the starting point, the stultifying boredom of which started each of us on our peripatetic journey into adulthood, the larger world, and its promise of a new tomorrow, peace, love, rock ‘n’ roll, and creativity released from the bonds of tradition.

Relased creativity pretty well describes Modern India (Mo’In) (right?) in general and B’luru in particular. Strangers living next door to strangers makes for really interesting cooking. India feels like the San Francisco Sixties all up in here. There is a psychedelic tinge to the happenings of the street. Reality is being re-defined and anyone over thirty is being ignored, politely, but quite firmly. I can tell. Blues Bobby is getting more gigs.

Peace.