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| Mind the gap |
| Manisha Pande / New Delhi Feb 03, 2012, 00:01 IST |
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The front flap of veteran journalist Mrinal Pande’s latest book, The Other Country, declares it is an essential read for anyone trying to understand and find answers to some of the most vexing issues troubling India today. The chasm between the moufussil and the metropolis and the role globalisation and unequal growth have played in deepening it are increasingly the focus of non-fiction writers in India. And Pande does a more earnest job of tackling the subject than some recent efforts. She is sharp in her observations and writes with lucidity. However, if you are looking for answers, you’d be disappointed. For Pande, at best, acquaints you with the conundrum that is India.
The book is divided into four parts that deal with a host of contemporary issues — caste identities and our inability to let go of them; English, the language of aspirations, and how it has marginalised vernacular speakers; women and feminism; paid news; our stubborn obsession with the male child; and some musings and profiles.
In “The Strange Tale of Lakshmi”, Pande narrates the incident of how a deformed girl born with four legs and arms splayed in all directions to a poor family in Bihar comes to be worshipped by an entire village. What doctors diagnose as the underdeveloped body of an unborn fraternal twin, the villagers see as Goddess Lakshmi incarnate. Naturally, they are opposed to modern medicine interfering with a divine boon. And when Lakshmi finally gets operated, they build a temple in her name. The question of superstition and how that plays havoc with incubating modern ideas in the rural hinterland is brought out in painstaking clarity by Pande.
While this is an India that has been left untouched by the trappings of globalisation, the author rightly emphasises, in subsequent articles, the absence of a class divide when it comes to superstition and Indians’ penchant for customs. The mega rich and the poor, the literate and the illiterate, all are eager to place their convictions in faith. So you have prime-time news screaming its lungs out about haunted mansions, tantriks and tales of interrupted mating cobras chasing their torturers for years. And indeed you have an ex-Miss World marrying a variety of shrubs before tying the knot with a human being since she is manglik.
Even as Pande presents the idiosyncrasies of a country stuck in perceived tradition, she doesn’t dwell on how it has come to have such a stranglehold on us. One would have liked the author to go a little deeper in deciphering the quirks of a nation that worships female deities and has a steadily declining sex-ratio.
In an effort to highlight this cultural ambivalence, Pande repeats the classic folly made by most urban champions of “modern India”: cite the Kama Sutra to make a case for sexual freedom and allude to our wine-drinking, pot-smoking gods to champion the cause of women drinking.
In “Even the Sutras Allowed some Alcohol on Happy Occasions”, she refers to the incident of the Ram Sene thrashing men and women for drinking in pubs. The gods did it and why should anyone have a problem with women frequenting pubs? While the argument has merit, it’s a little staid and naïve to hark back to scriptures to understand what’s happening today, especially when the reality is quite the opposite. The rules are different for mortals and gods, and they have been so for quite sometime now.
It is the articles on “women today” and the linguistic divide that are most insightful. Pande makes some sharp commentaries. She points at the irony of most Indian feminists defending equality for women in English — a language fewer than three per cent of women understand. Debating non-issues like the merits and demerits of wearing a saree versus a trouser suit then assumes more importance in panel discussions as most remain disconnected with other non-English speaking women from marginalised groups.
Pande is equally derisive of literary festivals that aim to “translate” Bharat, among other things. What chance does a brilliant work by a publicity-shy vernacular writer stand at such gala events?
All in all, she is a perceptive writer who brings her long stint in journalism to bear on her writings here. However, like with other recent books about India, one leaves thinking “been there, done that” at the end of this one too. When will our writers bring out a work about our country that does not just inform but also engage, educate and hopefully elevate?
THE OTHER COUNTRY
Dispatches from the Mofussil
Mrinal Pande
Penguin Books
240 pages; Rs 350
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