HERstory

peut-être nous écouterons parce qu'il est blanc

The white woman and India

Francois Gautier
May 20, 2004

The spectacle on the night of May 18, of all these Congress leaders, many of them intelligent men and women, debasing themselves in front of Sonia Gandhi, pleading with her to lead the country, made me feel sick. If Sonia had any dignity, she would have stopped it, but she just listened, with a slightly bored expression, right till the last Congressman and woman had wallowed in dirt before her.

And again I asked myself the question which has baffled me for 35 years, although I am myself a white man and a born Christian: why do Indians have such an attraction towards the white skin?

After reading the newspapers on Wednesday morning and seeing how newspapers such as The Times of India still root for Sonia Gandhi, with columnists such as Dileep Padgaonkar saying that her becoming prime minister would be in tune 'with the highest Vedantic ideals,' I wonder: does India, one of the most ancient civilizations on the planet, need a white woman to govern her?

I am sure Sonia has great qualities, but are Indians so dumb, stupid and backward, that they cannot find among themselves someone intelligent enough, non-corrupt enough, to lead them? And what about this craze for Mother Teresa? She may have been a saint, but nobody has harmed India's image in the 20th century so much: when you say India in the West, their eyes light up and they answer: 'Mother Teresa/ Kolkata/ poor people/ dumb people/ starving people/ who do not know how to care after their own underprivileged/ who need a white woman to show them how to pick up the dying from the streets/ to look after orphans'!

Is this the image Indians want today? An image that is harming them, which is stopping Western investors from investing in India? Yet, Mother Teresa is worshipped here, from Kolkata to Chennai, from Delhi to Bangalore, and when she will be made a saint by the Vatican, perpetuating this colonial, superior-minded, Christian symbol of white superiority over the brown/black man, all the Indian media will rejoice in its own mental slavery and the Indian government will probably declare a national holiday!

Why don't Indians understand that brown is beautiful? White people spend hours on the beach and put on a hundred creams to get tanned. And in winter they even artificially lie under infrared lamps in beauty parlors to get brown! Why this obsession for the Indian woman to have white skin?

How come the two most popular actors in India have fair skin and nearly blue eyes? Why this craze for 'fair' brides? If you find the answers to these, you will understand why the fatal attraction for Sonia Gandhi and Mother Teresa.

Obviously, colonisation has frozen the Indian mind in certain patterns and the British made sure, through Macaulay's policies, of leaving behind an enduring inferiority complex among Indians, by constantly harping on the flaws of Indian culture and inflating them. That is why today Indian intellectuals repeat like parrots what their masters had said before them: 'Hindus are fundamentalists/Brahmins are exploiters/Gowalkar was a Nazi/Indians are corrupt and no good.'

But that does not explain everything: most colonised countries have aped their masters after having hated them. No, in my mind the greatest factor behind India's love for the white is the absurd theory of Aryan invasion

According to this theory, which was actually devised in the 18th and 19th centuries by British linguists and archaeologists, the first inhabitants of India were good-natured, peaceful, dark-skinned shepherds called the Dravidians, who had founded what is called the Harappan or the Indus Valley civilisation. They were supposedly remarkable builders, witness the city of Mohenjo Daro in Pakistani Sind, but had no culture to speak of, no literature, no proper script even. Then, around 1500 BC, India is said to have been invaded by tribes called the Aryans: white-skinned, nomadic people, who originated somewhere in western Russia and imposed upon the Dravidians the hateful caste system. To Aryans is attributed Sanskrit, the Vedic or Hindu religion, India's greatest spiritual texts, the Vedas, as well as a host of subsequent writings, the Upanishads, the Mahabharat, the Ramayan, etc.

This was indeed a masterstroke on the part of the British: thanks to the Aryan theory, they showed on the one hand that Indian civilisation was not that ancient and that it was posterior to the cultures which influenced the Western world -- Mesopotamia, Sumeria, and Babylon -- and that whatever good things India had developed -- Sanskrit, literature, or even its architecture -- had been influenced by the West.

Thus, Sanskrit, instead of being the mother of all Indo-European languages, became just a branch of their huge family; thus, the religion of Zarathustra is said to have influenced Hinduism, and not vice versa. On the other hand, it divided India and pitted against each other the low caste, dark-skinned Dravidians and the high caste, light-skinned Aryans, a rift which is still enduring. Yet, most recent archaeological and linguistic discoveries point out that there never was an Aryan invasion and many historians, including the malevolent Romila Thapar, are distancing themselves from it. Yet, most Indians still believe in this absurd theory.

Wake up O Indians: you are as great, if not greater than the white man. You can do as well, if not better than the white man. Not only did your forefathers devise some of the basic principles of mathematics, astrology, and surgical medicine, not only are your people among the most brilliant in the world today -- half of Silicon Valley is of Indian origin, 30 percent of the United Kingdom's doctors are Indians -- but you still hold within yourselves a unique spiritual knowledge, which once roamed the world but which has now disappeared, replaced by the intolerant creed of the two major monotheistic religions which say: 'if you don't believe in my true God, I will either kill you or convert you'.

Wake up India, brown is beautiful, smart and it is the future. Dr Manmohan Singh, whatever has to be said about the Congress, you have partly redeemed India's pride, and our good wishes are with you.

The author is the correspondent in South Asia for Ouest-France, the largest circulation French daily (1 million copies)

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a thank you to tucana, for posting this so that i could read it and exhale.

a bigger thank you to francois, for writing what i've been muttering for years about my own deluded brown people. gah.

j, i miss you. part one. (with slight edits to my two least favourite parts.)

in the corner of my mummy's kitchen,
near a space where i regularly ditch my purse,
occupying a place that once welcomed my backpack when i was small and all of this was wayyy simpler
...sits a slightly bent gift bag.

the side where the bag's bottom was once folded up to make it flat is where the "dent" is; apparently i didn't unfurl it with enough force before stuffing it. my mom races past it as she enters her kitchen, ignoring it. her hands are full of curry leaves, chili peppers and red roses, newly chosen from her beloved garden. she looks like she is praying, or offering some deity this special bouquet. i amuse myself for a moment-- i have been noticing bridal bouquets recently, for blatantly obvious reasons. "there," i think. "THAT'S what i should carry. red roses with curry leaves instead of baby's breath or eucalyptus or the usual floral filler crap. and sure, why not throw a kandari in to represent how SPICY i am, white dress be damned."

my silliness dissipates when my eyes refocus on my final parent. mom has set everything down on the counter next to the sink, and she prepares the roses for immediate arranging. the precious fresh curry leaves and heat will be tended to later. she did not notice me watching her, marvelling at her hands full of real wealth, she did not know that she was reminding me of a favourite diego rivera painting. she did not hear the rustle of the tissue paper a few minutes ago, when it moved slightly from the wind created by her skirt.

the paper that moved remained inside the gift bag, pretty, transluscent tree juice flattened so that i could crumple it around a tiny pinafore, with a matching blouse and the most precious bottoms, the bottoms all baby girls should wear, the kind with ruffles all over, that peek when someone crawls. a beautiful birthday present, for a beautiful baby. a baby, with a birthday that has passed.

a baby whom i will not see.

a baby whom i love, from a mother i love even more.
a baby born in to a tragedy.
a baby i sometimes, in my darker moments, regret, though i love her with all my heart.

+ + +

i met jessica when i was just a girl, a girl in sundresses, a girl in flat sandals, a girl who loved lollipops and stickers and hello kitty and chocolate. j was just slightly older than me, and i didn't care for her at first. that alone should have told me that we were destined to become soulmates.

i tried red kool-aid for the first time at j's house. you remember it. "red" was actually a flavour.

she tried to teach me how to rollerskate (i ended up on my back after she foolishly took me down a handicap-ramp, and then i refused to skate unless it was "on the grass").

we told each other secrets. we were silly together. we were super-close friends. only i knew how mean her mom actually was, and i remember feeling an awkward sort of pity for her, for that. only she understood exactly how conflicted my relationship with my daddy was. and she was the only one to never judge, take sides or make *me* feel awkward. i loved her for that. i'm not easy to understand, but if you "get me", my gratitude manifests as this fierce sort of love. j owned a huge chunk of that, from way back. that legendary loyalty is part of the reason she is no longer in my life. if i loved her less, things would be ridiculously different. but i don't love her less, and that's why it's all so fucking difficult.

j.

j made davis bearable. j made french class compulsory. j made my life better, just by her sweet, yielding, unconditional, loyal presence. when delta gamma didn't offer j a bid, my titanium loyalty (to my house) faltered a bit; could i be sisters with such heartless bitches??? j soothed away my inner-conflict and made it all okay again, in her inimitable way. that's why she was the closest thing i had to an akka, an older sister. she understood that entire dynamic within our culture. no, we weren't related by blood, but so what. she was my elder and i looked up to her, just as much as she looked after me.

j and i looked nothing alike, though we had similar backgrounds, both coming from the south. she had fair, fair, ghostly pale skin and thick black hair that made me look like i was balding. she also had a rack i'd kill for...but i was never really jealous of her, b/c we both agreed that we were each blessed, just differently. i had prettier eyes (mine are bigger) with fantastic eyelashes, and a better metabolism. cheerleader-in-h.s. j started to gain weight as we inched towards the end at davis. "it's because i'm shorter than you!", she'd exclaim. "there's more area for the chocolate to spread out on YOU."

NOW it's "100 things".

remember last month when i started my "100 things" list? well i finished it. finally. enjoy... ;)

95. there's a holy trinity of things i MUST have: music is obviously first of these (ever seen the "About" page of this blog?), things which i can read come next...but number three? CARS. i. love. cars.

94. speaking of music, i'd rather spend money on it than food. and there were times in graduate school when i DID. (didn't help that Tower Records was practically on campus at GW).

93. speaking of graduate school, i didn't try fast food until i was in it. i shit you not. being a strict veg, i didn't have a ton of reasons to visit a drive through window-- keep in mind that fast food started serving things besides hamburgers only recently. so yeah, i was 25 when i tried it. taco hell. i hated it.

92. if you don't know what my favourite movie of all time is, you're probably not a close friend...or you haven't read my original profile on browndatingdotcom. it's the "Sound of Music". i know it by heart. you would too after seeing it 80+ times.

91. all of my BFs have been brown. i like dark hair and brown eyes. i like tan skin. it's not like i can control what turns me on. and indian boys? you lucky, occasionally unworthy bastards? it's you. ;)

85. i learned how to drive in india when i was 14, via my father's own legendary driving guru. manual-trannied Fiat. daddy always muttered that the reason why i was lucky with cars (no accidents that were my fault) and my sister wasn't had to do w/that leaf w/the 100-rupee note folded in it, that i handed over before my lesson.

84. though i love music (this blog once had the slogan "music is the only thing that matters" under its title), i don't get to go to many concerts. the band i've seen most? Travis. Fran makes me weep shamelessly, through the entire show. *shiver*

83. i gave up on taco hell for quite a while, b/c two weeks of bean burritos hurriedly retrieved before evening classes meant cellulite on my ass and a sickening taste in my mouth...but then burger king started selling stuffed jalapenos and mozzarella sticks. and then my bf at the time declared that i was the greatest gf ever, b/c i was so fascinated by burger king, i regularly turned down white tablecloths for the outlet in dupont circle.

82. fun anna fact: i haven't seen most movies you THINK i've seen. trust me.

81. i resumed my "stick" lessons in a 1956 porsche speedster when i was 21. i hated that car. it was pretty, but not fun to drive (like me!). my then-bf and i were screaming homicide at each other 15 minutes in to the "lesson". so i jumped out of the car, grabbed the keys to his BMW drop, let it roll down the driveway (b/c i didn't know where reverse was) and then TAUGHT MYSELF how to drive it, lurching around the block for about 3o minutes until i could leave a stop sign w/o killing the engine. he chain-smoked and fumed the entire time. but when i finally turned off the car and parked it on the street (too scared of the steep driveway!) he slowly sauntered up, whipped his sunglasses off his face, scowled at me and said, "nice job. you know how to drive." then he walked away. yeah, you know what? bad boys? way overrated. they suck. don't date them. 'specially if they chain.

75. rover. benz. benz. jetta. civic. damnit, shouldn't that order be REVERSED?

74. 500+ CDs. 600+ if i called in ALL THE DISCS THAT'S BEEN PILFERED. you thieves.

73. burger king UK kicks burger king amreeka's ASS. er, ARSE. the fried mozzarella is HEART-SHAPED and they had the wedgie burger years before we did. oh, and over there? it doesn't taste like ASS.

72. what do i mean by the movie comment? leave ME a comment, asking me if i've seen a common, mass-marketed, uber-popular film and i'll be your huckleberry.

71. 13 years: three mallu, one bong, three punjabi. and that's what i'm ending up with. :)

65. i TOTALLY think you can glean loads of information based on what someone drives. no, i didn't want or choose my civic...but i made sure it was RED, a COUPE and top-of-the-line. if you can't discern meaningful shit about me based on those three facts, you're an idiot.

64. i will never like metallica. many have tried to convert me, all have failed. i even watched their big concert fil-im on a wall-sized projection TV w/the GREATEST surround sound system EVER (go ashwin!)...and...nothing.

63. my FAVE fast food of ALL TIME?

whataburger. in texas.

lord have mercy, but taquitos must be what G-d eats for breakfast, w/cheese and extra hot sauce. mmm!

62. i only got to see three movies in amreekan theaters when i was growing up: snow white, Gandhi and oddly enough, the little mermaid. that last one left me unwilling to go back for more. well, not until college. veena picked TLM, btw. blech.

61. come to think of it, my best relationships were w/my punjabi ex-bfs.

55. i was consumed with "Knight Rider". infatuated even...watching it gave me a funny feeling in my seven-year old tummy...i think it was my first crush!!! eek! :D that "Knight Industries Two Thousand" was dreeeeeeeeeeeamy.

54. if the people at AXE knew *anything*, they'd turn that "gimme love" (guy bitten by mosquito that gets devoured by the frog that ends up on the plate of geezer who croaks while banging the B-level catherine zeta-jones wanna-be) snippet in to a full-fledged fucking album. that song was stuck in my head for DAYS and it doesn't even exist.

53. these days? my fast food weakness is jack in the crack. okay fine, jack in the BOX.

52. i did NOT see the "passion", nor do i plan to...

51. i talk about my EXs wayyy too much. :( sorry.

H.~.E.~.R.~.S.~.T.~.O.~.R.~.Y is no longer under construction...YAY!

after weeks of no love being shown to my fellow bloggers...i am satisfied to note that the "blogs i sweat" list is back, updated, working and better than ever. find it to your left. wait, did you find it? good. i'd give you a cookie, if you were here. ;)

see, i had used some other method to list my favourite blogs and it SUCKED (like a kirby!). i cringe mightily at the possibility that some of you thought this blog was intentionally slighting you b/c it didn't list you on either sidebar-- nooooo, never, not i. there is a totally worthy reason for my lack of a "blog roll" (yick. such a shite term.)

i am a poli-sci major, damnit.

even though typepad is kinda genius, it's still difficult for me to modify at times, especially since i veered from their standard blog templates. why did a poli-sci major veer you may be asking, though if i know my gentle readers actually couldn't give a shit? why, so there could be powerful and lucrative ADS by Google on my blog. so that i could recoup some of the money that i don't have, that i still blow on this shit. so far i've recouped less than $15. thanks for your support. ;) my click-through rate is FANTASTIC. :D

in my quest to have google ads, the weather pixie that i barely look/dress like and the "Bust" button that *i* created b/c they neglected to send me one-- yeah, you read RIGHT. the poli-sci major figured out how to turn a useless picture file in to a WORKING BUTTON! who's yer mommy? ME, bitch, ME-- in my attempt to do all that AND have a slightly pretty blog, i've discovered that it's not so easy to modify the way this damned thing looks. that's why it took me quite a while today to fix things so that you could see the blogs i read on a near-daily basis (that is, when i'm not out busy cavorting and falling further in lowe w/my S). but it was all worth it.

three of the most notable new additions to the "sweat" list:

- V, aka Livin' Simply, the girl who matchmade me with my belowed S...but i was reading her blog months before i knew him, so this ain't payback, ya cynics

- Sin, the best writer i don't know. he's *such* a good writer, i briefly considered marrying him so that he could come back here and be fabulous with me. oy, speaking of the biggety biggety "M"...

- S. no, my intended does not blog, but he DOES have a fotolog, and that's linked here. every pic on the fotolog has me in it, if that helps you make that difficult, life-altering decision re: whether to click. ;) what 99% of you don't know but are about to learn is that S was a professional photographer at one point...ah, i love me a renaissance man. :D

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SPEAKING of new fotologs...i had so many pictures of me kissing my man, i made a fotolog out of them, it's under my "online empire" links along w/diary and my other flogs. it's called "Ooma" which is short for "object of my affection". it doesn't hurt that "ooma" also means "kiss" in malayalam. :) go peep it and then PUKE, bitches, at my good fortune. kidding. i kid. okay i don't. but there's no need for vomit, that's just gross.

hopefully now that

-i no longer suffer from the guilt of not blogrolling several of you and
-i'm getting over the *hack* cough *wheeze*... bronchitis and
-i'm not worried about unfinished blog design

...i'll get over my bloggers-block and get back to the long, pithy posts you all lowe and crave. :)