Musings

What does it take to pass?

December 12, 2024August 31, 2025 devayanitirthaliLeave a comment

One of the Anandshala facilitators during a conversation proudly shared that people say “you don’t sound Laman”. For her, not sounding x is a marker of upward movement socially. Like in Shaw’s Pygmalion or P L Deshpande’s Fulrani, what does it take for a flower girl to pass off as an elite lady?

She grew up in the district headquarter, not in the Tanda. Her Marathi is learnt as a Parisar Bhasha among various marathi speaking people, not as a language of instruction or a subject in school like her students. For a person visiting from Pune, the keeper of ‘standard Marathi’ she will sound rural or not (so called) higher caste. Markers such as न and ण would be obvious to them. Those she did not learn by osmosis in her semi-urban environment, but only in the school. When we look at language as performative in that sense – where and how one learns it makes or breaks the performance.

Why do people find the need to pass; what harm such compulsions rooted in social structures cause; and what can we do personally and as a society to not put that burden on them is a conversation for another day.

Musings

Language and National Identity

May 31, 2018December 17, 2018 devayanitirthali1 Comment

The language skirmishes keep errupting on twitter with #StopHindiImposition, #StopHindiImperialism, …. trending everytime somebody shares another incident of local languages or English being substituted with Hindi.

Most of the times the immediate response from Hindi speakers is that Hindi is the national language (which is quickly striken down as a falsehood), followed by claim that we need one language for the unity or existance of the country, English being the language of the colonizers is not acceptable, thus Hindi is the only option.

The fundamental question to be asked with respect to this discourse is do we need one language to form a nation state. Some may point to the European example of nation states, each with its own language. Billig in his book Banal Natinalism (1995) questions this basic assumption of the need of one language to base a nation on. “Nationalist in attempting to create a separate nation, often will create a language as a distinct language, although they might claim to be creating the nation on the basis of the language, as if the latter were an ancient ‘natural’ fact”

His assertion is followed by multiple examples from Europe where languages are labelled as a particular language as part of the formation of the nation state rather than on clear cut linguistic demarcation. He rightly points out that spoken languages in practice most of the times were a continuam as we moved from point A to B rather than regions with language A ending at one point and language B starting in the adjucent village. One of his example is about languages spoken on the French and Italian borders where same/similar language is considered dialect of French while across the border it is considered as dialect of Italian.

“a dialect is frequently a language which did not succeed politically.”

This reminds me of Kokani, Varadhi, and other forms of Marathi and the Kokani struggle to be acknowledged as a separate language. Similarly Bhojpuri, Maithili, Braj and other languages that are considered dialects of Hindi and consumed by it creating the ‘Hindi Belt’ in the minds of all the ‘south Indians’ tweeting about #StopHindiImpostion.

Hindi similarly is pushed again and again as the National language from the seat of power. Keeping the pride alive in regional languages thus is not just about the language and culture but about not letting go of the political clout. Unity under the banner of one language thus is marginalization of everybody else not speaking that languge.

Reference:

Billig, Michael (1995). Banal Nationalism, SAGE

Musings

Aren’t we beautiful enough

January 7, 2018December 17, 2018 devayanitirthaliLeave a comment

Our first grocery shopping excursion in Delhi saw this and was apalled. I know Indians are obsessed with whitening creams but this was a bit much. A simple moisturizer doing double duty to make you lighter:

Vaseline
healthy white
lightening
With vitamin B3 and triple sunscreen.
Restores for visibly
fairer skin in 2 weeks

Not just the lighter skin but I can see the obsession with ‘western’ features. All the shops I have seen so far in my area and in CP have mannequins looking like Europeans rather than Indians – Blue eyes, light skin, specific cut of the face and chin. First I thought it was in Western brand shops but apparently showcasing saris and lehengas also need ‘European’ looking women. I wonder if this is a newer phenomenon or I just forgot how it used to be growing up.

Update Feb 17, 2018:
I was googling to see how the particular design for these mannequins came to be. Did not find anything specific about Indian or Delhi mannequins yet but found this interesting post on history of mannequins.

Musings

Where are you from?

December 29, 2013February 5, 2018 devayanitirthaliLeave a comment

Where are you from?

I am always stumped by that question. What does it really mean? where was I born? where was I before being here right now? What is my ‘ethnicity’? What is my nationality?

Some part of why I am stumped, comes from the fact that I myself do not know where I fit. What label most fits me or who do I talk for when I say ‘we’. It also comes from a place where I do not like people to try and place me as an X without really knowing me or wanting to know me.

In India my mother was always asked the question, what is your maiden last name. Our family name did not clearly carry any cast connotation. The query for maiden last name was actually asking which cast/sub-cast she was. I find the question, where are you from, similar to such questions. It is basically asking the question, ‘are you of us or that other grouping?’ or ‘I can hear in your accent or see in your coloring that you are not of us so where can I fit you so that I know who you are.’

I have always liked to be eclectic and the question where are you from forces me to side with one or the other of the many places, people, ‘cultures’, traditions, schools of thought that I like to associate with, feel comfortable with or take pride in being part of.

Musings · Social Media, Technology & Education

Circles in my life

February 28, 2013February 5, 2018 devayanitirthaliLeave a comment

I am increasingly having problems with managing my connections. I felt it was easier before in 2005 when everybody from India was on Orkut and everybody I met in US was on Facebook. My Indian connections moved from Orkut to Facebook slowly some 2-4 years ago and my Orkut account gets only a trickle of relevant activity. However, even without the move that kind of division would not have worked for me today with the kind of sharing patterns I have.

My efforts at creating google circles was supremely unsuccessful (mostly because of google+ not working for me) so has been making groups on Facebook to selectively share stuff. Some of what I share is geographically related. For example the Africans in India exhibition I recently shared is accessible only to people living in NYC, so are various events at TC, Columbia University or other neighboring institutions. Some of it is more personal, like cute photos of my friends visiting us and celebrating Christmas, opening presents that are not necessarily unworthy to be shared with acquaintances but not particularly necessary to broadcast either.

I created a page on Facebook for my extended family and it has picked up really well. However, there is no way I can include some of the activities of the family I acquired here in US over time like my friend Marcelle and her two boys, my roommate Selen. After my parent’s visit to US the task has become much more difficult. Not only do I have two versions of family but some of the members of these two versions know each other well and I would like to share ‘stuff’ that both will enjoy.

The other side of it is to think about what will people I am related to want me to share. I had not thought about it before. Now that I think about it, I enjoy, actively read everything my sisters, friends in India post in spite of it being absolutely not related to me due to it being locally relevant geographically or local to some conversation I am not party to. Stalking my sisters and friends gives me a feeling that I am part of their lives more than possible given the distance (much of it in time zones).

This long ‘thinking out loud’ is not about the functionality so much but my inability or I think more of my aversion to define my various relations as to where they fit on the plane of relatedness.