Little light is shed on the vast Indian diaspora’s African avatar. Kenyan; precisely speaking. This is the land, where our great ancestors evolved out of the Homo erectus species, and hence referred to as the Cradle of Mankind. Growing up in Kenya was clearly never like living in the Western-media stereotyped, war-toned, and poverty stricken Africa, at all. Instead, it was a potpourri of global cultures, traditions and values; a near-perfect cosmopolitan setting.

Ironical to global perceptions of a hauntingly disturbing land, Kenya is home to over a hundred thousand “Kenyan-Indians”. However, they assertively consider themselves fully Kenyan; and with pride. Majority hail from the Gujarati community, and have an established presence spawned over five generations, dating back to the times of British colonial rule. They were brought to work as labourers on the famous Kenya-Uganda railway line, colloquially known as the Lunatic Express. It was hard labour, often at the cost of their lives. The infamous man-eating beasts along the way ate some up while others died of harsh conditions. Post construction, the chunk that survived, with that typical Indian perseverance attitude, started a new lease of life here itself and subsequently brought in many of their kith and kin from India to join them, while a few migrated to the West. Setting up shops (dukas in Swahili) becoming general merchants (dukawallas), the community bloomed and prospered.

Carrying on that tradition, proudly, Gujaratis form the majority diaspora with a fair number of Sikhs, South Indians and other prominent ethnic groups from the Indian subcontinent. They enjoy great social status and arguably form the economic backbone of the country. Most prominent business houses with a pan-East African presence are owned and run within family interests (quintessentially Indian) and have been successfully bestowed from one generation to another, growing in leaps and bounds. Culturally, no stone is left unturned. Come Diwali and skies light up in splendour. Over fifty Hindu temples (with various incarnations of Gods from up North to down South) and cultural centres are abuzz with melas and satsangs. Schools even hold “Dandiya Ras” and “Rangoli” design competitions. Similar enthusiasm is seen in the Gurudwaras over Vaisakhi, mosques over Eid and communal halls over Onam. The latest SRK flick would launch to a full house in a modern multiplex in Nairobi the same Friday night that it launches in B Town. There’d be a lengthy line of traffic almost every evening in front of Diamond Plaza (Nairobi’s quintessential Little India) to grab a plate of mouth watering Paani Puri, shop for Chaniya Cholis for the family wedding weekend, or get the latest pirated Bollywood release. And by the way, two dedicated radio stations, also smitten by the Kolaveri phenomenon, keep the crowd info-tained well in time. My school was filled with people from all parts of India, both students and teachers, not to mention the Indian management. Honestly, in their growing up years, my friends in India haven’t faced such large-scale national integration. It may be a slightly different story now thanks to the Indian media’s outreach.

Scenic Nairobi is blanketed with greenery and a chilly but pleasant climate. Clean, modern and ample infrastructure, like winding roads through the hill ranges and beautifully crafted homes more than just pleases the eye. In fact, it’s the only city in the world to have a full-fledged national park within a fifteen-minute drive from the city centre; biodiversity kept intact. Nairobi, being one of Africa’s largest economic powerhouses, is home to the UNEP global headquarters and a number of other prominent NGOs. This brings in a huge expat population from Europe and the US, who eventually settle down here. They compromise on nothing, hence the swanky rich and highly scenic estate houses, high end cars, international shopping and lifestyle brands, great schools, star hotels et al.

It’s truly amazing to see how the Indian diaspora shines, pioneering in yet another corner of the planet.

Photo credit: Angela Sevin

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A recent countrywide CNN-IBN survey revealed that we still live in quite a homophobic India. The poll which was primarily conducted in urban neighborhoods showed that as many as 73% Indians felt homosexuality should be considered illegal while 83% felt that homosexuality is not part of Indian culture and 90% of Indians won’t give their house on rent to a gay or lesbian couple.

Although the homosexual community in India had some respite from being social outcasts with the Delhi High Court ruling in 2009, even as late as in 2011, the social stigma attached to them continues to prevail as is evident from the fact that stories or press reports of lesbian and gay couples exchanging marriage vows invariably excite crude humor. Many a time I find myself reluctantly participating because I lack the gumption to stand up against public opinion (read, the tyranny of the majority).

On the public front, as late as July 2011, Ghulam Nabi Azad, has gone so far as to term all such relationships “unnatural” and a “disease” (to be cured by psychiatry/ neurology?) despite the fact that the UN has, long ago, passed a human rights Bill which says discrimination on the basis of gender and sexuality is a human rights violation. The Health Minister was speaking at a convention on HIV/AIDS thereby whimsically singling out homosexuals for abuse and making them directly responsible for the spread of HIV. Such views  proclaimed by prominent  public figures serve only to fuel anti-gay sentiments by people at the grassroots as most protests by the media are essentially ‘urban upper class’ in nature and do nothing to educate the masses who would ultimately constitute the MP’s or minister’s vote bank.

As such, survival itself continues to be a struggle for people whose sexual orientation is not mainstream. Added to that is the aspect of religious orthodoxy and intolerance. This I see as a strange aberration though in a country whose mainstream religion, Hinduism, cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be recognized as an organized religion. An overview of temple imagery, sacred narratives and religious scriptures does suggest that homosexual activities – in some form – did exist in ancient India. Though not part of the mainstream, its existence was acknowledged if not approved. For example, hidden in niches of temple architecture as in that of Khajuraho, one does find images of either women or men in erotically suggestive postures to other women or men. These images cannot be simply dismissed as perverted fantasies of an artist considering the profound ritual importance given to these shrines. In the Hindu scriptures stories of women turning into men and men turning into women abound. In the Mahabharata, Drupada raises his daughter Shikhandini as a man and even gets ‘him’ a wife. When the wife discovers the truth on the wedding night, all hell breaks loose; her father threatens to destroy Drupada’s kingdom. The timely intervention of Yaksha saves the day: he lets Shikhandini use ‘his’ manhood for a night and perform his husbandly duties. Perhaps the most popular stories revolving around gender metamorphoses are those related to Mohini, the female incarnation of Lord Vishnu. She is so beautiful that when Shiva looks upon her he sheds semen out of which are born mighty heroes such as Hanuman (according to Shiva Purana) and Ayyappa (according to the Malayalee folklore). However, sensitivity to the essence of tolerance and inclusion hinted at in these stories cannot be expected from the modern breed of self-appointed patrons of religion whose only creed is fundamentalism in any form. Why single out Hindu fundamentalists for their extremist stands, one might ask? My answer to that would be because I do not know much about other religions, although, during my five year stay in Kerala, I do remember hearing news bytes about orthodox churches systematically denying any sanction to alternative sexual orientations.

Popular culture too shies away from depicting gay men and lesbian women as ‘normal’. For instance, Bollywood could at best come up with a humorous parody in Kal Ho Na Ho or a comic plot in “Dostana” as signs of its willingness to tread this grey zone. Parallel Indian cinema however has time and again broached this subject with sensitive handling such as in films like “Fire” by Deepa Mehta, “My Brother Nikhil” & “I am”, both by Onir, and recently “Memories in March” by Sanjoy Nag. Needless to say, parallel cinema has limited impact simply because its viewership is restricted to niche audiences.

In the final analysis, it is imperative to ask oneself this question: If I were to come to terms with a family member who is gay or lesbian or bisexual, how prepared and willing would I be to acknowledge the truth lovingly? As for myself, I do not know the answer.

Photo credit: Vinayak Das

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On a recent trip to my beloved city Mumbai, I had a rather disheartening realization. I had crossed over from being a Mumbaikar to a foreigner in my own home town, despite my ardent attempts at preventing such an occurrence. For instance, I still talked in an Indian accent and fluently spoke Mumbai jargon, even though the Mumbai lot had long ditched their accent in favor of American colloquialism. I proudly sported ethnic fashion amid my western-brands adorning friends. Why, I even devoured street food and drank un-bottled water much to the astonishment of my disapproving clan. But, for every conscious effort on my part there were enough unwitting signs that I was no longer a local.

The first sign was that I found myself constantly and profusely ‘thanking’ the maid. Not only was I making her uncomfortable but it also seemed a bit hollow; considering that she has witnessed me throwing a fit over burnt toast and damp towels in the past (I am ashamed to admit). If that wasn’t enough, I really got chided for ‘thanking’ the road-side pani-puriwalla for every puri he unceremoniously served on my plate. I realized my folly when I found the other pani-puri eaters, the pani-puriwalla, and my family all snickering at my expense.

The next sign came when I went shopping at one of the old-fashioned shopping marts. Now, the only reason I chose to go there instead of the swanky malls was for the joy of haggling. As a young girl, I remember being embarrassed when my mom haggled with the shopkeepers; but now having lived in the US, where haggling and finding bargains in tourist destinations is considered a sport, I was actually looking forward to it. I had even come prepared with carefully rehearsed bargaining lines. But, it was of no use. As soon as I opened my mouth to haggle, the older shopkeeper started shaking his head and muttered disapprovingly “Beta, you must be from America”. It turned out the markets are all ‘fixed-price’ now and haggling is associated only with cheap foreigners. Mind you, the art is still alive and kicking on the streets and I eventually got my fix on the streets of Colaba. Granted, I won’t ever get caught wearing the junk I bought there, but still, making the deal for half its price was worth it!

Then, it was the paranoia of crossing the road. I broke out in sweat every time the occasion arose and believe me it had little to do with the sweltering heat. It’s like a pedestrian-motorist face-off. The on-coming traffic can and will accelerate upon spotting pedestrians in the middle of the road, especially if they sense fear and hesitation common in foreigners. I had to be dragged by hand whilst screaming by whoever was unfortunate enough to be accompanying me on the streets. And if I happened to be in the car during such face-offs, our driver would have it! The poor guy jerked and swerved the first couple times he heard me shriek; eventually, he learned to tune me out.

And, the final straw was my urge to do all the touristy stuff while in town. On previous visits, I just couldn’t be bothered; all I’d want to do was hit the hot and happening spots at night and shop and watch movies during the day. But this time around, I wanted to go see Dhobi Ghaat (no, not the movie), visit Jehangir Art Gallery, ride the horse-buggy at Nariman Point and pay homage at Haji Ali much to the chagrin of my family. And I always had the camera around my neck everywhere I went, happily clicking pictures of the sights, the slums and even the billboards along the way.

Yes, I had become a foreigner. And, even though it’s been a long time coming, it is with a heavy heart that I finally concede.

P.S. I will always be a ‘Mumbaikar’ at heart!

P.P.S. I don’t mean to imply that Mumbaikars do not express gratitude for the services they receive; just that they do not feel compelled to vocalize it with a ‘Thanks’ at every instance, unlike us expats who are so unaccustomed to such pampering that we almost feel guilty being waited on.

Photo credit: Ram Balmur

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The first naked woman I saw was in the french magazine which I had ‘borrowed’ from my aunt’s house in Ooty. She was married to a french man. Uncle, had passed away long ago and my aunt remained in this beautiful cottage there with his only daughter. I was visiting them over the second Saturday outing we get from my boarding school.

The book was wedged between some heavy bound books in their vast library. I have this knack for ferreting out things I should not be finding.

The book had black and white pictures of naked women who I knew were white.

I was 12 and I was hooked.

Until a much older age , the only naked women I had seen were all white women.

None in real life. All in magazines or on the wonderful splendor that is the television.

I don’t think I am alone here. I think a lot of the men of my generation thought that all naked women are white. Porn achieved what KKK could not. It had made us sexual racists.

We want sex. White women equal sex and they want us. Brilliant deduction.

Me? I wasn’t very particular I am afraid. Give me a break. I studied in a boys only school for heavens sake. On released, I was out of control. But that was a long time ago.

Now I am married, which is to say that being faithful is not a requirement but a necessity if I want to keep all my appendages. However insignificant they might seem to others.

In a previous article Angela Carson inquired, ‘why on earth do Indian men try to cheat on their wives with her?’

You are white, woman!!!

You are a sexual magnet and want us. We also presume that you have a butterfly tattoo on your lower back and scream ‘yes! yes! yes!’ whenever we happen to touch you.

In our defense, we would like to plead that we have been completely brain washed by the western porn industry. We are not guilty. Merely mislead.

And its all your fault.

Welcome to the next best thing after the Great Indian Rope Trick, the Great Indian Turning The Table Trick.

You point one finger at us and we will show you that there are 4 pointing right back at you. Technically only 3 since the thumb will be pointing at your feet , which is still you. So 4 it is.

Every sexual deviation that you witness in India? Well how can you point that out when it happens in your own country. In fact you exported it to us.

We were peaceful, celibate, holy cow worshipers before you came with your tattoos and screams. Just ignore the Kamasutra and the Khajuraho temples. There are no naked Indian girls. Its a myth. They don’t exist. If they do then they too are victims of western propaganda.

You are not going to win this.

Its all your fault. You are eroding our carefully preserved corpse we call our culture. For the cultural police out there, I mean corpse in a good way. A corpse is the fodder upon which new life is regenerated.

So we are good? Great.

I too, I must confess, have spend afternoons on Kovalam’s beaches, hiding behind dark sunglasses, pretending not to stare at the half naked madamas (that is a mallu way of addressing a white woman, not to be confused with madam ass, which is plain rude). The only probable reason I did not act on my adolescent lust was perhaps by inborn cowardice, which I fondly refer to as shyness.

I am glad actually. It would have shattered my dreams if one of them had actually come and spoken to me. I would have seen them as human beings rather than just objects. God forbid. We wouldn’t want that would we? Who would fulfill our nocturnal fantasies? The parachute clad mallu girls? No way. They are for marriage. Where sex comes to die.

Truth is as men, we are not very discriminating when it comes to sex. Let us just say white women hold a special place in our porn filled heads.

So to answer Angela, who I believe deserves an answer – its not them. Its you.

By now you must know that you can’t blame an Indian. You just can’t. We are redeemed from all possible sins forever because we were ruled by white people. Yeah, I know. British, America, Europe. We are very liberal in our generalizations.

Make no mistake, I do not speak for every single Indian men out there. I am sure in the land that produced a Gandhi, mutants have to be always accounted for. I am sure there are among us people who are unbiased in their sexual preference, perhaps even patriotic. I salute them.

I, however, do not claim to be one of them.

I am a regular man. With not a trace of that phenomenon called metro sexuality. I like women. Period.

But when you are married to a 5 foot tall dynamite with the temper of a banshee and the speed of lightening, one tends to walk within a defined line. Yep. Call me a coward. I don’t care. I like keeping whatever I came with when I leave.

That said, I wonder if I would if I could. I guess in my case its a combination of laziness and contentment. And not wanting to let down a person who trusts you implicitly. Its helps that I am as ugly as sin so temptation is not something I face. Then there is this superstitious belief that I cannot expect what I myself cannot give.

This brings me to my next question.

Is faithfulness voluntarily given, or a contractual requirement in a relationship? What is it that prevents us from tasting the forbidden fruit ? Fear? Love ? Lack of opportunity? Laws?

From experience I have always taken words and moral statements with a pinch of salt, mainly because I have seen that what we theorize and what we actually do when confronted with the situation can be very educating.

Only to us.

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A couple of weeks before Diwali this year, I panicked. The panic was not due to planning the celebrations. It was about how to explain the story of Diwali (or as we call it in the South – Deepavali) to a five year old without the abundance of elements such as love, sex and dhokha!

First of all, there are many versions of Diwali. The one we grew up learning by-heart (and taking pride in knowing the nitty-gritty like names of birds, ministers, yada yada), is the most popular version of Rama and Sita returning to Ayodhya, signifying the triumph of Good over Evil. Then of course there are other versions such as Goddess Durga/Kali slaying the evil Mahishasura.

At the risk of sounding ancient, I really have to say ‘in my time’, we were just told the story of Ramayan and we simply believed it. No questions asked. It certainly is not the same situation today! Five year olds today want to know WHY Rama’s father had three wives, what Soorpanaka was after, why Ravana abducted Sita (and before that, ‘Mummy, what does ‘abduct’ mean?), blah blah blah.

While we try to protect our children from knowing too much about the big bad world, our epics already have their fair share of Bollywood masala. So any Indian parent trying to teach their children the significance of festivals, and the meaning behind the great Epics, is in for a shock.

Take the Ramayana for example. The objective is to make us imbibe characteristics of the IDEAL father, son, husband, wife, brother, etc. Are our great characters – Gods and Goddesses – truly Ideal?

King Dasaratha had three wives, of which Kausalya was his favourite – characterised by polygamy, favouritism and irrational behaviour (banishing his child to the forest) – are we really trying to say he was an ideal father?

Rama and Lakshmana slayed Rakshasis in the forest. Seriously! What are we trying to teach our children? Violence is an acceptable manifestation of bravery?

Ravana abducted Sita. Revenge for Rama/Lakshmana mutilating his sister? Sex? Dhokha? I don’t even want to get into this. It is too difficult to explain this to a child!

Sita. I really feel miserable when I think of her character. We Indians worship her. And why? Because she was the Ideal wife. Sita followed her husband into exile, she pined for him when she was abducted and she proved her chastity by jumping into fire. No wonder we think she is the ideal woman. Hello!! I strictly am not passing on this message (that reeks of male chauvinism) to Generation Next.

Lakshmana – the ideal brother – is always by the side of Rama. Duty-bound, ever subservient, and blissfully unaware of his responsibility towards even his own wife. If only we had more brothers like him.

Rama – Not enough can be said about the Uttam Purush – the perfect man. I grew up with a very romantically ideal image of Rama. Cultured, handsome, brave, noble – in a word, perfect. Only when I had to tell my child the story of Ramayan, did I realise how perfect the character is. As a son, he blindly obeyed his father’s orders. Do I want my son to do that? I don’t think so. I think I want my child to think for himself and choose what he thinks is right. As a husband, he made Sita take an agni-pariksha. The great Epic says it was only to pacify the subjects of the kingdom. Is Rama redeemed? I don’t think so. As a friend, Rama slayed Vali by resorting to unethical means. Is that what an ideal friend does?

So you see, I simply cannot tell this tale to my child in its present form. I do understand that the Ramayana itself has been handed down generations and has obviously and naturally undergone countless alterations. However, even the basic storyline has far too much violence and negativity for me to believe that these are our ideal characters. Characters that we, ordinary mortal, must aim to become.

So after much deliberation and discussion with a group of online friends, this is what I told my child…

Once upon a time, there lived King Dasaratha. He had three wives and four sons and loved them all equally. Moral 1: Love your family equally.

One day an evil maid poisoned the mind of Queen Kaikeyi, and said her son Bharatha should be King, not Rama. Moral 2: Don’t create fights between brothers.

Rama, Lakshmana and Sita went away to the forest. An evil Rakshasi Soorpanaka tried to attack them and they shooed her away (obviously cannot say they chopped her nose off, can we!). She complained to her brother, King Ravana, who carried Sita away and imprisoned her. Period. No reference to re-marriage here!

Rama and Lakshmana took the help of Hanuman and located Sita in the Kingdom of Lanka, destroyed the army of Baddies and returned home to Ayodhya, where the people welcomed them home, by lighting up the kingdom with lights, thereby celebrating the Festival of Diwali!!

Moral of the story: Goodies win, Baddies lose. Aka: The triumph of Good over Evil.

This is what my five year old believes Diwali is about. A festival that simply celebrates Good over Bad. A storyline without much Bollywoodisation. Certainly, this version might sound less attractive because it lacks a good dose of violence and testosterone.

Perhaps I am not giving a complete picture to the next generation. Perhaps I am not dinning into my child’s head, what the typical characteristics of an IDEAL husband, wife, brother or father are.

But you know what? I am happy with this plain vanilla script. A quiet, simple story of Goodies winning and Baddies losing, with much focus on Love, and without any reference to Sex and Dhokha.

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Where have India’s baby girls gone?

Many of them have probably gone underground – literally – as was evident from a news byte on TV last week showing that a farmer, from Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh, while tilling his piece of land, accidentally discovered a female infant who was buried alive and left to die but who, by some miracle, survived. All infant girls are not that lucky. They succumb to the diverse ways adopted to snub out their lives as soon as they are born…suffocation with plastic bags or pillows, poisoning, strangulation and even drowning in milk: all ingenious ways of taking a life that is precious, a life that can give meaning to many other lives if only it is allowed to reach out to them. Apart from killing girls at birth, there are also rampant instances of the so called ‘honor killing’ where murder of girls is justified in the name of upholding values!

Two of my colleagues were recently blessed with a baby girl each. However, one of them out rightly refused, the other was reluctant, for celebration of any kind on the premise that their spouses had ‘only’ given birth to girls! These two men were from two different states of India, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. Therefore I concluded that from this small incident it was not possible to arrive at a regional profiling of any kind regarding the apathy towards the birth of a girl child and that this is an Indian attitude.

However, if one were to look at census data there is a clear regional trend visible in the reducing ratio of girls to boys. From the data available, it appears that the worst affected states are Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Sikkim where there are less than 900 girls to every 1000 boys, followed by Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, UP, MP, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh. The girl / boy ratio in these regions hovers between 900 and 950: 1000. The ratio is robust and healthy in the four southern states and in the hill regions Himachal, Uttarakhand, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, and Tripura. Only in Kerala do girls outnumber boys.

Such an imbalance in the demographic matrix of a country did not appear overnight. Its causes run deep down in the collective consciousness of a populace. This apathy towards the birth of a baby girl, how far back does it go in History? The status of women in early Indian society was an enviable one. They could avail of the highest learning and there were many seers and philosophers among them. Ghosha, Apala, Lopamudra, Vishwvara, Surya, Indrani, Yami, Romasha – all these names highlight the position and the esteem which women enjoyed in the Vedic period. As far as the history of ordinary womenfolk goes, their position on the whole was free. Girls were normally not married till they were in their late teens and sometimes even later. They had a fair amount of choice in the selection of a mate, which is evidenced by the – then prevalence of the “swayamvara-system”. The cases of Sita, Damayanti, Draupadi, Shakuntala are instances of the choice women enjoyed in choosing their husbands.

Nonetheless, there are episodes in the lives of these same prominent women in the Indian epics and myths that can be questioned as revealing quite another status of women in India. For example, was Shakuntala abandoned by her birth parents? Was the amnesia of her husband voluntary? Why was Sita found by King Janaka in a field? Was she left there by her birth parents to die? Later on in her life why was she required to time and again prove her purity and fidelity to her husband? Why is her death shrouded in mystery? The reference to ‘patal prabesh’ could allude to either suicide or murder. Draupadi in the Mahabharatha was subjugated to play wife to five men at the same time while apparently she had given her heart away to only Arjuna. Some analysts argue that the wrath of this scorned woman was the major cause of the bloody war that forms the central motif of the epic. Is there any substance to historians’ claims that the invasion of foreigners into our adversely affected the position of women resulting in the rigid systems like child marriage, the shaving of widows’ heads, the widespread practice of dowry and Sati? That a dowry had to be paid, or still has to be paid, to get a girl married, does it not in a way define her as a liability that has to be passed on from one man to another? This same liability had to be burnt alive on the same pyre as her husband as subsequent to his demise she was perceived to be not just another mouth to feed, but also a corrupting influence on society, and therefore again a burden as she would no longer serve any honorable ‘purpose’.

In post independent India, the Indian woman has improved her social status considerably. Her legal disabilities with regard to marriage, inheritance, guardianship and adoption have been removed. She inherits, by right, the property of her father on the basis of equality with her brothers. With regard to her economic rights, she can hold and acquire property and can enter public services and can take to any profession. Things are quite as they should be at least on paper but the question remains as to whether it is the same in practice, whether she herself actively contributes to creating and maintaining this perception of girls as only second best? There is an undeniable prevalent perception that the girl is not expected to add to the family income or financially support her parents in their old age. So the girl’s education is secondary to that of a boy. In modern India, however, girls are educated at par with boys at least in the upper, upper-middle and middle classes. But, wonder of wonders, I am told that the degrees and diplomas that many, if not all, of these girls earn help to make their marriage prospects better! So it is commonplace even today to find Indian girls with Master’s and PhD’s, Engineering and Accounting qualifications not in any active profession! It is understandable if a woman wants to take a break from her career post child-birth and return a few years later. But I find it unfathomable that qualified young girls actually look forward to domestic bliss after marriage.

If the allusion to such a broad spectrum of things seems irrelevant to the primary issue I started of with – female foeticide -I can only say that issues must be looked at from inside out. In a country of more than a billion population, any proposed cure from the externals, be it through moral policing or legislation, imposing penalties or threatening with imprisonment, cannot uproot this evil. Things can improve rather with the spread of education, real education that empowers a woman, with the active intervention of men and women alike who would think differently to lead a change. To begin with parents of girls must endeavor to build self-esteem in their girls, instill into them that they belong not only in the family but also in society, that they can and should make a difference, to leave the world a better place than they found it. Then perhaps there will be widespread jubilation and celebration at the birth of every girl child.

Photo credit: Salvatore Barbera

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There are many things as a mallu I am especially proud of.

There’s the language that no non mallu can ever get right. You worry and make fun about our accents when we speak your language? Try ours. Go on give it a shot. I would love to hear you say in mallu: I ate a banana while I walked in the rain.

You can’t. No one can without an accent. Unless you are a mallu.

Yet you laugh. It’s funny when you think about it.

Then there’s our sadya. The all veg feast that follows a ritual in being consumed. We devised it so that we can weed out the non mallus. The ones we find trying to be like a mallu, we will patronize. It’s our version of making sure that you understand we understand you can never be a mallu in the nicest way possible. We appreciate your attempts but we are confident you will look like you are trying too hard.

You bet it may seem racist but it’s kinder. But you do look, in our eyes, ridiculous in mundu if you are not a mallu. Even if you have a six pack. The pot belly is mandatory. So we appreciate when Bollywood has Preeti Zinta pretending to be mallu and Shah Rukh Khan wearing a dothi and aping movements that are meant to be kalari. We really do. But fuck. We know you are not mallu.

You will never get it right.

That’s the trick. You see for all the mallus you stereotype, with our accents and our idiosyncratic mannerisms, there will still be many of them who will speak your language like a local and blend in so much that you will have a hard time trying to figure out where this fellow is from. But you can’t say the same.

You will always stand out.

We will catch you out come every monsoon.

We are truly the perfect race.

Problem is that we seem to know it. If you didn’t realize it earlier, we are always glad to remind you.

Then there’s our thorthe.

Huh?

Yep. Thorthe.

No relation to the hammer wielding Greek god.

It’s the loosely spun cotton towel that you will find in every mallu household.

I do not think there’s an English word invented for it yet, so I will be the first. I name it Thorth.

Mallus will laugh at you if you ever call it that. I mean for us it’s not Krishna, its Krishnan. Not Bhim, but Bhiman. We like a strong ending on our words. Nothing left hanging around. All neatly tied and secured. Preferably with a Thorthe.

The thorthe is the essential part of mallu life. It comes close in its importance to us as coconuts. That’s saying a lot. It figures higher than toddy.

You ransack a mallu house and you will find a thorth. The gold you will invariably find will probably be wrapped in a thorthe.

It’s more than just a towel. It is used as an alternative to a shirt. In a jiffy it can turn itself into a head band, swimwear (leaving nothing to the imagination), a weapon if you put a stone inside and twist it around, a rope (again twisted), a fishing net (I kid thee not) and also as a screen to cover your head when coming out of questionable areas. Since mallu bodies are all similar, we just have to cover our head and hey presto! We disappear.

It’s almost magical.

Especially when Shakeela chechi uses it as her bathing attire. The sight of her coming out of the pool is like going to Thrishoor puram and watching the elephant coming into the courtyard with the idol upon it. Divine!

If you see a thorthe somewhere, there’s a 100% chance that a mallu is close by.

It’s a heartwarming feeling driving through Sand City knowing which flats in the buildings around you houses a fellow mallu just by looking at the laundry hanging from its balcony.

There it flutters, white like a signal of peace and hope, letting the ones who are initiated into its society know; herein lives a mallu, with the TV tuned to Asianet and his heart tuned to the rubber trees of his home land.

A fine species.

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The centrality of the family unit in India has many side effects, chief among them being the fact that living alone is an unusual thing – even in its most progressive metro areas, like Mumbai or Delhi. Those who do so are often regarded as strange, and the possible assumptions tend to be scandalous answers to questions such as the following: Why is a man in his thirties not married, let alone staying in an apartment by himself? What is this unaccompanied foreign woman doing in her flat that she wants to keep anyone else from seeing? Was that smell I noticed wafting out of 403 a taboo-blasting non-vegetarian dish?

If you’re looking on your own, securing a comfortable place to live can be more a test of nerves than anything else. First you have to win over the landlord or landlady, sidestepping (not shattering, that would be too ambitious) whatever judgments they may make upon meeting you. If you’re still standing after that, there’s the small matter of winning over the neighbours – who will be nosy (if you’re lucky) and/or scheming to get you out (if you’re unlucky).

In those neighbours’ minds, the equation is often simple. If a person is living alone, particularly a woman or a middle-aged man, there is either something rotten in that person or – worse – something rotten in that person’s family that they are trying to escape from.

This is all so different from New Zealand, where almost everybody leaves home at 18 and often takes a trip overseas once they save up enough to do so. I followed this exact path; my two brothers did more or less the same. By the time I left New Zealand, we had all been spread out for over a decade and contact was understood to be sporadic. Even less likely was the idea of spending longer than a week or so staying with each other. Compared to an Indian family, we had drifted apart – and that felt completely normal.

During my three years in the tourist town of Varkala, in southern Kerala, I was lucky enough not to face any hassle in finding a place to live. I even had a friendly and unobtrusive landlord (in my first house, at least) and neighbours who were very nosy, yes, but who were always there for me whenever I needed help. For the final year of my stay in Varkala, I lived alone, and whatever the other difficulties of living there, my neighbours were not confused by that fact. Foreigners were understood to live a bit differently than Indians, and with the tourism trade growing year on year, local landowners were more than happy to smile and look away from that different lifestyle in exchange for a fistful of rupees.

As a result, I passed an idyllic and mostly solitary existence. And while my closest friends around me lived out lives that were constantly intertwined with relatives, often living with their parents well into their thirties and even after marriage, I interacted less and less with my own folks back home. We would email and Skype sporadically, and ‘Like’ each other’s Facebook updates, but the distance between myself and my family was increasing all the time. Meanwhile, my best mates were giving regular missed calls to cousins abroad and going home each night to their doting mothers.

It even came out during proper Kerala-level drinking sessions with the boys. “This peanut masala is tasty,” one friend would say any time we downed a few beers at B6 Bar. “But of course, the best peanut masala is made – [dramatic pause] – by my Mom.” This same friend would often ask me, with obvious compassion, if I felt lonely living by myself in rural India. No, I would say. I don’t. And I didn’t – at least, no more than we all occasionally long for different company. But his concern was touching: given my remove from kin, he was asking me in order to establish whether I needed a surrogate family – something he and my other friends would gladly provide if required.

I began to wonder: am I missing out on something fundamental? And not just missing, but impassively pushing away?

As often seems to be the case in life, my fears were crystallised by a crisis. Through a blunder at the Foreigners Regional Registration Office, my exit from India was delayed and I lost all my savings in re-booking flights. A planned one-month holiday to New Zealand became an indefinite stay, starting effectively from scratch. My days of solitary peace and quiet were over, for the time being at least. I had no choice but to ask my family to put me up for a while.

The way I saw it, I had failed to hold up my end of communication with my folks for close to four years. I couldn’t imagine they’d be too pleased about me suddenly leaning on them after years in the wilderness, but I hoped everything would work out okay in the end.

I needn’t have worried. Of course my family welcomed me with open arms. Of course my oldest brother took me in to help me get back on my feet. Of course my mother and other brother would have done the same. So too would my father, even though he now lives a cramped life in the Middle East. I know this because they all told me directly. I thanked each of my family members for their generous offers of support, but I can’t imagine I conveyed exactly what it meant to me.

So thank you, my mother and father, my brother and brother, your spouses and your children, for making me shed my doubts as soon as I arrived and for supporting me through a difficult time.

I continue to reside with my brother and his family. I get to watch two of my nieces as they grow up (Ms 4 still says ‘jarf’ for ‘giraffe’, but she know what it means) and hang out with bro and his partner, getting to know them again too. And them me. I had suspected that there was a basic behavioural difference between Indian families and my own, that we allowed the distance simply because we allowed it. The truth is that the bonds of Indian societies may be more overt than ours, but they aren’t necessarily stronger or deeper. How wrong I was – and what a blessing that is.

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