Once I read an article in Newsweek about Paradise. It described various faiths’ depictions of it and I only remember what it said about the Mormons’ view of that place. The author said that the Mormons were the first real American religion and that their view of Paradise was truly American too, in that instead of the quietness and contemplation described by other faiths, the Mormon Elyseum was busy as a hive, a land where the elected few were hard at work on some great project – I can’t quite remember exactly what was the purpose.

Paradise may not exist but thinking of it is a pleasant, harmless pursuit, except if you believe that the road to its Pearly Gates goes through blowing yourself up in a bus. My idea of Paradise is of a quiet land ( sorry, Mormons), covered with rice fields and coconut groves, behind which, from time to time, rises the gopuram of a South Indian temple. I would have a thatched cottage by the beach there, and would wake early every morning to see the fishermen’s boat ride over the crests of the beach breaking waves. It is a paradise in which the air is heavy with the smell of coconut milk, tamarind, grilled fish and the salt of the sea. Going inland, one would come to a Malgudi- like South Indian town, complete with the statue of Sir Frederic Lawley, and a coffee shop where one may have idli in the company of the Talkative Man. In afternoons, one would have tea with R.K. Narayan, and the evenings would be spent listening to a talk by Sarvapali Radakrishnan on whatever he would wish talk about ( it would be interesting anyway) or going to a concert by B.L. Subramanian, or Radha Jayalakshmi or some other Carnatic greats, on a great stone platform under the tower of one of the temples. Needless to say, the house next to one’s would be occupied by some pleasant South Indian lady ( think: Madhuri Dixit, Sridevi, Aishwarya Rai) and after the concert, while walking back home under the bright stars through a path between the rice fields, beating the ground in front of one’s feet with a stick to chase away the snakes ( which would be harmless anyway, being wise nagas), one could by pure inadvertance happen to land in the wrong house…

Such a Paradise would be a little less hot than the real Tamil Nadu, and its politicians would be comical rather than nasty…I would spend many a happy day there, climbing the coconut trees to pluck their fruit, learning to play the veena in the shadow of the temple, arguing about politics with the Talkative Man, massaging the feet of a sadhu who would live in a cave in a nearby cliff, and many a happy night in my verandah, watching the moon rise from between the hills topped with small temples, swapping erotic classical Indian tales in the company of , ahem, not the sadhu obviously…

Travelling to the North of that Paradise ( by foot or horse- there are no cars in Paradise) one would notice that, though the rice fields still mirrored the skies everywhere, yet the coasts now had red torii wetting their feet in their shallow bays. Between the trees of the hills, one could see the horns of a Shinto or Buddhist temple roof. In this post card Japan, the tea ceremony would linger on for long lazy afternoons, and though it be late spring, Setsuko Hara would be happily married but living close to her father, and one could visit both and talk at length of the small things of life – the difficulty in finding chestnuts exactly to one’s taste, some gossip about so-and-so having finally had a child, where to find a good tailor in some town one will of course never visit.

Travelling afterwards West, one would happen on another land, green but a bit grim, one of rocky coasts to the edge of which old abbeys cling as if they will topple down at the next moment. In the villages nearby, one will find many a pub in which Yeats and an appeased Maud Gonne settle down to the quiet dinner of old couples – as she came in, all was quiet, for her sole sake, Heaven had put away the stroke of her doom, so great her portion in that peace she made by merely walking in a room.

This is the most fantastical part of this Paradise, a place where the wind howls at night and it can be sometimes disquieting to walk by the cliffs in William Butler’s company, his handsome, tormented face becoming wild as he tells tales of Cuchulain and Conchubar – his words seem to spin out shapes from the air, and one cannot be sure that the flash of light from the wave beneath was not that from a sword, as a crazed warrior fought with the horses of the sea. It is a place one travels to in order to stir up the blood a bit. After a while, one feels like trekking one’s way back to the sunnier , more placid lands of the South.

Blame it on my lack of imagination, but my Paradise is very earthly, for I cannot think of anything more beautiful than this world. My Paradise is a world improved. It is not perfect – I have no interest in that kind of place, the very thought of it is as unpleasant as that of being a normal child sent to a class of model students. Annoyances such as wars and cancer have been removed, the gaze of beautiful women is no longer so distant, yet some disquiet remains, among its sensitive denizens. It would be wonderful to have tea with R.K. Narayan – even Naipaul, who is so hard to please, praised his beautiful, reserved manner after their only encounter- and to be in an Ozu film, yet both Narayan’s books and Ozu’s films exude a sweet pain, as of something very gentle which has been disturbed, and gives you a hurt look. The look of someone very old, very graceful, who understands that he must step back into the shade, and let the young have their lives, as Chishu Ryu does in Late Spring. In my Paradise, the old and the young would be reconciled, the nostalgia of the old would not be so painful, the appetites of the young not so overwhelming.

Am I the only one who sees similarities between Creole and Indian cultures ? Both seem marked by the fear of pollution ( losing caste). It’s funny how Creole intellectuals make big speeches about the Creole being “ the man of tomorrow”, the “living crossroads of cultures” yet in every day life, there is a strong sense of the taboo in the Creole mind. When I was young, I did kung fu for a few months in a nearby club. There was an old Creole bum who slept in the courtyard of the tin shack in which we did our training. The guy was about as shaggy and decrepit as an old bum can get. Once, someone told him : “Hey old man, there’s some ripe papayas on the tree. Why don’t you eat them ?” He replied, with that inimitable Creole snobbishness : “I don’t eat these things”. The Creole is so full of innumerable petty prejudices. I remember a Creole lad who was a factotum in an office on a construction site , who would tell me: “Look at my hands, how smooth they are. I don’t have rough hands like them” with a jerk of the head, towards the construction workers. They would always be so particular about some things, would borrow money from me to buy themselves a suit for a birthday party, and would be so innocent of the idea that there could be a larger picture, that maybe the world had a past and a future. Most of them live in a sort of eternal present. When I was small, I was the only Indian in a Boy Scout troop – the others were Creoles from the nearby cité. I remember the boys looking with awe at a white man passing by on the highway in a convertible Mercedes. You could see in their eyes, how intensely they approved of that car, for that white man – the two were so made for each other. Mauritian creoles are really proud of the local whites, their former owners. The whites are their nobility, the symbols of beauty, grace and power against the dreadful Indians, never mind the fact that most Creoles in Mauritius look pretty much Indian and often have Indian names. It’s not simply a matter of ethnic rivalry, or of jealousy because the Indians have gone up the economic ladder – it goes deeper than that : there is a caste mentality at work. Creoles have their own caste system, maybe not as well articulated as in South America, with its different names for each type of mixture – criollo, zambo, cholo, and so on – but still, it does operate, manifesting itself in that strange rigid manner one so often notices in Creole girls, a kind of stiffness which reminds one of small town, middle class Indian girls – a kind of stilted manner of talking, a thoroughly narrow outlook on the world. The Creoles see the Indo Mauritians much as the Hindus in India see Muslim Indians : a race of dreadful alien invaders whose every manner is a threat to their carefully nurtured caste system. People who should simply go back to where they came from, because they are disturbing one’s own fantasy world . Every caste system, in the end, is one huge fantasy. That’s what makes them so attractive. People love fantasies, even those who are at the losing end of it. Among the low caste people in the Indo Mauritian community, the priority once they got access to knowledge and power was to construct a fantasy of being high caste. There are powerful Chamar associations which proclaim themselves to be of Rajput Kshatriya stock. I know many Chamars who are fiercely Brahminising, vegetarian and temple-going to a fault. I remember one whose parents had stuffed in both “Sharma” and “Singh” in his name.

Both Indians and Creoles, when they have to showcase themselves to the world, like to present themselves as graceful and smiling people, and other people respond to it, imagine societies full of langour, of burning tropical sensuality, of smoky beauties. The sari can be a sensual dress, and isn’t there the Kama Sutra ? And the long legged Creole beauties, swaying to the rhythm of those innumerable tropical musics : what better image of paradise ? Yet, the naïve foreigner who ventures into these societies is in for a rude shock. Both Creoles and Indians, for a start, are obsessed with fair skins, and are cruelly racist societies. They are staunchly religious, and our naïve foreigner soon finds himself being hauled to the church or temple by the family of the girl with whom he thought he was going to have some good time ( blame Gaugin and his tales about the vahiné, the girls of the South Pacific, with their free, innocent sexuality).

It’s the petty snobberies which fascinate me most, though. Not those of the Indians, I know them too well, but those of the Creoles. For example, I know that before ( maybe even nowadays) when a proper middle class Creole family went to the seaside for a picnic, it always took at least one dish which had to be eaten with bread, normally baguettes. That was so as to differentiate themselves from Indians, who would, it was assumed , would eat rice even on a picnic. I guess there are also some vegetables which some people, or families, do not eat because they are considered too local, or Asian, although there are no clear consensus on the matter. Another fascinating topic: the anglophobia of some Creole intellectuals. I guess it is diminishing now, with the rise of internet, which is dominated by the English language, but I remember that fifteen years ago, many middle class Creoles eagerly played a sort of fantasy Anglo-French rivalry in their minds. Of course, the Indo Mauritians also played the game, but in reverse. It still comes out, for the World Cup.

I am fascinated by the Mauritian Creole society, in general. On of the things which amazes me about them is their bursts of lucidity: in their best moments, the Creoles strike me as being so much more mature and accomplished as a society, than the Indo Mauritians. They can laugh at their own follies, which I’ve never seen an Indo Mauritian ever do, being a far more gloomy and pompous bunch. But such moments of grace are rare, usually the Creole is wrapped in a world of strange fears and prides. Just like his Indo Mauritian compatriot, he will be anxious to guide the conversation towards the topics in which he feels he can boast what he feels are significant accomplishments – that he’s just come back from a trip in France, that his daughter is getting married to a Frenchman – and away from topics which he feels are skirting near some taboo: any mention of Asia, for example, except Japan ( Japan is safely far away, and the Japanese are esteemed by white people).

Some people believe that mixed marriages will bring about a new world culture based on harmony and mutual cultural understanding. But both Creoles and Indians are racially mixed since a long time ago. I have the impression that racial mixture has only made them even more racist and narrow minded. True cultural understanding will come only from a mental opening to others, not from a simple biological mixture.

( Unfinished meditative rumblings, after a stay at a friend’s place, on the coast)

Trébuchant parmi les grosses pierres du jardin, il s’enfonça dans l’obscurité en tirant avec un plaisir coupable sur sa cigarette. Soudain du coin de l’oeil il se rendit compte que le rideau des étoiles semblait plus proche que d’habitude. C’était l’absence de lumières humaines, combiné à la pleine mer à cent mètres devant lui qui donnait cet effet: une impression d’être près des forces de la nature. Le Scorpion semblait dégringoler vers l’horizon, son grand corps dégringandé se cassant en deux alors qu’il trempait ses pinces dans l’horizon marin, dans une fuite précipitée devant l’arrivée prochaine d’Orion et de ses molosses – les deux constellations ne partagaient jamais le ciel, le Scorpion et Orion ayant été ennemis dans leur “vie” de personnages légendaires. Il se félicita, comme il le faisait souvent en regardant le ciel étoilé, de la justesse qu’avaient eu les anciens à regrouper les étoiles en amas imaginaires, dont le tracé était supposé représenter un monstre ou un héros de légende : cet arbitraire des lignes, et l’incroyable distance qui nous sépare des étoiles, ne nous renvoyaient ils justement pas à l’essence même du personnage mythologique, ce sombre guerrier dont la légende, une rumeur devenue grondement puis vague écho, nous parvenait par delà le gouffre des siècles. Et puis quel bonheur que les Anciens aient pris soin de remplir le ciel de leurs Hercules et de leurs Lyres ! N’avaient ils pris cette précaution, nous aurions eu droit, dans notre ciel moderne, à la Bouteille de Coca, ou à Reagan…déjà les explorateurs européens de l’Age des Conquêtes avaient jeté parmi le firmament du Sud l’affreuse Pompe à Eau et la Boussole…

Les lumières jumelles d’un cargo au loin traversaient lentement ce qui devait être l’horizon, tout au loin. Impossible de s’imaginer des humains sur cette mer noire, se dit-il – l’odeur forte de l’iode, et les embruns dans l’air lui disaient qu’il approchait d’un monde qui n’était pas fait pour les hommes. A gauche, les lumières de Flic en Flac brillaient de leur éclat un peu vulgaire, comme une bijou en or plaqué dans un somptueux écrin de velours . Un peu plus loin, il crut discerner la grosse masse de la Tourelle du Tamarin et, sans doute parce qu’il regardait du coté du couchant, il pensa soudain au Jardin des Hespérides, situé selon la légende aux confins de l’Occident. C’était là bas qu’Hercule était parti cueillir les pommes dorées
veillées par un dragon. Curieuse ressemblance au mythe du Jardin d’Eden, se dit-il, et il se mit à songer aux cartes d’autrefois, où, sur les confins de l’Inde et de Cathay, se trouvait le dessin d’un pommier. “Le Paradis Terrestre” disait la carte menteuse et belle. Mais un paradis, c’était d’abord un beau verger, une nature ordonnée, et une carte aussi, c’était donner un sens au monde, le rendre lisible. D’où le besoin de constellations.

Rendre le monde lisible, et désirable aussi. On raconte qu’un jour Zeus, Père du Ciel, voulut s’unir à Chtonos, déesse des abîmes terriens. Mais Chtonos est invisible, alors , afin de pouvoir voir son corps, Zeus fit tisser pour elle un voile magnifique, sur lequel figuraient toutes les créatures,et tous les pays de la terre, et il jeta le voile sur elle. Dessiner une baie, les contours d’un royaume, c’est éveiller le désir: il existe une pornographie des frontières – cette fièvre qui devait bruler dans les veines de Gengis Khan, et de Cortez. Il existe aussi, heureusement, un simple désir de flirt. Il pensa aux pays qu’il voulait visiter – l’Inde, qui trempait délicatement ses pieds dans l’Océan Indien, comme une nymphe près d’un ruisseau, les pays Balkaniques, compliqués, sanglants, chaleureux, avec leurs contours bizarres, tourmentés ( la Slovénie surtout, l’attirait, ce petit pays douillet et montagneux, et la Croatie, cet incroyable pays filiforme aux baies magnifiques) , et puis à ceux qui le rebutaient un peu, les Etats Unis, trop grands, comme les Américaines elles mêmes, ou l’Amérique du Sud, qui semblait tourner le dos au monde entier pour méditer sur ses fractures raciales et sociales.

Le cargo était arrivé au large de Tamarin et tournait maintenant vers le Sud Ouest, prenant la direction qui l’amènerait vers le Cap de Bonne Espérance. Ses feux de proue n’était déjà plus visibles. L’entreprise humaine semblait si futile, dans cette obscurité ! Comme un hanneton qui se promenait dans une grande salle sombre et vide. Pourtant, pour les hommes à bord, ce devait être le temps du repos après la chaleur du jour. Qu’ils devaient être braves, ou fous, ceux qui , les premiers, se sont aventurés loin des côtes !