When I was a kid I used to do pratna in front of colour printed images of the Hindu devtas such as the small one above. This kind of religious iconography, which some call the “Hindu calendar art” has been the standard depiction of the Hindu pantheon for the past thirty or fourty years, at least. Shiva and Vishnu are usually painted with a blue skin, and the same applies for Vishnu’s avatars Rama and Krishna. I guess the reason for this odd colour ( which made me, as a child , wonder whether the Smurfs too had some religious/divine origin) comes from the fact that Rama and Krishna are described in the scriptures as being dark-skinned. However, Indians tend to take a dim view of the strong suntan, even with their gods, so that blue was settled upon as a compromise for their skin colour. People would usually justify it by quoting a line, I think from the Bhagavata Purana, which said that Krishna’s skin was of the colour of the dark blue lining of the monsoon clouds.

In Hindu calendar art, the gods usually have a round face, big round eyes, a sweet, benign appearance emphasised by their hand raised in blessing. Come to think of it, it was exactly the kind of depiction which would please a family doing pratna, and it fitted in well too with the wholesome atmosphere of Bollywood takes on the Ramayana or the Puranas, with Hanuman’s jolly bravado at the head of his cute monkey army, Sri Rama gently admonishing Sita (“ Parantu Sité….” ) and the motu kalu ( fat black) demons doing their booming demon laugh routine ( “bwaaaaa ha ha ha ha”).

But I couldn’t help noticing some pretty sharp nails which stuck out of this reassuring package. Shivji always struck me as having a rather odd appearance, with his cobra around his neck and the tiger skin wrapped around his loins, Tarzan-like. Then there was the goddess Durga , of severe beauty, martial and awe-inspiring, riding her roaring tiger. And I was disturbed and fascinated by the intense atmosphere during Cavadee, the Tamil festival – celebrated in February in Mauritius - in which the devotees of Muruga ( Shiva’s son) pierced themselves with needles and climbed a hill with a miniature temple on their shoulders.

And, talking about the Tamils, I couldn’t help being fascinated by the Tamil cinema’s take on Hindu mythology. Tamil religious films had a wild exuberance which I found mind boggingly exotic. They had little time for the gentle blandishments and staid demeanour of the religious movies of north India: down South, Parvati was fat and green-skinned, with her bosom almost bursting out of her tight striped nylon blouse, as showered her lord and husband Shiva ( wild-eyed, pot bellied, looking like a Mexican bandit with his handlebar moustache) with tirade after tirade of rolling Tamil, one hand on her plump hip, like a fisherwoman welcoming her man home from the bar. In one particularly spectacular incident, I saw the heavenly couple’s tiff ( I could make out, through the Tamil, that they were quarelling about who was the most powerful god between the two of them) escalate into regular battle, in the classical Indian religious movie style – arrows and tridents flying in the air, emitting rays and met in mid-air by counter arrows emitting couter rays – until at length, Shiva got so worked up that he sprang up a tongue of fire from within himself and throwing it at his wife, instantly burned her to ashes. I think she got reborn later into the movie.

The wild energy in those Tamil religious movies ! Parvati, after yet another quarrel with her hubby Shiva, creates by herself a boy, Ganesha. Her husband, coming back home after having gone to sulk on another mountain peak, is stopped dead on his tracks by the boy, who is standing as sentry to his mom. Shivji promptly lobs off the insolent kid’s head then, upon learning that that it is his son, sends his buddy Nandi the bull to fetch a replacement head. However, Nandi settles on cutting off the head of Indra’s favourite elephant Airavata ( Indra is the king of the lower gods in heaven). Indra’s heavenly army promptly comes to the rescue of the elephant and all hell breaks loose in heaven. Bing-bang-boom. Eventually Nandi gives a thrashing to Indra and slices off the elephant’s head, and Ganesha comes back to life. In another movie, little Muruga, the other son of Shiva, loudly berates his parents, accusing them of favouring his brother Ganesha, and then leaves the Himalaya for the land of the Tamils, where after a short 15 minute-long song of welcome by a Tamil saint, he promptly sets to work clearing the land of its goblins and demons. His dad Shivji sends the monster Veerabadra to give a helping hand. Bing-bang-smash.

These movies, with their intensely devotional songs in praise of furiously restless gods, gave me a hint of the no-holds barred religious imagination which was smouldering under the crust of mainstream Hindu respectability. Later on, I got to read translations of some of the major religious books ( the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, some of the Puranas) but also one or two anthologies giving extracts of older works such as the Vedas and some interesting, not too well known Puranas.

Although I had great respect for the higher summits of Hindu religious thought enshrined in the Vedantas and the Bhagavad Gita, I grew much more fascinated, over the years, by the dense forest of mythological lore whose dark foliage seemed to me to be whispering strange secrets; I liked to travel along its paths and see its strange, hidden beauties.

I was , and still am, specially interested by everything associated with Shiva and his spouse Parvati. My first impression, as a child, that Shiva was a pretty weird god came out to be true, and over the years I have made him my personal god ( ishta devata) precisely because he is an outsider, and that he is the very embodiment of ambiguity and contradictions. I soon came to realise that the crash-bang Shiva-and-Parvati stories so joyfully narrated by the Tamil movie industry were pretty tame stuff, compared to what the ancient texts had to say about the divine couple. They are litteraly out of this world.

Here, my keyboard fails me. I do not know how I can explain to the reader all the many, and contradictory aspects of the Shiva-Parvati couple without puzzling and boring him to death. At the esoteric level, Shiva is Conscience, an inert principle, the One Mind at the heart of the universe. Parvati is Shakti, Energy, the active principle which creates and destroys all things. The two of them together, Conscience and Energy, are fused in the state known as Sadashiva, which is the highest, most abstract level of Godhead. By separating, then fusing again at lower levels of creation, Shiva and Shakti create the universe, of which we know only a small part, given that our world is located between the higher lokas ( inhabited by divine creatures) and lower talas ( inhabited by infernal beings).

That’s for the abstract stuff, which goes into more profound levels than this ( philosophical Tantrism) about which I will not discuss, especially that I know only one or two things about it. Then there is the mythological level, which is so delightfully divine and human at the same time. We see Shiva and Parvati quarelling and making up like any couple. Here is an example of their tiffs ( Shiva, with characteristic male clumsiness, has made a joke about Parvati’s dark skin) :

Parvati: “Everyone blames someone else for his own deeds, and when anyone seeks something he is inevitably disappointed. I sought to win you, who wear a fragment of the moon, with shining acts of asceticism, and the reward for all my careful vow is that I am dishonoured at every step. I am not crooked, Sarva [ Shiva is “crooked” because he has three eyes] with the matted lock, nor am I irregular. You are patient enough with your own faults – and you are richly endowed with a veritable mine of faults (…) You called me “black” but you are known as the Great Black One. I will go to the mountain to leave my body by means of asceticism. There is no use in living just to be insulted by a rogue.

Shiva: “Truly the daughter is like her father in all ways [ Parvati is the daughter of the Himalaya mountain]. Your heart is as hard to fathom as a cavern of Himalaya,in which many sharp blades have accumulated, fallen from his cloud-garlanded peaks; your cruelty comes from his rock; your inconsistency from his various trees; your crookedness from his winding rivers; and you are as difficult to enjoy carnally as snow”

Parvati: “Sarva, do not blame virtuous people by comparing them with yourself, for all these faults have been transferred to you in the same way by your association with the wicked. You speak with many tongues because of your serpents; and you are devoid of affection because of your ashes. Your heart is defiled by the moon which is stained with a hare, and you get your stupidity from your bull. But what is the use of all this talk, which is merely tiresome to me ? You are frightening because you live in the burning ground, and you have no modesty, because you are naked. You are disgusting, because you carry a skull; who could bear you thus ?”

(from the Skanda Purana, quoted in Hindu Myths by Wendy Doniger)

She then leaves off in a huff, and the demon Adi decides to assume her shape so as to approach Shiva and kill him. In order to do so, Adi places sharp spikes inside her vagina. However, as she meekly approaches the Great God ( Shiva) and embraces him, the latter thinks: “Parvati is very proud and would not come back in such a manner” By closely observing her body, he realises it is not his wife. He then places a weapon on his penis and tears the demon apart. The real Parvati later comes back and the couple is reconciled.




I love the depictions of the Shiva Parivar ( the family of Shiva) made by Indian miniature painters of the medieval period. I have seen only a few of them, but they capture with beautiful poetry and sense of humour all the contradictions inherent in the Shiva-Parvati couple. In the picture just above, we see the family settling for a meal. It seems that Shiva and Parvati are sifting something, maybe some cereal, through a white cloth. Ganesha, who is always closer to his mother, is bothering her a bit by climbing on her while she is at her task. Muruga is giving water to Nandi, Shiva’s vehicle and friend. Parvati’s vehicle, the lion is sleeping at her back. What strikes me as profoundly moving and funny in this picture is the whiteness of Shiva’s body, which stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the picture, which is quite colourful. This whiteness comes from the fact that Shiva always smears his body with the ash of the dead, a common ritual act for sadhus ( ascetics) in India. His strikingly white body, and his dreamy, detached expression underline the fact that he is an ascetic, which is in contradiction with his status as a householder.

To say that Shiva assembles all contradictions within himself, being beyond creation is one thing, but to see it represented in art, in this beautiful picture, is something else. I find it much superior to the modern “Hindu Calendar Art” such as the picture of Shiva at the beginning of my article. I guess most respectable Hindus try to “tame” Shiva and Parvati by representing them in a conventional manner, like in the picture above.

I can understand that most people would not be able to understand the value of the Shiva Parvati stories, they would be shocked by what they would see as strange stories about Shiva’s sperm, or about Kali making love to Shiva’s corpse, or again about Shiva dancing with his wife’s corpse on his shoulders. These stories are profound, fundamental poetic visions of the universe, but they are beyond most people’s understanding, nowadays. They are like strong alcoholic brews which would knock out most people dead.

As goes the saying : Who can understand Shiva ? The one who can do it, has become Shiva himself.

Ah well, anyway. I’ll indulge myself by quoting , to finish, a nice ( but very long) passage which I like quite a lot, which is the opening paragraph of the Mahanirvana Tantra ( the rest of the book is rather boring):

THE enchanting summit of the Lord of Mountains, resplendent with all its various jewels, clad with many a tree and many a creeper, melodious with the song of many a bird, scented with the fragrance of all the season’s flowers, most beautiful, fanned by soft, cool, and perfumed breezes, shadowed by the still shade of stately trees; where cool groves resound with the sweet-voiced songs of troops of Apsara, and in the forest depths flocks of kokila maddened with passion sing; where (Spring) Lord of the Seasons with his followers ever abide (the Lord of Mountains, Kailasa); peopled by (troops of) Siddha, Charana, Gandharva, and Ganapatya (1-5). It was there that Parvati, finding Shiva, Her gracious Lord, in mood serene, with obeisance bent low and for the benefit of all the worlds questioned Him, the Silent Deva, Lord of all things movable and immovable, the ever Beneficent and ever Blissful One, the nectar of Whose mercy abounds as a great ocean, Whose very essence is the Pure Sattva Guna, He Who is white as camphor and the Jasmine flower, the Omnipresent One, Whose raiment is space itself, Lord of the poor and the beloved Master of all yogi, Whose coiled and matted hair is wet with the spray of Ganga and (of Whose naked body) ashes are the adornment only; the passionless One, Whose neck is garlanded with snakes and skulls of men, the three-eyed One, Lord of the three worlds, with one hand wielding the trident and with the other bestowing blessings; easily appeased, Whose very substance is unconditioned Knowledge; the Bestower of eternal emancipation, the Ever-existent, Fearless, Changeless, Stainless, One without defect, the Benefactor of all, and the Deva of all Devas (5-10).
Shri Parvati said:
O Deva of the Devas, Lord of the world, Jewel of Mercy, my Husband, Thou art my Lord, on Whom I am ever dependent and to Whom I am ever obedient. Nor can I say ought without Thy word. If Thou hast affection for me, I crave to lay before Thee that which passeth in my mind. Who else but Thee, O Great Lord, in the three worlds is able to solve these doubts of mine, Thou Who knowest all and all the Scriptures (11-13).
Shri Sadashiva said:
What is that Thou sayest, O Thou Great Wise One and Beloved of My heart, I will tell Thee anything, be it ever so bound in mystery, even that which should not be spoken of before Ganesha and Skanda Commander of the Hosts of Heaven. What is there in all the three worlds which should be concealed from Thee? For Thou, O Devi, art My very Self. There is no difference between Me and Thee. Thou too art omnipresent. What is it then that Thou knowest not that Thou questionest like unto one who knoweth nothing (14-16).
The pure Parvati, gladdened at hearing the words of the Deva, bending low made obeisance and thus questioned Shangkara.
Shri Adya said:
O Bhagavan! Lord of all, Greatest among those who are versed in Dharmma, Thou in former ages in Thy mercy didst through Brahma reveal the four Vedas which are the propagators of all dharmma and which ordain the rules of life for all the varying castes of men and for the different stages of their lives (18-19). In the First Age, men by the practice of yaga and yajna prescribed by Thee were virtuous and pleasing to Devas and Pitris (20). By the study of the Vedas, dhyana and tapas, and the conquest of the senses, by acts of mercy and charity men were of exceeding power and courage, strength and vigour, adherents of the true Dharmma, wise and truthful and of firm resolve, and, mortals though they were, they were yet like Devas and went to the abode of the Devas (21, 22). Kings then were faithful to their engagements and were ever concerned with the protection of their people, upon whose wives they were wont to look as if upon their mothers, and whose children they regarded as their very own (23). The people, too, did then look upon a neighbour’s property as if it were mere lumps of clay, and, with devotion to their Dharmma, kept to the path of righteousness (24). There were then no liars, none who were selfish, thievish, malicious, foolish, none who were evil-minded, envious, wrathful, gluttonous, or lustful, but all were good of heart and of ever blissful mind. Land then yielded in plenty all kinds of grain, clouds showered seasonable rains, cows gave abundant milk, and trees were weighted with fruits (25-27). No untimely death there was, nor famine nor sickness. Men were ever cheerful, prosperous, and healthy, and endowed with all qualities of beauty and brilliance. Women were chaste and devoted to their husbands. Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras kept to and followed the customs, Dharmma, yajna, of their respective castes, and attained the final liberation (28-29).
After the Krita Age had passed away Thou didst in the Treta Age perceive Dharmma to be in disorder, and that men were no longer able by Vedic rites to accomplish their desires. For men, through their anxiety and perplexity, were unable to perform these rites in which much trouble had to be overcome, and for which much preparation had to be made. In constant distress of mind they were neither able to perform nor yet were willing to abandon the rites.
Having observed this, Thou didst make known on earth the Scripture in the form of Smriti, which explains the meaning of the Vedas, and thus delivered from sin, which is cause of all pain, sorrow, and sickness, men too feeble for the practice of tapas and the study of the Vedas. For men in this terrible ocean of the world, who is there but Thee to be their Cherisher, Protector, Saviour, their fatherly Benefactor, and Lord? (30-33).
Then, in the Dvapara Age when men abandoned the good works prescribed in the Smritis, and were deprived of one half of Dharmma and were afflicted by ills of mind and body, they were yet again saved by Thee, through the instructions of the Sanghita and other religious lore (34-36).
Now the sinful Kali Age is upon them, when Dharmma is destroyed, an Age full of evil customs and deceit. Men pursue evil ways. The Vedas have lost their power, the Smritis are forgotten, and many of the Puranas, which contain stories of the past, and show the many ways (which lead to liberation), will, O Lord! be destroyed. Men will become averse from religious rites, without restraint, maddened with pride, ever given over to sinful acts, lustful, gluttonous, cruel. heartless, harsh of speech, deceitful, short-lived, poverty-stricken, harassed by sickness and sorrow, ugly, feeble, low, stupid, mean, and addicted to mean habits, companions of the base, thievish, calumnious, malicious, quarrelsome, depraved, cowards, and ever-ailing, devoid of all sense of shame and sin and of fear to seduce the wives of others. Vipras will live like the Shudras, and whilst neglecting their own Sandhya will yet officiate at the sacrifices of the low. They will be greedy, given over to wicked and sinful acts, liars, insolent, ignorant, deceitful, mere hangers-on of others, the sellers of their daughters, degraded, averse to all tapas and vrata. They will be heretics, impostors, and think themselves wise. They will be without faith or devotion, and will do japa and puja with no other end than to dupe the people. They will eat unclean food and follow evil customs, they will serve and eat the food of the Shudras and lust after low women, and will be wicked and ready to barter for money even their own wives to the low. In short, the only sign that they are Brahmanas will be the thread they wear. Observing no rule in eating or drinking or in other matters, scoffing at the Dharmma Scriptures, no thought of pious speech ever so much as entering their minds, they will be but bent upon the injury of the good (37-50).
By Thee also have been composed for the good and liberation of men the Tantras, a mass of Agamas and Nigamas, which bestow both enjoyment and liberation, containing Mantras and Yantras and rules as to the sadhana of both Devis and Devas. By Thee, too, have been described many forms of Nyasa, such as those called srishti, sthiti (and sanghara). By Thee, again, have been described the various seated positions (of yoga), such as that of the "tied" and "loosened" lotus, the Pashu, Vira, and Divya classes of men, as also the Devata, who gives success in the use of each of the mantras (50-52). And yet again it is Thou Who hast made known in a thousand ways rites relating to the worship with woman, and the rites which are done with the use of skulls, a corpse, or when seated on a funeral pyre (53). By Thee, too, have been forbidden both pashu-bhava and divya-bhava. If in this Age the pashu-bhava cannot exist, how can there be divya-bhava? (54). For the pashu must with his own hand collect leaves, flowers, fruits, and water, and should not look at a Shudra or even think of a woman (55). On the other hand, the Divya is all but a Deva, ever pure of heart, and to whom all opposites are alike, free from attachment to worldly things, the same to all creatures and forgiving (56). How can men with the taint of this Age upon them, who are ever of restless mind, prone to sleep and sloth, attain to purity of disposition? (57). By Thee, too, have been spoken the rites of Vira-sadhana, relating to the Pancha-tattva – namely, wine, meat, fish, parched grain, and sexual union of man and woman (58-59). But since the men of the Kali Age are full of greed, lust, gluttony, they will on that account neglect sidhana and will fall into sin, and having drunk much wine for the sake of the pleasure of the senses, will become mad with intoxication, and bereft of all notion of right and wrong (61). Some will violate the wives of others, others will become rogues, and some, in the indiscriminating rage of lust, will go (whoever she be) with any woman (62). Over eating and drinking will disease many and deprive them of strength and sense. Disordered by madness, they will meet death, falling into lakes, pits, or in impenetrable forests, or from hills or house-tops (63-64). While some will be as mute as corpses, others will be for ever on the chatter, and yet others will quarrel with their kinsmen and elders. They will be evil-doers, cruel, and the destroyers of Dharmma (65-66). I fear, O Lord! that even that which Thou hast ordained for the good of men will through them turn out for evil (67). O Lord of the World! who will practise Yoga or Nyasa, who will sing the hymns and draw the Yantra and make Purashcharana? (68). Under the influences of the Kali Age man will of his nature become indeed wicked and bound to all manner of sin (69). Say, O Lord of all the distressed! in Thy mercy how without great pains men may obtain longevity, health, and energy, increase of strength and courage, learning, intelligence, and happiness; and how they may become great in strength and valour, pure of heart, obedient to parents, not seeking the love of others’ wives, but devoted to their own, mindful of the good of their neighbour, reverent to the Devas and to their gurus, cherishers of their children and kinsmen (70-72), possessing the knowledge of the Brahman, learned in the lore of, and ever meditating on, the Brahman. Say, O Lord! for the good of the world, what men should or should not do according to their different castes and stages of life. For who but Thee is their Protector in all the three worlds?

( from the translation by Arthur Avalon)

The other day I was listening to two friends of mine, who are also cousins to each other, talk about their ancestors. Their family has been living in the island since the late 18th century and their talk drifted from on ancestor to another, there was one who was born further up North in the Indian Ocean, on the island of Diego Garcia, in 1848 ( while the streets of Paris and Vienna were aflame…) and another in charming rue Dauphine in Port Louis, in the early 1900’s. I listened to them with fascination, as their evocation of these old people brought back to me the past of the island in a more vivid manner than do the history books. How nice to have spent one’s childhood in pretty rue Dauphine, on that shady stretch going from the back of the Cathedral to the Champ de Mars, lined with old Creole houses –there’s still a stone trough inlaid in the garden wall of at least one of them. I was a bit envious because I almost got a flat there the other day. It was the Chinese lady at who’se place I usually have lunch in the week, near the Champ de Mars who gave me the tip about a flat being available in the area. It was in a decrepit two-storey building at the back of an abandoned house, and there were Chinese women washing cabbage and hanging clothes in the narrow stone courtyard between the two buildings. The whole place strongly felt like 1950’s Hong Kong. One of the women confirmed that there was a vacant flat on the first floor, but when I knocked on the door of the owner of the whole place a tiny, antique little Chinese woman peered from the window, looking obviously scared, and said there were no flats available. I’ll send my wife to her, when she flies back from Beijing.

Coming back to my friends’ conversation, I wondered about how it must feel, to know that your ancestors have been living in the island for so long, or just to know so many things about your ancestors, to begin with. I know very little about my old people, only some vague descriptions. It seems there was a Gurkha soldier on my father’s side, I think he mentioned that he was a deserter. It seems plausible, because after 1857 there were quite a few Indian mutineers who came to the island fleeing the British backlash. Generally in the family, my father tended to lay stress on the fact that some of his ancestors came from the border with Nepal. My mother, on her side, would mention that her mother’s family were of Bengali origin. The fact that between the two of them, they still had a good deal of Bihari/UP ancestors was a matter best left in a quiet corner.

When I recollect whatever my parents have told me about their grandparents, I have the impression of going back to the world of the Indian countryside at any time between 2000 BC and say the 19th century. Yet they are talking about Mauritius in the early 20th century. I guess it’s partly because the descriptions are so hazy and seem so disconnected with the larger events in the island. One grandparent, for example, was a priest in a temple, and my great grandmother, who was his wife, complained that he was lazy. Apparently, he was solely concerned with his priestly duties, which did not earn him much, and she had to work in the fields to support the family. Then there are the usual stories about bad mothers in law and scheming daughters in law. It all seems to be taking place in some village lost in time, and surrounded by a huge sea of sugar cane.

I tend to have a better grip on the family history on my mother’s side because her ancestors settled in Port Louis, so she would mention places that I can relate to: her father was in some business related to distributing milk in ox carts, and every morning he and his partner would go to Victoria station which was where all the milkmen met to share out the distribution of the milk. I would guess the scene is taking place in the 1920’s, though it is hard to imagine ox carts in the streets of Port Louis by that time… but then they probably distributed the milk very early in the morning, as milkmen do everywhere. Apparently, the milk business went belly-up, and the family got into hard times. I think he must have got into some other jobs, because I remember my mother showing me a cigarette factory in the south of Port Louis and telling me this was where her father worked. At the time, I thought she meant that her father was still working there, though that was improbable, because he was almost 80 by that time. In the middle of that solidly urban atmosphere, confusingly, I have a story of a woman ancestor- maybe not a direct one- on my mother’s side, who “would go about inspecting her plantations” and once, during a lawsuit concerning a plot of land, stunned the court by appearing at the bar and answering the lawyer’s questions in French– a rare feat for an Indian woman, in those days.

Who was that woman ? Where are those plantations ? Wealth pops in and out in my family’s story like in a fast-forwarded Monopoly game. You hear tales of harrowing poverty “and then so-and-so came in his car” A car ? In the 50’s, when most kids still went to school barefeet ? “Well by that time things were going better”. Plots of land which would be worth dozens of millions nowadays appear at the turn of a sentence, flash briefly in one’s imagination like a piece of tinsel, then vanish – a bad investment, a dishonest uncle taking more than his share of the inheritance, or just plain old wasting it away on wine, women and songs.

The problem with all this was that it felt like I didn’t really have much of interest to tell my son, when he would ask me one day about my ancestors. It just felt like a vague notion of people living in some obscure countryside. Especially that on his mother’s side, he would hear a family history which had clear historical landmarks – the Sino-Japanese war, the Cultural Revolution.

But then the other day I came across a story which I felt was interesting and made me, personally, feel connected to somewhere in the past. It was an aunt of mine who told me that apparently, one of our ancestors was the wife of a priest who lived near the banks of a river – probably the Ganges. One day, her husband went to perform a prayer in some far away place. After several days, he had not come back. So, the wife took her baby daughter and ran away from her parents-in laws’ house to look for him. She arrived on the banks of the river and asked people whether they had seen her husband. Then one man in a boat said that he had seen a turban which was very much like that which she had been describing as that of her husband, and it was beside a well in a place further downstream. So she asked the man to take her to there.

But in fact the man was someone who made a trade out of trafficking women to send to Mauritius, as they lacked women in the island in those days. So he had made up that story, and he took her and her daughter to Calcutta where he sold them to a ship taking immigrants to the island.

When she arrived here, she heard about a wealthy Indian in the North of the island who protected people of his caste ( the Gosains), so she went to seek refuge at his place. He was a rich planter who owned a big Creole house, the type with the servants’ quarters at the back. He gave her a room in one of the quarters, she went to work in the fields, and the baby girl grew and eventually got married. I think it all happened somewhere in the 1890’s, because by that time you started having rich Indians.

Well anyway I do hope I’ll be remembered as a good ancestor, further down the family line…

An imaginary dialogue

“Après quarante ans d’indépendance, tu penses encore qu’on aurait du rester une colonie ?”

“Plus que jamais. Ca a été une grosse erreur, pire que ça: un coup monté par les politiciens de l’époque. Ils ont manipulé les hindous, en leur faisant croire que l’indépendance, c’était un moyen pour eux de s’affirmer face aux blancs et aux créoles. Cette vieille rancune des hindous contre les franco-mauriciens, c’est si utile aux politiciens…et les hindous sont tombés dans le panneau. Ils n’ont pas compris que l’indépendance, ça concernait notre rapport avec les Anglais, qui n’ont pas grand chose à voir avec les francos. Du coup, les politiciens ont pu se débarasser des Anglais, et devenir ministres. Quant aux francos, ils controlent toujours l’économie… on ne peut pas faire autrement. Par qui les remplacerait on ? Bien sur, on peut toujours encourager les compagnies étrangères à s’installer à Maurice, on peut aussi encourager un peu de compétition saine, mais au bout du compte, l’ile Maurice appartient aux francos. Au moins 80 % de l’économie, c’est eux, et des 20 % qui restent, une bonne partie entre chaque semaine dans les caisses de la MTC.. Mauricien Toujours Couyon”

“Mais les gens ont fait beaucoup de progrès sous l’indépendance. Avant il y avait tant de maisons en tole, de gens pauvres, souvent affamés”

“Qu’est ce qui te dit qu’on n’aurait pas fait de progrès sous les Anglais ?”

“Sous les Anglais, nous serions restés des assistés. C’est l’indépendance qui a donné de l’énergie aux Mauriciens. Regarde les Réunionais, toujours à vivre des allocations de chomage”

“L’erreur , c’est de nous comparer aux Réunionais. Il faut comprendre que l’Anglais n’est pas comme le Français. D’abord, l’Anglais n’est pas très généreux de nature, ce n’est pas là sa plus grande vertu. Il nous aurait donné une forte autonomie, et quant au dole, l’allocation de chomage britannique, tu peux toujours rêver. On n’aurait pas eu un rond. Non, on aurait eu à se débrouiller quand même. Ensuite, l’Anglais aime le commerce. Le Français est dirigiste de nature, il écrase les départements d’outre mer avec une législation sociale qui étouffe déjà l’économie métropolitaine, à plus forte raison des économies sous développées comme celle des Antilles ou de la Réunion. Et puis, le Français est un peu brutal, sur le plan culturel. Dès qu’on arrive en France, on s’entend dire qu’on a un nom à coucher dehors. Ca crée toujours un malaise. Le Réunionais vit aux crochets du Français, mais le déteste. L’Anglais, lui te laisse tranquille, du moment que tu gagnes ton pain et que tu ne touches pas trop à l’assistance publique”

“Tu viens de dire toi-même que l’Anglais nous aurait donné une forte autonomie et que nous aurions eu à nous débrouiller par nous même. Et que nous n’aurions pas pu nous attendre à grand chose en termes d’aide sociale venant de l’Angleterre. Dans ce cas, pourquoi ne pas tout bonnement prendre l’indépendance?”

“Parce que la présence anglaise assurait un contre pouvoir par rapport aux politiciens locaux. Avoir deux ou trois Anglais dans l’administration publique, c’était diminuer les gaspillages, casser un peu le coup au népotisme. Regarde notre administration publique, elle est complètement dominée par les politiciens et les organisations socio-culturelles. Et puis, regarde la corruption qui règne. Le politicien véreux aurait eu un peu peur de commettre de trop gros méfaits, car Scotland Yard lui serait tombé dessus”.

“En suivant ton raisonnement, les Indiens ou les Egyptiens n’auraient pas du demander l’indépendance, mais demander l’autonomie, afin de s’assurer le regard bénéfique de la justice anglaise…”

“Les Indiens et les Egyptiens n’avaient pas attendu les Anglais pour avoir des rois… Après avoir fait du commerce sur les cotes de l’Inde pendant plusieurs siècles, les Anglais ont profité du chaos résultant de l’afflaibissement de l’Empire Moghol pour bouffer un à un tous les petits royaumes dans lesquels s’était morcelée l’Inde. C’était un habile coup de main, et encore cela leur a-t-il pris un siècle pour y arriver. Mais le règne anglais en Inde a été bref, même s’il a été énergique et admirable dans bien des façons. L’erreur des mauriciens des années 60, a été de se dire que puisque toutes les colonies accédaient à l’indépendance, il fallait faire comme les autres. Les “autres” avaient existé, d’une façon ou d’une autre, avant de devenir des colonies. Maurice n’avait jamais été autre chose qu’une colonie. Réclamer l’indépendance, c’était entrer dans un combat qui n’était pas le notre. C’était presque présomptueux”

“Tu nous refuse donc le droit à la dignité ? Un peuple ne doit-il pas un jour se tenir sur ses deux jambes ?”

“ Etre digne, c’est d’abord ne pas être hypocrite. Savoir se regarder et avoir le courage de parler franchement de qui on est. Les politiciens nous parlent de “notre pays” mais beaucoup d’entre eux ont un passeport britannique ou français. L’élite indo-mauricienne nous parle de “la culture indienne” mais elle n’y va pas si souvent, en Inde. Ses enfants vivent en Angleterre, en Australie, au Canada. Je ne dis pas qu’il ne faut pas aimer les pays occidentaux. Au contraire, j’aime moi –même beaucoup la culture occidentale, tout autant que j’aime les cultures indienne et créole. Mais je n’ai pas de prétensions. Un de mes amis me parle depuis des années d’aller un jour travailler en Inde. Il a vécu dix ans en Angleterre, et n’a jamais fait que de brefs séjours en Inde. Nous sommes liés à l’Europe. Je crois que le fait d’avoir coupé ce lien naturel, historique a fait de nous des hypocrites, des prétentieux”

__ii__

On Coolitude

( I am trying here to develop some ideas which emerged from a recent conversation with Dr Khal Torabully, who has created the concept of coolitude)

Coolitude could be seen as one of six great branches of migration which have occurred in modern history, each one of these being marked by a different status to the migrant.

These six branches could be broken up in two groups: negatively-connoted, and positively connoted. The negatively-connoted group would comprise, in increasing order of status:

Category :
Slave
Place of Origin: Africa, India
Status:
Totally objectified, part of the master’s chattel. His Name,
Language, culture are actively destroyed

Category:
Coolie
Place of Origin: China, India, but also other countries
Status:
Legally free, but a combination of racial prejudice, slave –owner mentality in the country of destination and degrading conditions of work take him near to the condition of a slave ( brutal treatment, restriction on
freedom of movement, etc)

Category:
Migrant worker
Place of Origin:
Poland, Italy, Scandinavia, Ireland
Germany, Portugal, Maghreb countries
Status:
Legally free, but have to face difficult conditions and different degrees of social/racial prejudice


The positively-connoted group would comprise, in increasing order of status:

Category
Pioneer
Place of Origin:
Europe
Status:
Working class but seen in a romanticised light ( the Pioneers of the American West, seen as brave and stubborn figures)

Category:
Adventurer
Place of Origin:
Europe
Status:
A romanticised figure, the Adventurer is usually ated with the early stages of European expansion. He would settle in the “factories”, European trade posts on the coast of Oriental/African countries. Hinterland wars gave him the opportunity to engage in mercenary activity and even carve out his own fief

Category:
Investor
Place of Origin:
Europe
Status:
Highest status, is given wide range of priviledges ( tax benefits, large tracts of land, relaxation of labour laws)

The fact that there are positive, or negative values given to each type of migrant begs the question: who gives these values ? Obviously, this is the West, more precisely the upper class of the West. This can easily be seen in the fact that the highest type of migrant in the pecking order, is the Investor. This term may seem anachrostic if we are thinking in historical terms ( “investors” carries the idea of modern travelling businessmen) but we do see, even in the early days of European expansion, wealthy families buying large tracts of land in the Americas.

The scale of values closely follows the European social hierarchy, and is still resonant today, because in post colonial societies, one of the immediate questions which is asked when evaluating the social standing of someone, is : who is this person a descendant of ?

If that persons descends from a family of the European nobility, which settled in the colony and owned plantations and/or mines, he will get the highest possible marks on that score. Next, he may be the descendant of an “adventurer” , usually a black sheep son from a well-to-do family, who came to seek fortune in the colonies. After this, he may come a family of working class Europeans who were allocated a plot of land as the colonial power moved into the hinterlands.

“Migrant workers” are usually associated with the great urban/industrial centres of the West, so they are not part of the postcolonial social order. Skipping over this category, we see that the two negatively connoted categories of migrants are coolies and slaves. However many prestigious ancestors someone may have in the “positive-value” group, he only needs to have a single ancestor from the slave or coolie category, to be thrown out of the charmed circle.

The chronology and spatial ordering of these six movements are quite complex and offer interesting contrasts. In general, we tend to think of the three type of “negative value” migrants as following each other in history: the slave trade was followed by the arrival of the coolies, and since the early 20th century, we have seen large movements of migrant workers to the industrial centres of the West. In fact, a large number of “special cases” arises which makes any neat chronology difficult. In 19th century America, the North grew along the lines of an industrial society, attracting large numbers of migrant workers from Germany, Ireland and Scandinavia. At the same time, the South remained a plantation society based on slave labour. In Mauritius, we see skilled indentured workers coming from Madagascar, India and France during the times of the slave trade. The nature of their work – carpenters, cauldronners, masons – gives them an “air de famille” with the Migrant worker rather than with the coolie, who is more associated with back breaking, unskilled work.

Interestingly, the “Adventurer”, a figure which blossomed in the fluid days of early European expansion, and which disappeared once the colonial societies set up their rigid social codes, has made a tentative comeback in many fragile post colonial societies. He may be a mercenary ( the sordid adventures of Bob Denard in Comoros are a well publicised example in this respect) but he would usually prefer to pose as a “technical expert” or an “investor”. Another amusing twist in history lies in the figure of the “Investor”. Once the preserve of the European elite, this type of migrant has become faceless in the modern world. It is interesting to note the anger and discomfiture expressed in the press of the Western world, at the red carpet treatment which has to be given to Arab, Japanese, Chinese or Indian investors buying up Western companies.

The news of , say Lakshmi Mittal buying up a French steel factory sends waves of glee in Mauritian society, where many people are descendants of coolies. They see this as a revenge of history. In my opinion, it is not so much a revenge as a return to the configuration of the world before the days of European expansion.

Europe and Asia did not wait for Vasco da Gama to set his foot in Calicut to know each other. The deserts of Arabia, the steppes of Central Asia and the currents of the Indian Ocean were busy thoroughfares along which traders , missionaries and diplomats from countries all across this large land mass have come and gone on their business. It would be difficult to give here all the details of the extent of this large degree of interaction. One example may suffice: archaelogists have found such abundance of Roman coins in some parts of India, that it is suspected that the kings of those regions did not have to mint their own currency. The crucial point here is: before the days of European colonialism, with the ensuing pecking order, there existed another world in which Europe and Asia did their business in relative peace and understanding. It is a world touchingly like ours: the Indian herbalists and dancing girls who plied their trade in Ancient Rome find their echo in the Indian doctor or model living in today’s Rome.

It is in this curious “back to the future” situation that the idea of coolitude could be explored, because it is a crossroads at which all our ideas of the world explode in a fireworks of branches. The coolie is, in one sense, close to the slave, in that he experienced the worst kind of treatment in the days of colonialism. Yet the crucial difference is that he was always allowed to retain his culture. This has meant a tenacious attachment to the ancestors’ land. Yet there is a catch 22: the descendant of the coolie is not from India, China or some other ancestral land. He belongs , with each generation, more to his homeland than the ancestral land. Another contradiction occurs: to which India, or China, should one look at ? For the interaction between Asia and the West has always been complex. Which one is the real India ? That of the Vedas ? of Nehru ? of Bihar, or of Bombay ? Also, the coolie is, whether he wants it or not, also a child of the West, because he comes from the world of 19th century colonialism, of globalised trade in raw materials with their large mines and plantations. It is not always an easy burden to carry, because the world of the plantation was maybe one of the most brutally utilitarian and dehumanising systems the world has ever seen.

The world of the Industrial Revolution, has as its symbol, the great, dark textile mills of England, so well described in the novels of Dickens. Less famous is the Agro Industrial world of the plantation, which was no less implacable in its scientific organisation. In it, the coolies were little more than human robots. The owners, former slave owners smarting from the abolition of slavery, had quickly understood that the modern capitalist system had its advantages over the old slave system, in that it absolved them from any link between themselves and their employees. Under slavery, a slave may have been a household possession in the same way as a mule , but there was an obligation under the Code Noir to treat him with mercy, and to take care of him in his old age. Under the coolie system, there was only one obligation: to give the coolie his wages at the end of the week.

I am dwelling at some length on the mentality of the coolie system because it has had affected the behaviour of the descendants of the coolies to a greater extent than is generally believed. In the previous paragraphs, I had spoken of the fact that most often, the coolie is the descendant of Asia, and that , beyond the immediate past of European colonisation there has existed an ancient, culturally fruitful past of amicable trade and cultural exchange between East and West. From this, I could have said that all is well which ends well, because today we see the emergence of a multipolar world in which India, China, Brazil, South Africa are all major players on the world scene.

However, it is not easy, because the coolie’s ancestor may be from India, but he himself is not. He comes from the world of the plantation, and the latter has shaped his outlook on the world. In order to explain this, I will take the case of the Indo- Mauritians.

Mauritius is probably one of the few instances in world history where a labour camp has become an independent state. It has natural beauty, and its inhabitants can be charming, on a good day. But basically it is a place where houses are rough, basic concrete cubes surrounded by fields of that unappealing plant, the sugar cane. It has some writers and artists but basically most of its inhabitants don’t give a damn about the place. Its young are running away, and those who stay behind numb their minds with Bollywood films, religion, drugs and alcohol.

In Mauritius, the Indian community in general manifests a brutally utilitarian view of life, twinned with an incapacity to think of itself as a shaper and creator of the world around itself: it mostly craves to be a well paid subordinate. It manifests a bleak indifference to the natural beauty of the island, to the many instances of cultural creativity which exist despite our brutal history in our culture, and to intellectual discussion in general. It is a soulless, joyless community, maybe the gloomiest assembly of people in human history. To be fair, it is true that we come from Bihar, the most cruel, backward region of India, and that we have brought much of our profoundly dark outlook on life from there. But the least we can say is that our time in the sugar plantations has done little to improve our temperament and inclinations.

At night in Mauritius, everyone puts on the television, and then they are in the France of Canal Plus, the US of Hollywood, the India of Bollywood. Yet the Mauritian creole, in spite of everything, seems to have a genuine liking for Mauritius. He keeps writing songs in the local style, writing plays, even films short comic sketches, television series. He really enjoys being on the beach, dancing the sega, or even hanging around with his friends in the neighbourhood.

The coolie-born is different. He seems to be in a haze. Even when you talk to him, he seems impatient to go away. If young, you can bet that he is doing an MBA after work. He talks with a sense of almost physical pain about his cousin who is a nurse in England and has a big house with a car, and sighs crushingly. You almost feel like paying his air ticket. Yet when you meet him in London, many years later, he complains that the people are racist. Some of them are, but it seems that something else is bothering him, which he does not want to talk about. In a way, he is like other migrants around the world, but those others come from countries which they were really attached to, places in which their ancestors lay buried in since many centuries. Most of the time, the Indo Mauritian has only the faintest of ideas about Mauritius, especially if he comes from nondescript places like Palma, Centre de Flacq or Vacoas, which are neither towns, nor villages, blocks of houses that feel more like upgraded labour camps than places with a history.

I have never heard of any Indo Mauritian who went back to India to settle there. When living in London, the coolie-born is ambivalent towards the Indian community there. He will gladly walk around Southhall, marvelling at the existence of a Little India in the heart of what used to be the British Empire. He will buy his groceries and dine in its restaurants too. Yet he will complain of the dirtiness of the place and he will not feel completely comfortable in such a thoroughly Indian atmosphere. After all, he is not from India. Yet in Mauritius, he spends his free time and money building more and more Indian cultural centres. Inversely, in England, when people ask him to sing a song from his country, he often sings a sega.

One of my favourite films is 2046, Wong Kar Wai’s sequel of sorts to “In the Mood for Love”. In it, the main character settles in hotel room 2046 , because he and the love of his life once went to a hotel room of that number. He then writes a science fiction novel about a place called 2046, to which everyone tries to go to, because there, things are like what they used to be like, in the past. Of course, it is extremely hard to go there, and nobody knows what it is really like, because no one who has tried going there has never come back to tell. In the course of the film, the hero is attracted to women who remind him of his lost love: one because of her sensuality, the other because of her dreaminess. What makes things even more frustrating is that he never really had a love story with that woman.

The coolie-born is like this, in a way. He is attracted to an Asia he’s never really known. In any case, nobody ever “knows” India, or China. He keeps building Indian Cultural centres in Mauritius, yet feels crushed and overwhelmed in the huge crowds of Delhi or Mumbai. He cannot relate much to the terrifying poverty and corruption of Bihar, either – not even the local inhabitants seem to, for they spread out to the other parts of India to look for a living there. In the end, what he relates mostly to are Bollywood movies and religious rituals, which are both dreams and stories.

While writing this description of the mind of the Indo Mauritian, a word has come up in my mind, and I guess it’s come up in the mind of the reader : Post modernist. Is the Indo Mauritian post modernist ? Maybe he is. He could indeed be an evolutionary mutant, someone who has leaped, within the space of a few generations, from the feudal horror of Bihar, through the industrial horror of the sugar cane plantation, to a sort of post modernist state in which his whole life is based on the dream state of television, alcohol and religion. A fragmented mental state, full of fast channel switchings, in which , before going to sleep, he enters a maze like world of Bollywood actresses, Indian divinities, visions of cars and money.

The Indo Mauritian’s vision of the world is truly remarkable. Hinduism never had any interest whatsoever in history. It is founded on mythology. Even Christianity has to have some fleeting interest in history because Christ lived in the times of the Roman Empire. Islam similarly takes some interest in history because in the course of the Kuran’s revelation, a war is taking place between the followers of the new religion, who have taken refuge in Medina, and the polytheists in Mecca. Hinduism on the other hand places its events firmly in a nebulous past with only a few helpful topographical markers ( Lanka, Kurukshetra, Dwarka) and no plausible dates to rely on. For the average Indian, it is this mythological India which is the real past, not that of the Guptas and Mauryas.

To make things worse, or more interesting , from the anthropologist’s point of view, the Indo Mauritian has been brutally placed in a labour camp called Mauritius, a small island thousands of miles from anywhere. There, the sugar baron has , by means of a steady pressure of his leather boots, carefully grinded his face in the mud of the sugar cane fields for several decades. The results are indeed splendid to behold: the Indo Mauritian’s mind manifests a shining cultural blankness and a fascinating indifference to any forms of high culture. Like an alternating electrical current, his mind switches back and forth between the affectations of religion and the junk of modern industrial culture. He is as pure as snow of any notion of literature, history and philosophy. He is a beautiful child to behold, the worthy son of India’s obscurantism and the West’s dehumanising greed. Maybe he is the man of the future, a man without a past.

In what way would he be the man of the future ? In a menacing way: maybe – I am afraid I am wrong – the Indo Mauritian’s cultural desensitisation is unique only in the sense that he has gone faster through it than the rest of humanity. Coming from abject poverty in the cultural backwater of India, it was not difficult for his employers to rinse off any interest in culture from him. But the same process is also going on , at a slower pace, in the rest of the world: everywhere, young people find history and literature boring, and prefer the fast paced world of computer games and television. It is a worrying process. Bad culture drives out good. Of course, in the end, there will remain a tiny core – or a thin margin, depending on how you look at it – of persons interested in the humanities. But of what use is such a core, if they have lost their audience ? The aim of the humanities is the humanisation of our archetypal consciousness. Of what use is it to write great poetry if there is no one around to read it, except a few eggheads ?

Earlier in this essay, I had mentioned how the modern world is coming to look like the world of before the great European expansion, in that , once more, trade and cultural interaction are occuring in a peaceful manner between the great civilisations. India and China are becoming, once again, the great trading nations that they once were, and in the middle stands, as it always did (!), the Middle East : Dubai is, at the same time, the Arabia of the past and that of the future. Yet the world has since then changed, because we now have mass industrial culture, flooding the world with its junk.

Among the many types of people who have been thrown around the world by the great European expansion process, the fate of the coolie born, though small in numbers, will be of great interest to examine: will he eventually find back the notion of culture, the culture of culture ? Unbeknownst to him, there are many beautiful things he could create out of his tormented history, if only he cared. In today’s world, he is the possessor of many broken dreams, which he negligently wears around his neck like pieces of glass and coral. Out of these fragments, which he shored up against his ruin, he could yet weave a new poetry, and with its power, become the Silver Surfer on the waves of our modern culture. The works of VS Naipaul, the poetry of Khal Torabully, the efforts of some other writers give us hope in this direction.

Whether the coolie born will find back his soul matters , because his fate could prefigure that of humanity.