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.