29 June 2016 Talk about culture clash: Asked at the front desk for assistance in getting the air conditioner in our room to work, and the man at the desk said he would “send a boy up right away.” The so-called boy was a young man standing right there. This reminded me of the American South, where once upon a time it was okay to call African American men “boy.” A sign of dominance and power. I found it disgusting within my cultural worldview. [We were asked by our leaders to comment on the culture clashes we observed in India.] And from that of The White Tiger, the main character having no given name but Munnu (sp.)—Boy—I think it also is a derogatory term in India, stemming from the British Imperial rule. I have been thinking about The White Tiger a lot; even finding an allusion perhaps to the Ramayana, where one minor character is struck by a woman’s beauty and keeps looking back at her, to the point where he is running into an elephant ahead of him. I am wondering, though, if that book is an analysis of capitalism rather than of India; maybe both. The author describes the excesses of capitalism in gross detail. But it is over-the-top in its condemnation of India and Indians. Is no one honorable, honest, worthy? Perhaps the father, but then he is killed off by hard work and disease (by capitalism). One has to ask if the friendliness of Indians one meets is genuine or is a type of servility aimed at the main chance. That book ruined a lot of things for me. [Later note added to this section: I haven’t been thinking this recently. People are genuinely friendly.] Perhaps I’m just in a bad mood, but I don’t care for Rama [in the Ramayana] either. His treatment of Sita is unconscionable. I just finished the book. I knew from Nina Palin’s animated film “Sita Sings the Blues” what was going to happen, but it still upsets my personal sense of injustice; and I think it did that of Pankaj Mishra, at least in the Introduction. I could go on, about certain semi-important women who are not listed in the cast of characters, but I will stop being a grouch.
Columbo
9/21/2016 12:59:03 pm
I know sometimes here in the U.S. at a hotel, Comments are closed.
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Author Rebecca Moore is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. She is currently Reviews Editor for Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions and Co-Director of The Jonestown Institute. Archives
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