I came back to Udaipur yesterday (Wednesday) in order to start putting typeface to screen in the matter of the microplan, and have spent today trying to cajole one of the antiquated Vikas Samiti computers into assisting me. No, it’s no good, I am portraying myself in a more virtuous light than I deserve. There was an ulterior motive for coming back early, and that was to join the others in a farewell meal for Melissa. As I have hardly been generous to her in the matter of bandwidth I should at least do her the courtesy of a thumbnail epitaph. Fair haired, Canadian and sharply intelligent, late twenty-something Melissa was the coolest, calmest and most collected of our volunteer community. I will miss her pleasingly dry sense of humour, and even the impression she sometimes gave of standing for no nonsense. Beyond this, however, I have no wish to write an elegy. Let me, instead, pull another North American out of a hat and introduce Zelda Weiss.
Hailing, as Indian journalists invariably put it, from California, Zelda has been working with Vikas Samiti for several months now, and plans to continue working here until next August. She lives in a guesthouse outside but close to Vikas Samiti called “Love Nest”. I am not entirely clear what she does except that it involves clever things with databases and a good working relationship with Sumita, the difficult head of the People’s Management School. Zelda is very short and walks on crutches, but has a personality that she carries around her like a supernova. She has a tremendous amount of energy and a sense of humour that bubbles out irrepressibly, making her huge fun to be around. She, Ellen and I, in particular, have developed a brand of raucous laughter that we fall into almost automatically when the three of us are together. One evening, a group of us were comparing idiomatic expressions from either side of the Atlantic and I related a story about my cousin from Seattle. While at a conference in Europe, she had been saying good night to an English colleague who informed her that because the next day would involve an early start, she’d come and “knock her up in the morning”. To the English lady this meant knocking on her door to wake her up; to the American it meant being impregnated. Hilarity ensued (the “in the morning” must have seemed like a particularly nice touch) but I imagine this paled in comparison to the almost violent outburst of hysterics that my retelling prompted. Since then, “knock you up in the morning” has become standard currency between Zelda and me, and never fails to delight us both.
Confronted with a joy of such vibrancy, the question that almost automatically follows is whether it is balanced by some deep private sadness. In Zelda’s case I really cannot say, and genuinely would rather not speculate. It is almost as if there is something sacred about her that I am scared to go to near to, even here in this journal. Perhaps especially here.
One thing that puzzles us all is her friendship with Sumita. On the surface they seen about as unlikely pairing as you could imagine, and yet the two of them actually came to Vikas Samiti together after meeting as colleagues in a Californian company. It is hard to see what they could possibly have in common - Sumita cross, unsociable, never concealing her distaste for European volunteers; Zelda sharp, witty and universally popular - but they go out regularly together and give every appearance of enjoying each other’s company. Presumably whatever lies at the heart of their friendship comes from California, where Sumita was the stranger and Zelda on her own turf. It is amusing, if difficult, to imagine Sumita in such a different context. [12]
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Meanwhile, I have more to report on the matter of reservations, the caste-based affirmative action policies that intrigued me so much a few weeks back. There have been a number of articles and letters in the newspapers on the issue of whether a reservation category should be set for Muslims. Apparently such a system is already operating in some of the southern states, Karnataka included, where about four per cent of government jobs are reserved for Muslims. Whether or not this is utterly ridiculous rather depends on whether these reservations are created because Muslims constitute a minority, or because they are considered disadvantaged. After all, Jews and Parsis constitute tiny minorities in Indian society, but it would be absurd to suggest Parsi or Jewish reservations, as both communities are, on balance, notoriously wealthy. Nevertheless, there are certainly some who argue that as Muslims have been consistently excluded from politics and the civil service jobs for so long, they deserve some kind of compensation. Detractors argue that Muslim communities require opportunities and development intervention rather than reservations. As far as I can tell, however, the most common version of the proposal is for a blanket reservation for Muslims, running blindly from poverty-ridden Bihari farmers to billionaires from South Bombay. In my half-considered opinion, this is utterly ridiculous.
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Finally, I am happy to announce that simplest and yet most exciting of social joys - I have made a new friend. India, in my experience, both upholds and explodes the cliches of oriental hospitality. On the one hand, I frequently encounter people who exhibit an overwhelming generosity in ordinary life that seems as instinctive to them as it is alien to us. On the other hand, this ready selfless subservience and the associated preoccupation with asking questions (without always being unduly concerned about the answers) can often serve as a barrier to the state of frankness and mutual respect that I consider friendship. In short, hospitality into the home is one thing and hospitality into the heart is quite another. A friend in South India neatly put his finger on the phenomenon: “These people...” in this case his extended family “...will treat you really well, and ask you so many questions, but really they think you’re an alien. You won’t ever get to know them.”
It is always a relief, therefore, to meet people in whom I see a route through this barrier. So far, it has tended to be those whose situation mirrors my own - young, educated, middle class. The students from IRMA are a case in point, and to a lesser extent Yogesh and Shiv. The new friend I alluded to is called Prakash and he is part of Shiv’s circle. Shiv, in fact, is rather in his thrall and on our trips to Maal he constantly referred to his very “minded” (i.e. intelligent) friend Prakash, who would know the answer to whatever issue we might be debating. After the dramatic shift in his opinion of my own cerebral abilities, it became his earnest wish to introduce and witness first hand the meeting of the intellectual giants.
Our first actual encounter was in the slightly unpromising setting of the Vikas Samiti canteen, where the three of us - Shiv, Prakash and I - drank chai and exchanged a fairly pedestrian round of pleasantries. Since then, however, I have met him twice more in the same place and our discussion topics have broadened considerably. As far as I can tell, he merits Shiv’s high opinion and our conversations have been fascinating. He is pleasantly shy and speaks with an occasional stammer, but there is no mistaking the quiet confidence in his voice when he expounds an opinion. I look forward to many more such conversations.
Footnotes
[12] Months later, after I had left Vikas Samiti, I heard that the Zelda had finally terminated the friendship. Later still, Zelda and Sumita both returned separately to San Francisco, where I gather they do not meet.
Next Post - Friday 17th November 2006: Udaipur (will be posted Thursday17th November 2011)
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