The work is attractive primarily because there is a good deal of information about the tea plantations and tea industry in general, in more than one aspect - how the plantations function, the harvesting and the "manufacture" of tea, the hierarchy structure strictly adhered to, clubs and poverty of workers, and so on.
There are indications that this work is based on the author's life, but not clear if it is in fact precisely the autobiography with a mere change of names, so one might take it that much of it is based on his own life and experiences, feelings and thinking.
As such, the first thing that strikes one is how - and how much - the protagonist/author (Mark Edwards / Marcel Daniel) is conflicted between his various roots of identity due to the circumstances it was brought about due to, namely, the colonial rule of his ancestors' land by those from across halfway around the globe and conversion of his ancestors' from their own culture to that of rulers.
Culture, because it was not merely faith or religion that the rulers and their missionary accompaniment arriving with military protection sought. What rather was aimed at very deliberately was the destruction of morale of the ruled, by deliberate attacks coupled with lack of - and indeed inability to - comprehension of the ancient deep rich culture that was of India. In case of those that did convert, either partly by accepting the education for more than opening of a window to the faraway lands and new winds, or those that went the whole hog and gave up their own roots in all but blood (or even that, in case of those that happened to marry one of the rulers and convert far more), this demoralisation worked much more than in case of those that kept their own roots while allowing opening of windows and doors to more light and air.
Thus Edwards/Daniel is forever conflicted between his bringing up which is very English, and his own reflection in the mirror which he is unable to identify with - he feels that the person in the mirror is not, could not be, himself, because he is English, even though he knows he is completely Indian by blood and only English due to his three or more generations of ancestors having lived an English life in India.
As a consequence of this conflict ironically he blames India and indeed its culture and faiths not only along the lines prescribed by the rulers that had left before the story begins, but for anything that goes wrong in his personal life, as long as there is someone Indian or Hindu involved - which is unavoidable as long as he lives in India. Often it is something common to most cultures, most societies, most nations, as in case of the expected fraternal bonding and hierarchy in his military life, and the necessity of obedience to not only rules but to superiors, which is backbone structure of any military and in fact of most corporate institutions in US as well. Another example is when incidents of dishonesty or bullying occur, which do in any society, but which to Edwards / Daniel are convenient to deal with by blaming India and Hinduism. Indeed his, and his community's - his father, his bosses who happen to be of his faith, and so forth - first response to any such occurrence is "these bloody Indians"; one wonders what the response would have been had they dared to emigrate to the lands of those they identify with, and then find the same problems, which in fact are more than common. Dishonesty, bullying, and so forth do not get any better when one is perceived as an outsider due to racist culture of a land, nor do expectation of bosses who look upon subordinates as people to blame for their own shortcomings.
But Edwards and his father are all too aware of the various shortcomings of European colonisers in this respect, of the destruction wreaked on the lands they attacked and occupied in the name of "discovery", denying the very human rights of the occupants of those lands by calling them "aboriginal" or any other derogatory names, and naming those lands to suit rather than respecting the names that existed. This awareness stops short of including India, since it would cleave their own identity itself, even though it is not denied. Edwards is all too aware of how racist are the societies of various colonies that are now seen as European emigrants' lands rather than as colonies occupied, such as US and Canada and Australia, and indeed Britain.
Hence the deliberation about emigration to those lands, where one might feel at home due to one's feeling and living English rather than Indian, goes finally against the idea due to the certainty of being treated as a second class citizen at best due to one's physical appearance. It is much more convenient to stay put in India, live an English life, look down on Indians and then blame them for one's own alienation. Not that different from blaming one's mother for being a child of rape, this whole conflict and resolution, after the rapist has pillaged and left the mother and children destitute.
............................................
Ironically it does not occur to the protagonist/author that the hierarchical structure he describes without comment is not qualitatively different from the structure of India that he deplores so very vociferously for being divided by castes, while the divisions of India along languages and identities of people along linguistic lines are no different from those in Europe. If anything the caste structure imposed by colonial rule and that prevalent in most societies of the world is along the lines of power and money ruling and ascribing all other virtues to itself, while that in India is comparatively far more enlightened - power and money are separated and held lower than intellectual knowledge, while spiritual life is everyone's prerogative, and duties along the lines of one's vocation are strictly taught and imposed.
.........................................
It is only when Edwards emigrates for work to Papua New Guinea due to his inability to work in India - partly due to his being unable to resolve the conflict between his own upright, independent being and the dishonesty and bullying he encounters, and partly due to his blaming it all on the country of his origin and countrymen he refuses consistently to identify with, preferring to see himself as better due to being English rather than seeing that he is honest and independent and upright because of his own choice - that he is brought to awareness of superiority of some virtues of India and Indians, although he is lagging behind as yet in realising that his conflicts that occurred in India could and indeed would occur everywhere else as well, with the difference that then they would be blamed on not only him but his race, his country of origin, and the racist assumption that anyone whose ancestors lived in lands with sun are lesser than those whose ancestors lived in darker latitudes closer to one of the poles rather than the equator.
..........................
Friday, March 2, 2012
Much ironic once one has finished with this - not the bitterness which is understandable under the circumstances, nor the feeling of comfort the protagonist has mainly when in surroundings not of his ancestral roots but - as he frankly expresses again and again - that of anglophones, or even better, a land where he is as much an outsider as any "white" person, so that he can be as much aloof above the general madding crowd as he desires to be, which is only natural since that is the example held out to him as one to emulate - that of British rulers and others who occupied India and left post enough looting rather than that of the indigenous with their rich culture and multiple layers of deep virtues - no, none of this, but only this - that he finally does not blame or indict those that hurt him far more in physical and psychological sense than the first couple of incidences of attacks by bullies that were of his own country.
For the latter, he indicts the whole nation and its people and especially the majority community, in spite of the fact that it was his own and his ancestors' choice to separate and hold themselves above the milieu so they were the privileged people halfway up the rung of preferences closer to the rulers in every choice of posts and other benefits; in other lands, other cultures, such separation and aligning oneself with occupying looters is rewarded with persecution and death, rather than the merely factual acceptance of the separation chosen by those that align themselves thus as India and its majority community does. But he wants it both ways - to clearly state his own and his ancestors' preference about separating themselves, aligning themselves with the rulers, being comfortable only in the surroundings emulating the rulers long after they left, taking all the perks that were theirs due to this preference and conversion as natural, and then resenting when things are set right for the nation after the rulers have left (not taking their local imitations with them as the French did, offering citizenship of France to every citizen of any colony) - resenting the separation and blaming it on those they left to climb up the ladder.
This contrasts rather absurdly with the comparatively less blame, less resentment or even dispassionate indictment of those that actually harmed him far more, either due to the discriminating laws and contracts at work or due to direct attacks that were - unlike those in India - intending to kill, and far more successful at that.
Daniel / Edwards is able to describe the attacks on his property and life in Papua New Guinea - where he went to work after blaming India for all his problems - with precision and dispassionate correct descriptions but with no horror attached to it; indeed he fails to take precautions to safeguard his own life long past having been cautioned in the only way it might have been, since the company won't pay for the whole security need - he is satisfied to point out the discrimination to his colleague and go about his merry way knowing fully well that attacks on his person are as likely as those on anyone and anything that do indeed happen regularly - and merely goes about to describe the attack clinically with no horror, no blame, no disgust at those that did it; he rather indulges in guilty feeling blaming himself for death of the dog that attempted to protect him by fighting off the attackers alongside.
And then he blames the racist discrimination of a whole country or a whole industry even less even as he clinically describes the details of how they were responsible for his ending up losing use of half his body, since the Australian person in charge of immigration who could grant him a visa (as he regularly does to every "white" visitor merely for asking) due to the medical emergency and chooses to refuse showing his manual and insisting the routine of several weeks applying for a visa is observed, never mind the medical emergency. That the company could have sent him to UK for the operation on a more proper flight at their expense is not even thought of, since he is not one of the ruling clique, a "white" person, but surprisingly no one even thinks of sending him to Hong Kong or Singapore or India where it all might have been taken care of.
And finally, having chosen to uproot himself from India - he sold off his parents' home in a part of the country where they had no roots and no relatives post the death of parents, and had no interest in finding the rest of his clan that might have embraced him and given him a home and a family to belong to and put down roots in, since he much prefers the company of anglophones and indeed such English as would deign to speak to him as a human at all - he then must end his life in the strange land where he was dealt with the murderous attack by the locals.
....................................
And yet his finale' is nothing short of an emulation of some of the finest of Indian understanding of existence, although he mucks it up by then justifying his never identifying himself with his image in his mirror! Such is the half baked attitude of those that would cut off their own roots and float forever in shark infested waters of reefs faraway - roots after all bring responsibilities and belonging!
.......................................
These are some of the books I read during last half a century or so, and some of the thoughts, questions, reactions and insights, emotions - and so forth -, evoked on reading them, either then or later sometime during the interim years and decades, or even thinking over now, that are summed up here while trying to record my impressions about what I read.
Serene, Reflecting
Life Recedes