I recently checked out How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life at Crossword, a Barnes & Noble-like Indian chain with Barista-style upstairs cafés. The book is chick lit for teens, and the Indian cover interprets that so literally it shows a girl carrying both strappy heels and a stack of textbooks.
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UK/India cover |
The cover model for the UK/India edition could be desi, but her look is more toward the white end of the spectrum. Nor is Opal a common desi name. If I recall correctly (and I may be wrong — will double-check), there’s no mention of Mehta’s desi origins on the cover or in the official blurb (though the blurb for industry buyers is more accurate). Her desi-ness has been excised as neatly as was the turbaned actor from the Life Aquatic poster. To a casual browser it would almost certainly seem that Opal Mehta was just another white character, albeit with a funny last name.
I’m of two minds about this. In one sense it’s wonderful and somewhat subversive to have a desi character where her ethnicity isn’t made an issue. But in this story, surely Mehta’s upper-middle-class, post-’65 desi American-ness is a key reason why her parents are obsessive about her academic life. The plot summary reads like a parody of Asian American parental pushiness. That she’s desi seems integral to the plot.
Not that this is the author’s fault. New authors have famously little say over the trade dress of the product, though later Rushdie books have conspicuously avoided sari covers. (One of the worst: a hardcover of former BBC India correspondent Mark Tully’s book The Heart of India; it has that overbroad title, a garish, hot pink cover, a woman in a sari and a border smothered in garlands.)
The narcissist principle, the desire to interact with people similar to you, drives a lot of book covers and advertising and a lot of this blog. It can be limiting, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. It only becomes objectionable when the work is misrepresented, the work caters to Neanderthal conquest fantasies, or the aspirations being pitched are inherently colonialist.
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U.S. cover: Mughal arches, fabric theme |
The principle is so widely understood that when it’s violated, it’s worth decoding why. In Bombay, ad campaigns often include random white people. A clothing campaign currently features a preppy-looking white guy in suit and tie smiling sheepishly at two hunched-over grandmas in saris. Another shows white people hovering pre-coitally around ice cream. This puzzled me at first. Then it struck me that white models are used in two kinds of advertising: aspirational and sexual.
White models are used in luxury ads because many Indians still aspire to wealthy, civilized, English babu-dom. Conversely, they’re used in bikini ads and ads with sexual double entendres because Western culture is associated with louche sexuality. Using white models both conveys a sheen of sex appeal and lets you show more skin than many Indian models would be comfortable with. It’s a kind of reverse colonialism, and it’s the same schizophrenia about Western liberalism you see in Saudi Arabia, only to a lesser degree.
Related post: Waris’ star turn, The subway series, Buzzword bingo, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, Girls, Girls, Girls
I can’t be the only one here who got flashbacks to the famous “Mere paas Ma hai” exchange between Amitabh and Shashi Kapoor from Deewar when reading “Opal Mehta”‘s post above 😉
are beti,
You told me that you will not get wild and stay away from the White chokras. didnt I tell you u are engaged to Sumitra ben’s son Heman. He is a good match for you. So don’t be foooling around with the Goras.
Love Your Paaapa
My 2 cents here,
(1)There are non gujrati mehtas. I’d like the judge to add that in record here. There are haryanvi mehta and punjabi mehta toos. I wouldnt be surprised if there were UP mehta. One can dig up the history of gujrat and they will see its named after gujjar tribe it had fair amount of hindu punjabi move in ~500 years ago and become pukka gujrati
(2) i looked at the cover and i am not sure if she is desi or not i know plenty of desis who look like that, so dont know what the fuss is about. Again for the record i saw the book mentioned in a few of my feeds, It did not appeal to me that much….
Hiya Teen, I think Opal Mehta’s the book for you then…I thought the book was different because there isn’t any indepth drama of old vs. new desi conflicts, Opal is neurotically goody goody and overall has no problems with her parents telling her what to do. In fact, there isn’t much indepth anything to be had but it’s a fluffy read. Sure to not dent your life or make you a better human being but at least it will keep you occupied for a few hrs.
You know I only flirt with them Daddy flutters eyelashes
And you do know that Heman is gay, don’t you?
And can I borrow your American Express Platinum for next weekend? I’ve been invited to a party in the Hamptons and need first class tickets and a new pair of Monolo Blahnik’s.
Pyaari Beti Oppoo, he is not of the gay, he is what they call a METRO. He only does his eyebrows and dresses in Banana Country clothes. That is Y u think he is the gay. Oh The Hamptons?? Ok I will book the tickets and We can go shopping together. Your Mother and I are planning on coming with you.
Love Your Paaapa
I enjoyed chick-lit when I was in elementry/middle school. I read a lot of the Ramona books as well as Harriet the Spy. That’s some good stuff. Other than that I read mostly sci-fi/fantasy. I’m a secure individual or else I wouldn’t be admiting any of this 🙂
OMG too much…hahhahahaah
Daddy, you better take a look at this picture of Heman I took when he dropped by as you asked him to, and asked if I could take him to the best women’s lingerie stores in Boston. I always knew something was wrong since the time he asked me if I thought he’d look good in a sari.
siddharth thanks for the link, i was suprised to find that our resident geekgod (manish) had failed to find the fatal error in the very first line of the book, an error so egregious that undermines the whole plot of the book, and may be even questoins the truthiness of the entire chicklit genre.
i quote-
I started my count at one. By the time we got out of the car and began walking toward the sign that said Byerly Hall: Admissions Office, I was at nineteen. Reciting my prime numbers always helped me relax. It was an old trick I used for getting through important tests or presentations. It was what I did before every cello recital and Mathletes scrimmage. 23, 29.
1 is not a prime number!
Holy and Sweet Swami Narayan!!!
I could not Believe my ankhennn. Now i wonder why he always liked to come to the steam room with me. Sumitra ben and Rakesh bhai will have a heart attack on the spot when they see this.
You better NOT be lying to me or ur mother. This better not be a creation of the PHOTOSHOP.
Love, Your Paaapa
It isn’t Manish’s fault. We rely on our trained monkeys to bring egregious errors like that to our attention. Rest assured that they will be lectured. How the hell did Opal Mehta even get into Harvard is what we must now ask ourselves.
abhi – i consider neither ramona quimby nor harriet the spy to be chick lit in the least! as one of the oldest beverly cleary fans ever, i commend you on your childhoold literary tastes.
pretend i spelt childhood correctly. ramona gets me excited.
Amreekan Ajooba got you too. The dichotomy is really striking in most thing americans. Your tastes have to be set to whats gay/straight,Liberal/Conservative,wine/beer Or else you need security(mostly from not belonging to a clique) … For all the talk about american individuality i’ve never understood that part. I see more indians being more individualistic than americans and i kid you not. Where as in US it is about creating a community of like minded individuals…
usualy if that is the case, the family will tell the kid, “do you know where jebadiah mehta was from…” and that will be part of the family lore. so its not a big deal if they are from chennai…it just has to be in a context. You know i have never met a sardar named Swami but it can be and usualy there will be a story behind it. hahaha i think thats started to sound like lahiri.
GGK, I’m glad you could infer all that from a self-deprecating comment. From previous comment threads you know how well I think you understand Americans.
i also really liked born confused, though i have noticed there seems to be some generational divide in who enjoyed this book and who didn’t. as in younger people seem to view it as cliche, though when i read it, it was one of the first few books that dealt with things which are more unique to the south asian american experience…
🙂 So much criticism about a teen chick litt book written by, wait, a teenager? I am trying to remember what was I doing when I was a teenager myself – but then maybe I should’nt be judging rest of world based on my mediocrity (when as a teenager, that is).
This rings a bell. I was so annoyed about Amitabh Ghosh’s article in the New Yorker just before the Iraq War, and didn’t find out until much later that the NYer editors had made a mush of his original submission, played hardball negotiating what he had to change to get published etc., so I have no doubt Little, Brown would do the same. Meanwhile, having directed my annoyance at AG, when I heard the npr interview where he talked about it years later, I felt stupid and at the same time quite sorry for him, since I couldn’t have been the only one making the same mistake.
a little late to the party, but anyway 😉
I couldn’t even finish this book. Granted I’m not a tween, and I didn’t go into it expecting any Vikram Seth, but it was atrocious. Born Confused wasn’t awful, but it was still fluffy at best. Not all chick-lit sucks, but some of it does– if the back cover says “the ultimate beach read” you can pretty well bet it’s shite. As was the case with Kavita Daswani’s “For Matrimonial Purposes”… what a thoroughly unlikeable whiner for the protagonist. I’ll take Saleem Sinai any day…
ooh abhi picking up lessons from the great khali the whole point is that americans find that mentioning that is self depricating.
On a sorta related note, I have invested in “The Icarus Girl.” Anyone read it yet?
Neale.
Since we were discussing desi book covers, I just finished reading Nadeem Aslam’s “Map For Lost Lovers”. Great book by the way – a little bit on the obtuse side (trying to hard to be like Rushdie) – still a good exposition of a Pakistani immigrant community in England. The cover of the copy I have shows a lady in bright yellow sari. This is interesting because no female character in the novel ever wears a sari in the whole book. In fact, one female protagonist comments on how the sari is more of an Indian outfit, and goes against Muslim Pakistani sensibilities. So the publisher put this cover art to appeal to stereotypes regarding Indians, but without even taking into consideration the actual content of the book. Go figure
No way, you too? Not only was I reading this in elementry/middle school, I continue to do so today. “The Devil wears Prada” was absolutely FABULOUS, and Sex in the City re-runs are the best.
Neale, I haven’t read “Icarus Girl” yet, but a girlfriend highly recommended it.
Manish, this comment is excellent but may not be complete. Ad campaigns, movies, music in India also tend to use ‘almost white’ browns more often than others. Fair & Lovely is
DesiDancer,
Where have you been?
You stopped visiting once Bong Breaker took off on world tour.
DesiDancer, I will now stick my nose in IG.
Manish, Of bookstores and books in India, if you get a chance check out a publishing house called ‘Katha’ .Website http://www.katha.org. Lots of decent anthologies by Indian writers, many translated. I discovered them in a bookstore called Broadway in Panaji,Goa.
BTW, I have nothing further to say about book “dhakkans” 🙂
Neale
Desi Dancer!
girl, where you been? i’ve been all alone here repping the miscegenated!
also, i’m moving to nyc… contact me, ennis and cicatrix have my info…
peace
coincidence? hmmmm.
siddhartha- word!
I’m kinda happy to see that opal’s made the SM radar – well properly, at least 🙂 okay, I’ll admit it, I happened upon the book in my local bookstore (and noticed it only because of Abhi’s initial post on the book) and happened to read it right then and there in a couple of hours…(so it was a rainy west coast day and I didnt have much else to do 🙂 but I have to say, for all the hype, its certainly not a bad book, its utterly predictable, and certifiably chick lit..but none of the above is a crime..I think its great that kaavya got an unbeliveable deal on the book at the age of 17, because it opens the doors for many young aspiring desi writers to keep writing, get their work read, and succeed in whatever genre they choose, even if its good ol’ chick lit…nothing wrong with that…
What’s more, I read in an interview with kavvya that she had inititally written much darker stuff on the same topic and her “packaging” company working with the publishers wanted her to write more “fluffy”, commercially palatable stuff, so they worked to create the “opal mehta” brand…in fact, in reading parts of the novel, you can see these sparks of clever observation and description, such as when she describes Edison – an Indianized suburb of New Jersey – it’s almost easy to tell that that is Kaavya’s voice, not Opal’s coming through…
What’s up with the weird names in desi fiction? They’re trying to hard to be american which I know is essential since they shouldn’t try to scare away customers, but the names barely sound desi. They sound “exotic” by the boring uncultured American point of view but that’s it. The book Born Confused by another desi author has a character named Dimple. Can Dimple really be classified as a desi name at all?
I think I read about kannadiga sikhs(native) before. can someone verify this(paging razib)
also tamils(not sure about other si’s) have lingam as part of their name which is the male genitalia. although it may be deeper than that. paging somebody more knowledgeable than me.
Oh god yeah Dimple is like Buffy or Bunny with desis. Along with Pinky and Binni. I personally know two patel sisters Kay Lynn and Marissa!! Not kidding. The couple was born here but both are pure Patels from desh. I’ve lost track of the number of desi babies in recent years (that I know personally of) named Dylan. The angolicized desi names is no longer unusual. A lot of people are doing it.
Hey, I like exotic Americanized names for desis 😉
Just kidding. But I think Dimple is tooootally desi. Just going by semi-immediate family (grandparents siblings and all their kids) my family has at least 3 Dimples. Of course, when they’re all in the same room then they get even more ridiculous nicknames, including Bunny, Biloo, Bunti, Baby, etc. I feel like any of these names would fly, really.
I saw this book at Borders and the cover was different and looked indian to me.
Hey DesiDancer,
Welcome back ! I was wondering what was going on — for a while there I thought I might have accidentally scared you off SM with my pretend-lothario jokes. I’ve been behaving myself in the intervening period, as you may have noticed 😉
Great to have you back on SM anyway — the Mutiny wouldn’t be the same without you.
Noma – a person growing up in America (albeit of desi parentage or birth) may actually consider him or herself to be a ‘boring uncultured American’. I know I consider myself just that.
PS: I know of plenty of Dimples and Bunty’s etc, etc, and was even married to one, at one time 🙂
i remember a c-span interview with kaavya and her saying that the character’s name was shortened by her editors from gopal to opal because they felt gopal was too gay
You learn something new daily. I never thought that women would be called Gopal. It’s not a gay name..it’s just masculine. Unlike Krishna which is unisex.
I wonder if she chose Mehta because it’s less visually (and otherwise) threatening than say…Balasubramaniam, Mukherjee or Ahluwalia. Compared to those, “Mehta” is a much more friendly version of ethnic. Maybe “Mehta” was the only desi name which would work for this situation. Would people pick up this book if the protag had been named “Opal Patel”? Would “Opal Shah” ^ Actually I disagree, in the Harry Potter books, there are indian twins who’s last name is Patel.
Actually, it’s Patil.
vivo: “lingam” in names refers to Lord Shiva. and the male genitalia. don’t you love hindu symbolism?
BrownGirl (#95),
Phallic worship in general is a result of assimilation(or growth)of fertility based faiths.
Also [Lingam]
Regards
There’s no way the girl on the cover is Indian.
No Indian would put a shoe on top of a stack of books and then be photographed — can you imagine how much trouble you would get into with your parents for something like that?
Really? Too gay?! How bizarre.
What else did she say? pal podi please share the dirt!
This is actually quite common. Remember the (80s was it?) television show “The Incredible Hulk?” The main character (the Hulk) was named David Banner even though the character in the comic book is Bruce Banner. The television show producers though the name Bruce was “too gay” so they changed it for television audiences.
I couldn’t help but think that Bruce Wayne and his Dark Knight alter ego would have been pissed off at this stupid move.
I see that for a male name (not that I think it any less stupid) but for a woman?
Ridiculous and offensive as it all is, I can see Gopal being shot down for being too foreign-sounding, un-relatable, not feminine, even dorky sounding, to mainstream American chick-lit readers… but gay?! What the hell..