Community leaders from Tower Hamlets, London have started a campaign against the filming of Monica Ali’s 2003 novel Brick Lane. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a big commercial and critical success. Reactions by many South Asian readers I heard from were mixed, mainly because of Ali’s use of a kind of pidgin English in the letters from the main character’s sister in Bangladesh, Hasina. (Our blog-friend DesiDancer also had a succinct review: “utter crap”, were her delicate, carefully chosen words)
Of course, the quality of the book is mostly irrelevant to the censorship campaign under way. This campaign seems to be an extension of the campaign against the book itself in 2003, and includes some of the same players and the same sad rhetoric of outrage and offense that is routinely trotted out these days in response to something or other:
In an echo of the controversy which surrounded the initial publication of the book, set partly in the east London borough, the novel is accused of reinforcing “pro-racist, anti-social stereotypes” and of containing “a most explicit, politically calculated violation of the human rights of the community”.
Community leaders attacked the book on its publication in 2003, claiming that it portrayed Bangladeshis living in the area as backward, uneducated and unsophisticated, and that this amounted to a “despicable insult”. (link)
The misguided attempt to protect the community’s honor through censorship will be ineffective, and the censorship campaign itself has the ironic effect of making the community look really, really bad. The leader of the campaign is making an only thinly-veiled threat of violence if film cameras are brought to Brick Lane:
He brushed aside suggestions that a work of fiction couldn’t be seen as an attack on a community. “It’s not a fiction book,” he explained. “This is all lies. She wanted to be famous at the cost of a community.”
He also claimed that community groups prevented Monica Ali from being awarded the Booker prize. “This book was contesting for the Booker prize,” he said. “We stopped that.”
Mr Salique raised the spectre of a worsening in community relations if filming goes ahead on location. “We are living in a multicultural society,” he said. “We are in a peaceful situation. This film will make a lot of problems for local people.”
He threatened mass protests if the company attempts to film on the streets of Tower Hamlets, saying that “the community feels strongly about this. We are not going to let it happen.
“Young people are getting very involved with this campaign. They will blockade the area and guard our streets. Of course, they will not do anything unless we tell them to, but I warn you they are not as peaceful as me.” (link)
I love the part where he says, “this is not a fiction book . . . It’s all lies.” Speaks for itself, donnit? And “I warn you they are not as peaceful as me” is a really ominous, nasty little threat, which I hope the filmmakers will ignore.
Here’s a paragraph from the novel itself describing the physical space of Brick Lane in London. Does it really merit this kind of censorship campaign?
A horn blared like an ancient muezzin ululating painfully, stretching his vocal cords to the limit. She stopped and the car swerved. Another car skidded to a halt in front of her and the driver got out and began to shout. She ran again and turned into a side street, then off again to the right onto Brick Lane. She had been here a few times with Chanu, later in the day when the restaurants smelled of fresh boiled rice and old fried fat and the waiters with their tight black pants stood in doorways holding out menus and smiles. But now the waiters were at home asleep, or awake being waited on themselves by wives who only served and were not served in return except with board and lodging and the provision of children whom they also, naturally, waited upon. And the streets were stacked with rubbish, entire kingdoms of rubbish piled high as fortresses with only the border skirmishes of plastic bottles and grease-stained cardboard to separate them. A man looked up at some scaffolding with an intent, almost ardent, expression as if his love might be at the top, cowering on the high planks or the dark slate roof. A pair of schoolchildren, pale as rice and loud as peacocks, cut over the road and hurtled down a side street, galloping with joy or else with terror. Otherwise, Brick Lane was deserted. Nazneen stopped by some film posters pasted in waves over a metal siding. The hero and heroine peered at each other with epic hunger. The scarlet of her lips matched the bandanna tied around his forehad. A sprinkling of sweat highlighted the contour of his biceps. The kohl around her eyes made them smoke with passion. Some invisible force was keeping them (only inches) apart. The type at the foot of the poster said: The world could not stop their love. (Brick Lane, page 32)
Now, if I lived in Tower Hamlets or worked on Brick Lane I might not be happy about the piles of rubbish Ali describes (from my own experience visiting the place five years ago, I don’t remember any piles of rubbish, though I visited in the middle of the day). But why are people always so quick to find characterizations like these “offensive” or “insulting”? Is it really worth rioting over?
sure they did. I bet the fact that the book was slightly better than a Fabio-covered supermarket potboiler might have been part of why it didn’t get the Booker. I cringe to think it would hold company with some of the previous Booker recipients.
Fabio? or FOBio? hmmmm.
Call it the L.A. in me, but if they do a blockade of the neighborhood, can’t they film the movie in a studio or a film set? I mean, from what I recall of the book, it’s not like the main character was dependent on a set that just had to film on location.
I thought the book was crap, but my mother loved it. Go figure. I’m sure her and all her friends will go watch the movie.
I think this whole campaign is ridiculous, and it always drives me mad to see the energy of organizing getting wasted on a campaign like this when there are more important things going on the world that could use this South Asian organzing energy. I’d be interested to hear from some of our “Asian” bros/sisters across the pond on what they have to say about the campaign…
Taz,
Yes, they definitely can. It won’t look quite as good, but most of this story takes place indoors anyways, so I doubt it will matter very much. The bigger worry may be what happens when the film is released.
Community leaders attacked the book on its publication in 2003, claiming that it portrayed Bangladeshis living in the area as backward, uneducated and unsophisticated, and that this amounted to a “despicable insult”. (link)
and
The misguided attempt to protect the communityÂ’s honor through censorship will be ineffective, and the censorship campaign itself has the ironic effect of making the community look really, really bad.
QED? such behavior is disgusting and make america cautious of its own immigration policies.
Jesus. Was she tutored by Thomas Friedman or what? Yuck! They should be protesting over that being considered for a Booker at all. That first sentence is terrible.
From what I understand, the basic objection is to the fact that the heroine is married to a much older man (I’m assuming it’s portrayed as a dysfunctional marriage — I haven’t read the book myself yet) and subsequently has an affair with a young guy.
I also believe that some younger Asians — including British Bangladeshis — think that the protestors’ own actions (which seem to be dominated by older uncle types) actually make the Brick Lane/British Bangladeshi community look worse than the supposedly-objectional aspects of the novel itself.
I wonder if the people concerned realise that, as a self-fulfilling prophecy, by their own actions the second point risks actuallly proving the first point. They’re hanging themselves with their own rope.
A few men in a ladoo shop on Brick Lane DO NOT represent anyone but themselves, and they certainly do not warrant being described as ‘community leaders’. Your average Brit-Bangla couldnt care less about it. But the media needs controversy, and solitary men in backstreet shops want attention, and hey presto, people in America are worrying about them and they are famous.
Let’s hope the movie is better than the novel.
A few men in a ladoo shop on Brick Lane DO NOT represent anyone but themselves, and they certainly do not warrant being described as ‘community leaders’.
a multicultural society needs ‘community leaders’ because individuals are irrelevant, you are nothing but a cog in the ethnic machine, and that machine needs and executive control system.
i am reading a monograph right now on the assimilation of islamic groups into the russian empire in the late 18th and 19th centuries, and it is interesting to see how the empire legitimized and formalized heirarchies to generate ‘community leaders’ with whom it could negotiate. same thing is happening the west. people always bitch about the power imbalance with the white man, but the reality is that the more impactful tyrants are local.
Calm down Razib.
I repeat, a bunch of men in white vests in ladoo shops in Brick Lane are not ‘community leaders’. When mischief is granted publicity it’s so easy to make broad brush strokes about entire communities. Do you really believe that their ‘outrage’ is indicative or representative of Brit-Bengalis? There’s an antidote to this – ignore them.
What is that monograph? Can we also read it?
Here is the lowdown:
Seems to me that this whole episode shows how easy it is for a jumped up agitator NOBODY to get himself listened to in certain situations, and a media that is eager and gullible to jump on any half-wit to give them a sensationalist piece of news.
The man in the sweet shop is not the only person to blow things out of all proportion though, some people can scratch their chins and invoke the 18th Century Russian Empire into this proverbial storm in a teacup 😉
good point, Taz. Surely a semi-convincing set could be faked, especially since only a small percentage of the potential viewing audience would actually know what the “real” Brick Lane looks like. -When the movie “Rent” came out last year, I had a friend ask me in which neighborhood of NYC they shot the song picturisation for “Last Year’s Rent”. They didn’t; it was just a pretty good Lower East Side Generic Set Piece 147-152…
1) For prophet and tsar : Islam and empire in Russia and Central Asia / Robert D. Crews
2) pablo, brown ppl in the UK, especially muslims (i would say just muslims, but the sikh thuggishness and illiberality in relationship to the theater incident a few years back makes me have to throw the net wider), are messed up. a few dozen whackjobs can blow people up, oh, oops, they have. yes, the preponderance of the community isn’t messed up, so what? revolutionary vanguards can cause a lot of problems….
The book was mediocre, but it has some wel-drwan male characters — Chanu, Karim, Dr.Azad, and Razia’s drug-addled son. Archetypes of Desi manhood in the west? Yep. How terribly pathetic.
I think I have to agree with Razib. Community leaders do matter, not only in setting the vibe for discourse in MSM but also within the community itself. Also the powers that be need “native informants,” and community leaders are defacto liasons. If you disagree with them they should be contested, not ignored.
Razib, people know that ‘revolutionary vanguards’ as you put it are messed up. Does anybody dspute that? I don’t see anyone doing so.
However, given the quotes above, of Brick Lane Bengalis saying that thousands of Bengalis in the area are involved in the production of the film, and support it, and dismiss the ramblings of a fat nincompoop who can’t even squeeze twenty people into his hole in the wall, it would appear that Muslims in Brick Lane are not a monolithic breed. Simple point to grasp. OK you grasped it but wanted to make a wider point about how Muslims in Britain are singular devils. And 18th Century Russia. Got it. Well done!
desitude
Ummmm…these people are not community leaders. They are fat sweet sellers. Read the quotes above. They are not only being contested, they are being dismissed by the thousand and more Bengalis in Tower Hamlets involved in the film production, as well as local residents who either ignore or dont care about such a thing.
I bet there’s a parallel with 18th Century Russia there somewhere.
Razib — Have u read the book?
I hate to say this but desis when they choose to band together on any cause tend to emerge with too many chiefs and not enough Indians. If this mimics any of the local politics that took place thru the 90s on Oak Tree Road in Islin or 74th Street in Jackson Heights where the so called community leaders (small shop owners) tried to band together to gain power within the community, it will be a big ass failure.
The bickering and infighting over the position of the chief and what rules were to be made and the battles to be picked eventually split people up and caused more problems within the community. The 90s passed and in the past 5 years these very desis started moving out east…towards Nassau country. Pockets of desiness…Hicksville, Bellerose and they are still infighting, except they have bigger houses and better cars. They are still split, there is no unity or for that matter there exists general hostility among the locals they fail to mingle with and even among the 3 major groups of desis that live there, Malayalees, Gujjus and Punjabis. They don’t even patronize the shops evenly.
20 years and to date they haven’t been able to do so many of the basic changes (small exception Patel Bros in JH) that are desperately needed for the communities. Traffic/bus route control, security and crowd control, parking rules and above and beyond getting someone elected into the damn community boards! Nothing….
DesiDancer, Rent was actually shot in San Francisco…go figure!! I really didn’t enjoy Brick Lane at all– I just thought the writing was bad and the “woman stuck in bad marriage” theme was not expanded in a way that was compelling. Her characters became unidimensional and insipid. I wonder if the lack of depth will be transferred to the development of the characters in the screen play. Time will tell.
OK you grasped it but wanted to make a wider point about how Muslims in Britain are singular devils.
not singular.
ikram, half way through.
I hate to say this but desis when they choose to band together on any cause tend to emerge with too many chiefs and not enough Indians. If this mimics any of the local politics that took place thru the 90s on Oak Tree Road in Islin or 74th Street in Jackson Heights where the so called community leaders (small shop owners) tried to band together to gain power within the community, it will be a big ass failure.
This always happens. I met with a few “community leaders” in Coney Island a few years ago and each of them had some choice comments about the other ones. In the Queens Indian bong circuit that i grew up in, there are at least 3 pujas–not counting the other one in Nassau county or the ones in New Jersey. Desi NGOs routinely have conflicts–NYTWA alliance emerged from CAAAV (which is pan-Asian, as far as I know); Workers Awaaz split from Sakhi and later Andolan split from Workers’ awaaz. The South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association had a big, traumatizing fight when a few members left to start a for-profit queer desi party company. There are other examples, obviously.
It’s people and politics and power, yo–it’s not the end of the world unless it turns personal and vitriolic and people place their own personal interests (esp. ego and power) above and beyond community work. The key, I would guess, is to manage these things effectively.
Incidentally, I decided not to read the book and am curious as to whether the OTHER aspect of Brick Lane that I noticed (about 4 years ago) got any mention–that it’s a clubbing district, replete with a ton of postering and whatnot, at night. That desis are driving the taxis (sometimes gypsy cabs) that are taking these pan-ethnic but likely mostly White partiers home.
It’s something of a mindf$ck when you go to a neighborhood in the daytime and it’s a working class bong neighborhood and you go at night to party. But I suppose that’s only because I’m not a Latino in the Lower East Side of New York or some such thing that the disjoint was stark.
Yeah but when you are less than 2% of the pop you end up losing respect of the rest of the 98% and getting anything done is impossible. Hell I was a Netip officer for 10 minutes before I resigned because I couldn’t deal with the fucking powertripping. Desis are full of themselves unfortunately when it comes to trying to support eachother. Everyone wants to be the President!
I compare the desis with simple lack of crowd/traffic/bus route/parking control or for that matter interest in JH after having economic power there for 20 years to those that wanted to change the rules/laws/lanes/traffic on Queens Blvd about 4 years ago when the death toll was so high. I worked with them and found little to no power tripping going on. That group was successful in changing the whole fabric of Queens with the changes to Queens Blvd. So I know it is possible I just think desis are a serious failure at this kind of organization with focus for the greater good.
Janeofalltrades, “If this mimics any of the local politics that took place thru the 90s on Oak Tree Road in Islin or 74th Street in Jackson Heights where the so called community leaders (small shop owners) tried to band together to gain power within the community, it will be a big ass failure.”
Hopefully this censorship movement will be a failure. This is such a crazy thing to get upset about. If a book is offensive, the movie will censor itself, as I learned after my attempts to organize mass protests against the Mistress of Spices on ethical grounds didn’t quite pan out 🙂 And what was with those letters in the book? Since they were obviously a translation, was it that the sister didn’t really know how to speak Bengali and that’s why they translated to bad English? You would think an editor could have pointed that out.
Sleepy,
Actually, I think it was done that way to show that Hasina was barely literate in Bangla; in the novel, Nazneen herself didn’t know any English until the very end. Obviously, everyone in the novel speaks Bangla perfectly well.
A lot of people were confused by this…
OK this is a lame ignorant question but I may as well ask in this thread.
I always thought that Bangladeshis (mosly Muslim) were called Bangla and Bengalis (mostly Hindu from India) were called Bongs. Am I wrong in this assumption? One group is different from the other or because of the commanality in the language they are one and the same? Because in NY I don’t see the two groups mingle. Do they?
JoaT,
I believe it goes like this:
Bangla = the language Bengali = the people Bong = the affectionate nickname for the people
Thanx Amardeep so my question is do Bangladeshis and Bengali Indians differentiate from each other at all?
Amardeep,
Thanks. I barely remember that book but I did remember Hasina talking about reading the Quran (there was that whole thing about how she really wanted to be able to read it in Arabic) so I just assumed she was literate. Now, I think about it, a lot of her reading may just have been what she remembered from other people reading the Quran. I guess I can let it go, I don’t need that many reasons to dislike a book 🙂
My friend knows Salique’s son and says he’s a huge pothead — he actually thought I was making this story up when I read it aloud to him, and then a segment about it just came on BBC news (4 pudgy men with poor English sitting in a restaurant), so he had to believe it. So in terms of the ideas of Brick Lane the book — drug-addled kids, illiterate young wives imported from Bangladesh to marry older men and NEVER leaving the neighborhood or interacting with the larger world — it ain’t too far off. As for that community having affairs, who knows? My friend’s Brit Bangladeshi boss has an arranged marriage from a girl back home and several kids, yet keeps several Brit girlfriends on the side. But a more entertaining read is Salaam Brick Lane by Tarquin Hall.
As for Brick Lane being a clubbing district, it’s strictly segregated. The bottom half is full of beards and restaurants and council estates and the upper half is all the bars and vintage clothing stores. There’s nothing really “western” in the Bangladeshi half, and there’s barely a brown presence in the other half.
Janeofalltrades: You and I have been watching the same western.
I read a mostly favorable review in the Nation when the book came out. But the description jammed my Asian woman’s antenna with negative vibes. I didn’t read it after all. I suspect Desi Dancer is likely closer to the truth. But what does it say about the Booker selection committee that this book made the final cut? Again, the same old, same old hackneyed expectations from writers of certain ethnicities?
I read “Brick Lane” earlier this year and loved it. The book does not tread new waters per se, as similar subject matter was explored in Bharati Mukherjee’s “Wife”. As I come from a blue-collar immigrant background myself, I appreciated that Ali was able to capture the realities that come from that experience. While, I grew up in Canada, I felt that the neighbourhood described, could easily have been the brown ghetto I grew up in.
What I find fascinating about the current backlash the movie production of the novel is receiving, is that it is ironic in face of the actual content of the book. One of the storylines of the novel revolves around the attempt of group of Muslims trying to be radical through protest. Karim, one of the protagonists, is heavily involved in this radical group. Ali shows through the course of the novel, how flawed a narrow minded approach to protest can be, and how ultimately it can be riddled hypocritical and unproductive.
If anything, the current protest is a funny example of life imitating art.
Thanx Amardeep so my question is do Bangladeshis and Bengali Indians differentiate from each other at all?
I think they dont differnetiate as much as the Punjabis from Indian Punjab differentiate themselves from the Punjabis in Pakistani Punjab. I do know Urdu speakers from Delhi-UP do not differentiate themselves from the Urdu speakers in Karachi at all. (Almost all of them have family on both sides though). Maybe the Bengalis from Indian Bengal/Bangladesh are somewhere in the middle of Punjabis (completely seperate) and Urdu speakers (no difference). I also wonder about the this dynamic between Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Tamils.
pressed post to soon…meant to say in last line of 2nd paragraph…Ali shows through the course of the novel, how flawed a narrow minded approach to protest can be, and how ultimately it can be riddled with hypocrisy and be counter-productive.
The spoken Bengali in Bangladesh and Indian West Bengal can be quite different. The Bengali of East Bengali refugees of 1947, (who spoke Bangla dialects similar to Bangladeshis) is fast disappearing among their progeny in India. Written Bengali is more or less the same across the border. Muslim Bengalis tend to use smatterings of Urdu in their Bengali. For example, water is paani among Muslims. Hindu Bengalis say jol.
do Bangladeshis and Bengali Indians differentiate from each other at all?
On both sides of the border, bangla (Bengali language) has quite a few dialects which are almost unintelligible by the “standard” bangla speakers. Leaving that aside, the “standard” bangla spoken in both West Bengal and Bangladesh will be mostly understood by all bangalis (Bengali people), even though there are some phonological variations and a difference in the relative influence of Perso-Arabic and Sanskrit words. The script is identical.
The big difference between them is of course the religious affiliation – West bengal is Hindu majority and Bangladesh is Muslim majority – which also explains the differences in lexical influences. The division of Bengal, the awful way it was handled and the terrible pre-partition and post-partition riots caused a lot of mistrust and resentment. It has not been completely forgotten yet and the lack of mingling you see in the diasporic bangali community is partially a result of that bitterness. Also the religious celebrations that typically unite any desi community are not shared, so that reduces the chances of getting together.
However, the celebration of language and culture is still a big uniting force – two big events are Nababarsho (Bengali new year) and Rabindrajayanti (Rabindranath’s birthday). Bangladesh’s poets like Samsur Rahaman, writers like Taslima Nasreen and Rabindrasangeet singers like Rezwana Banya Chaudhuri are iconic figures in West Bengal.
The assertion of Bengali identity and aspirations over a pan-Islamic one inspired the freedom struggle of Bangladesh. Since independence, it has been a very interesting struggle between those two forces.
Dipanjan thank you for the wonderful and detailed explaination.
That was very detailed Dipanjan. My grandparents who came over from Bangladesh during the partition of Bengal still speak in their native Bangal dialect when talking to their peers or cussing people. I can understand most of the words but I would have trouble figuring them out in real time, which hampers my fluency in the dialect. I was pleasantly surprised to find a 2nd-Gen Bangladeshi girl speak the dialect perfectly, even recently. But I guess it makes sense, since that is the only version she grew up with. It struck me as quaint that a Texan would speak the language of my grandparents better than I could.
I am a FOB+9 (nine years ago, I was a FOB). I run into similar anachronisms a lot when I talk to my 2nd-gen cousins and nephews. So much of their Indian experience and identity is shaped by their parents and others from their parents’ generation that sometimes I find myself in a timewarp – a surreal combination of 70s Calcutta and 21st century USA.
DesiDudeInGotham:
And there are many young Punjabis born and raised in the UK, Canada, and California, who speak better Punjabi than young (or even middle-aged) Punjabi people born and raised (and still living in) Lahore and Chandigarh. It’s a total failure of the system and society in India/Pakistan.
Dipanjan,
Both hindu and muslim bangalis love nazrul and nazrulgeet, don’t they? Another uniting factor.
My grandparents were refugees from Bangladesh, and pronounced ‘sh’ as ‘s’ – so ‘eshegache?’ became ‘esegache?’, among other uniquenesses. I wish I could’ve picked more of this up before they died.
Bengali, as you know, is precious to Bengalis like almost nothing else – bangalis are fanatics about their bhasa, so it is very odd that anything else can intervene in this love. I remember sitting very lonely in a shawarma joint in the town I’d just moved to for a job, and hearing some bengali words that warmed me immediately. They were followed by the speaker asking repeatedly whether the food he was ordering was ‘halal? you’re sure it’s halal??’. It sounded a very alien note to me in the middle of that warmth. Not repellent, just alien.
when i wuz in bangladesh 2 years ago i was saying something to my mother, and my uncle (her brother) laughed out loud. he explained that what i’d said was a quaint form of comilla (where my family is from in bangladesh) dialect that he hadn’t really heard in many years (most of my family lives abroad or dhaka). it has become clear to my that my speech has a somewhat retro and small-town feel to it 🙂 also, my understanding is that some of the differences re: urdu terminology was due to sanskritization of elite bengali speech (of which the hindu bhadrolok were the guardians).
also, i suspect it is a mistake to dichotomize the dialects of east and west bengal and two separate groups. the various dialects of eastern bengal, from that of sylhet to barisal to bogra to chittagong are very different, and those of the western regions are probably more like that the rural dialects across the border in india than they are like the speech of comilla or sylhet. the unifier has been the spread of dhaka standard among the elites who move from city to city.
and yes, closer than punjabis from pakistan and india. no offense to punjabis but they don’t seem to have a “love of language” in the way bengalis do. my parents socialized with many pakistanis, and the most intense arguments always had to with the tendency for pakistanis, mostly punjabis, to dismiss the language issue. they offered that they were teaching their own children urdu, not punjabi, so they didn’t understand why east bengalis couldn’t have gotten aboard the ‘lingua franca’ (my understanding is that punjabi sikhs tend to be more linguistically identified than muslims or hindus).
DQ, Yes, I missed Nazrul geeti – it is an important musical genre. My maternal grandparents were also refugees from Bangladesh.
Do you think you were repelled by the religious aspect brought out by the word halal or just its (harsh?) sound? I know that a lot of hindu bangalis do not like the word pani(water), but I always thought it sounds very soothing.
About the love of our bhasa and how precious it is to us, I don’t know. Nowadays almost everyone I know in West Bengal, who is younger to me, seems to study in English-medium schools where Bangla is hardly taught and they watch bollywood and Hindi soaps in their spare time. Bangla is rapidly becoming a third language in West Bengal, at least in the urban areas. I believe the situation is much better in Bangladesh.
and yes, closer than punjabis from pakistan and india. no offense to punjabis but they don’t seem to have a “love of language” in the way bengalis do.
Thats true. Hindi replaced Punjabi esp. for Hindu Punjabis who moved out of Punjab. Lala Lajpat Rai and other nationalists and Arya Samajis were pro-Hindi.
i think a language captures folkways and even a vision of seeing the world, so i think for a punjabi interested in punjabi culture, learning punjabi is valuable if one wants to connect to their culture to speak the language. one gets a sense of punjabi culture from the language. the ryhtmic nature of how you speak punjabi is neat. i actually think the language conflicts in south india are whack. learn as many as you can ‘mang
*South India = South Asia
Dipanjan,
I wasn’t repelled, really. I felt such a connection when I heard them speaking Bengali that I wanted to speak with them. Then when the guy was so adamant about his food being ‘halal’, I thought they might not want to speak with me (I’m not, after all, ‘halal’). When I’m in India, and I hear a Canadian or American voice, it is an oddly similar feeling of connection. Then if I hear the Canadian/American criticizing or mocking something Indian, I’m instantly alienated.
That is very sad about bangla disappearing. I hope this phenomenon is isolated to the elite urban middle classes. I can’t believe people would abandon the language of Bankimchandra, Tagore, of Satyajit Ray. There are a few languages (French is one, Russian is another) that seem to give birth to a people rather than the reverse. In those people, I think, there springs up a deep reverence for their poets. The French idolize their authors, the Russians adore Pushkin just as the Bengalis adore Tagore – as though he were a relative, or something.
Did your grandparents end up in Shillong, by any chance?
Exactly Dipanjan. I present to you my brother from across the pond with the quaint Comilla expressions as a perfect example of what I am talking about!
Razib, the Bengali that I speak is probably a lot more sanskritized than what my grandparents spoke, but I only have my parents to blame for it 😉 They learnt bangla literature at school and most written bangla was the gentrified version. Consequently, this is the language they speak at home and with their friends and contemporaries. Ofcourse, most of bhadralok Calcutta speaks the “refined” bangla. You must read Amitava Ghosh’s “A Circle of Reason” where he lovingly describes the Chittagong dialect and the pride among its speakers who claim that if spoken sufficiently fast, it is unintelligible to any outsider.
Perhaps you are being a bit too harsh Amitabh. I don’t see how “the system” is responsible for vernacular education. I know a few guys from Chandigarh and they speak Punjabi pretty well. Naturally, one cannot expect the vernacular to be taught outside that state — since that would cause total logistical chaos. So a Delhi-boy’s Punjabi is likely to be as bad as a Delhi-boy’s Bengali — since most of their education is in English and Hindi.
you could argue that punjabis in the past respected writers like waris shah, or even as recent as sahir ludhianvi or even amrita pritam – granted that i am unaware of the more deeper punjabi poets discussed earlier in another thread. i think nowdays, weirdly enough, its bhan-gra pride which expresses that level of love that people have for their desh land
i think for punjabis there is a pride of language but there has been so much upheavel that a lot of that pride has become translated in ways beyond language, like music
DQ, that was really cool about how you’re remarking on bengali. personally i’ve always come across the “conventional wisdom” as it were that bengali people were really passionate and literate