One upside of my relentless biz travel is airplane time to catch up on reading. Coming back from Hong Kong, I started digging into Niall Ferguson’s controversial Empire – a work previously covered on SM here. I personally find the book fascinating, well written, thoroughly researched and, dare I say, a balanced portrait of the whys, hows, and modern effects of British colonialism – warts, accomplishments, and all.
But, rather than dive into yet another post-colonial-legacy debate, I thought mutineers might be interested in one specific internal difference between the Brits in India vs. elsewhere in the empire – they had a much higher tendency to “go native” –
Until the first decades of the nineteenth century, the British in India had not the slightest notion of trying to Anglicize India and certainly not to Christianize it. On the contrary, it was the British themselves who often took pleasure in being orientalized. [Empire, pg 133]
Later chapters explore how this Prime Directive of sorts would change dramatically – in part leading to and following the Sepoy Mutiny. But, in the mean time, what explains the “orientalized” Brits? Ferguson identifies one culprit – the irresistible allure of our desi sista’s. Many a Brit discovered, apparently, that once you go brown, you stop foolin’ around–
In one of his Home Letters Written from India (mainly dating from the 1830s) Samuel Snead Brown observed that ‘those who have lived with a native woman for any length of time never marry a European… so amusingly playful, so anxious to oblige and please [are they], that a person after being accustomed to their society shrinks from the idea of encountering the whims or yielding to the fancies of an English-woman’ [Empire, pg 134]
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Ghee and Rice didn’t miss her… |
Ahhh the good ole days before that silly suffrage, equality, and womens rights nonsense. When women, like the children they were to care for, were seen but not heard and if they really had something to say, it was pleasant and never shrill. 
(Alas, many an ABCD gal suspect similar motives when a modern brutha heads back to the homeland to get married.)
One [married] Captain Robert Smith made similar remarks in his travelogue but in a more over-the-top way –
The mild expression, so characteristic of this race, the beauty and regularity of the features and the symmetrical form of the head are striking and convey a high idea of the intellectuality of the Asiatic race… This classical elegance of form is not confined to the head alone, the bust is often of the finest proportions of ancient statuary and when seen through the thin veil of flowing muslin as the graceful Hindu female ascends from her morning ablution in the Ganges is a subject well worth the labor of the poet or artist. [pg 134]
Leaving aside the arguably patronizing tone, I couldn’t help but chuckle at what comes next after Smith’s Aphroditian image. While positively ebullient about most physical charms of the desi maiden, Capt Smith saw fit to plant one caveat –
…he felt the typical Indian woman’s lower half was ‘badly formed and ill calculated to harmonize with so beautiful a superstructure.’ He had clearly given the matter a good deal of thought. [pg 134]
Heh… So apparently desi gals were unable to don the stretch pants and miniskirts so fashionable in, uh, Victorian England. Luckily, Capt Smith was there to post warning to the unknowing men back home. As for me personally, Capt Smith can criticize, but I like my women like Flo-Jo.
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p>UPDATE: Normally, as a rule, I try not to post updates to my posts or, for that matter, engage too deeply in the comment threads. As any blogger / commenter with a fulltime “real life” knows, this sport is addictive and the time drain can be enormous. We try to be a little engaged and occasionally, SM Intern will engage to nuke comments that personally attack folks and, if it continues, we ban the commenter altogether….
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p>BUT, scanning the comments (natch, the FURY) generated this time around, I figured I oughta chime in.
Y’all realize that this post is tongue in cheek, right?
Well, at least Manju does. But other folks seem to be taking my quotes of “Sam Snead” and “Captain Smith” as *my approval* of their positions when the whole point was the opposite! I hoped my sarcastic commentary in between their, uh, not-quite-scientific observations was apparent (dissing Women’s Suffrage? Joining Snead in praising women who are “seen but not heard”? “Stretch pants and miniskirts” as essential elements of Victorian fashion? Smith’s “over-the-top”-ness? Heck, I even tried to subtly work in Sir Mixalot – an “authority” who’d rather colorfully disagree with Capt Smith, et. al. about nice “lower halves” and join me in approval of Madhuri Dixit’s “Flo-Jo”-ness)…. (by the way, just now, I was being sarcastic about Mixalot being an authority )
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p>Perhaps my sarcastic tongue could use some practice. Or perhaps you’re just not allowed to quote, in polite company, any sort of colonial and/or female body subject matter without plainly and vociferously denouncing it (Male body parts are a diff matter, of course). If so, that’s unfortunate… it’s just so…. plain.
Still, I offer humble apologies and a convivial drink at the next meetup for those who walked away offended. And now, we return to our regularly scheduled lives…
One possible explanation for :
The tall anglo-saxon male – his name was Lancelot – bid a tearful goodbye to Guinevere. Farewell my lovely queen he said, I go on a ship to Indies. Arriving there and seeking to soothe his aching heart(damn!!! why didnt he join the French legion instead), he, tall boned, fair skinned, blue eyed, with blond hair, looking verily like the avatar of Shiva himself (the colors got mixed up somewhere). He consorted playfully and earthily with the tropical, sultry beauties with their damasked waists and black eyes as beautiful as the moon on a dark night, sultry beauties whose skin tone actually had contrasts delightful hiding beneath that Choli. Guinevere became but a dream, and he went native without a murmur. From – A fresh and new interpretation of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
No, definitely not…but most of my recent ancestors were employed by the British in some capacity–as lawyers, civil servants, police officers. They were rather westernized. You may be right about a second wife from a different Hindu caste getting the same treatment, but in South India there is a lot of derision towards Anglo Indians, who were thought of as being in a no-man’s land of neither Anglo nor Indian, so I think there was some element of that at work as well.
“Once you go brown, your ass will go right back to black!” Is the responce I gave a black woman who wanted to date an indian guy. Black men are usually really attracted to indian women and now I know that a stead diet of red beans and chaal is the culprit.
I’m not saying it’s a fair assessment, but most Southies (I’m one too) are of the opinion that Anglo-Indians hold them in low regard. Perhaps this is a mistaken belief. To clarify, I am not talking about mixed race families post-Independence where it is typically a union of equals
Sahej – No problem, no offense taken. As my man Michael Scott would say “It’s all gooouud.”
I think I was more white than the horse I rode in on…He-oh! I’ll be here all week, be sure to tip your waitress.
Desi (South Asian) girls were always attractive to foreigners. I cannot imagine what is so shocking about the matter that Europeans found them so attractive. The Moghuls found them attractive too. Some of the Moghul Queens were desi girls- aren’t they? If I am not wrong then I can say that sometimes Moghuls and Iranians got jealous of the influence of desi girls and their relatives in the royal court. At this age, Bollywood actresses are attracting people from all over the world with their beauty and charm. India is a top contender for the Miss World and Miss Universe awards every year now.
Razib,
hence the alternate references to Aphrodite as Callipygos.
I think it’s a vicious circle–Anglo-Indians referred to England as “home” and set themselves apart from the rest of the colonized subcontinent, the other locals were resentful so decided to look down on them, thereby setting them apart even more etc. I’m not assigning blame to either side here, just attempting to explain the phenomenon. If the British didn’t “go native” in the other colonies, I guess there’s no equivalent community elsewhere in the world, but it would be interesting to hear about if there was.
but no mention of his unmentionable, was it greater than the BBC average?
I heart Yeti. And I hate this thread. That is all.
May the great gods be with you Sahej:-) As to the answer, it is generally assumed that heat causes expansion, and cold contraction. We can safely assume that average expansion percentage in 40 celsius would be 20%, sufficient to make even an ingrown nail pop out. In any case, I will leave the oficial answer to the Pommies.
and : “Her priestesses were not prostitutes but women who represented the goddess and sexual intercourse with them was considered just one of the methods of worship.” crap!!! if worship were that beautiful, i would be chanting prayers from here to eternity. Adonis was considered her favorite lover. Adonis is the prototypical anglo saxon. Hence, the brits went native. All because of protruding buttocks and other unmentionables.
It’s just one datapoint, but I seem to recall from Michael Ondaatje’s biography that his Burgher parents regarded themselves as Tamil. The progenitor of the Ondaatje family was a Tamil healer brought to Colomobo from India in the 1500s to cure the colonial governor’s wife of some illness. He was successful and was “rewarded” with conversion & marriage to a Portugese woman. Are there any Sri Lankans out there who can compare/contrast the Burgher & Anglo-Indian experiences ? Did the Dutch/Portguese/British in Sri Lanka also tend towards assimilation?
My protruding rondure is never unmentionable. Hail the callipygian! 😀
Yeah like Shruti, what yeti said
I feel insulted. Neither is my derriere protruding (it is rather flat) and actually looks like a barrier reef. There is an abrupt flattening right around the posterior medulla oblongata and the mid rondurata. I am unable to compete with Ghee and Rice:-) Rondure nice word. Much better than Derriere…
Might the fact that India was as far away as you can get from England(to that point) play a role. It is quiet possible that these British men were not “going native” as much as taking care of their needs. If they wanted to go back to England in order to get laid, they might have had to wait a long… long time. The fact that Millions of them never had the good fortune of going back might be an other factor. Don’t get me wrong sista’s, but lets not sit here and relish in the idea of indian girls being endowed with a special place in the hearts of the british. The reality might have been as simple as British needing an outlet to express their energy and our ladies back home were happy to oblige.;-)
This thread is actually awesome, because its potentially completely without standard answers on any side. The meeting of East and West, man and woman, brown and white, beige and tan, black and seinna, west and south, and north and east, the flat butted and the roundured.
Totally seriously, this thread should be uncomfortable, but its also really real. Much potential for this thread I see. or not.
The turnip is right; the desi ass is flat. Sahej is even righter, refreshingly leaving the left behind. But Yeti (27) is the star. Cleverly using humour to defend the humourless.
Manju, it was your logic that got to me. I’m now a player for the dark side
But really, is true, it’s tiresome to pretend that politics and sex go together. can anyone even count thet number of times people are f-cking the exact opposite person they are ideologically aligned with in every other situation? Thats what gets me about these kinds of issues, and why it’d be nice to have a thread where that’s taken in consideration. nobody is really with the “appropriate person” but we all sit here and pretend like there’s a way to control who we find sexuelly attractive
No, my friend. You are the star. The war being waged by the Humorless has taken its toll… on all of us. Let’s push out the jive… and breathe in the love.
“Welcome to the wacky world of hypocrisy!”
You really believe its hypocrisy? Isn’t it hypocrisy to pretend the act of being attracted to someone is politically chosen?
Love is the crooked thing. There is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it. For he would be thinking of love till the stars had run away and the shadows eaten the moon. Ah, Yeti, brown Yeti, brown Yeti, one cannot begin it too soon.
I can’t believe nobody has used the word ‘kundi’ yet.
KUNDI!!!
I like my men to be small-penised and to have a leg or two cut off in early childhood due to a land mine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attraction_to_disability
Not going to get into this discussion too much, I think people tend to have strong opinions (I certainly do). I didn’t say attraction is politically chosen. In this particular quote I meant that if your politics are important to you, and the person you’re f***ing contradicts that entirely – for instance, if I’m rabidly anti-gun, and I’m boinking a card-carrying NRA member – yes, there’s something hypocritical about it. If I’m a Klansman and my wife is Black, well, there’s something hypocritical about both of us quite frankly.
I do believe attraction is far more complicated than just a magnetic force uncontrollably drawing people together. I don’t think you can turn attraction on and off, but I do think you can reflect on who you’re attracted to and why, because it DOES relate to your own personal psychology and it often has disturbing implications depending on who you are. And some people, once they realize why they’re attracted to whoever the f*ck they’re attracted to, are happy with it. Some people are dissatisfied with it. It depends on so many things. Principles and politics may be important in these situations.
And I CERTAINLY think you can, to some extent, choose who you pursue in terms of relationships, hook-ups, etcetera.
Obviously. If the only women available were the colored native women, what choice did the white brits have? For this same reason european males mated with african and native american women in the americas. There are far, far more mestizos and mulattoes than there are anglo-indians. The mixed population of South Africa alone probably exceeds the number of anglo-indians.
In the wide open mating culture that the anglosphere is now, desis have by far the lowest rate of dating and intermarriage with whites. What does that say about desi sexual desirability?
Too many desis have this tendency to flatter themselves and wildly exaggerate their status in the world. Who else would preen like peacocks making outrageous claims like: “India Shining”; “India Everywhere”; “India is an IT Superpower”; “The 21st century is the Indian Century” etc, when the glaring facts on the ground are that India (and South Asia in general) is at or very near the bottom of the world in Human Development Indices.
Like Yeti, Shruti and Red Snapper said, I hate this thread
Whatever kind of a body I prefer in a man, I will definitely NOT have anything to do with a man who goes around telling me and other women about what he desires in a woman.
This post is going the exact same way that other post about Miss UK went. At the risk of pointlessly stating the expremely obvious – Guys, your sexual preferences are your private business, please do us all a favor and keep them to yourselves.
Granted, but its a personal decision and I think people are sometimes attracted to things that they otherwise disavow.
Small penises and amputations notwithstanding
Huh? I didn’t get a chance to read all the comments, but I’m seriously surprised by this one! Alot of desi girls legs, that I’ve noticed, have been quite shapely and slender. I’m guessing it’s genetic!
“I personally find the book fascinating, well written, thoroughly researched and, dare I say, a balanced portrait of the whys, hows, and modern effects of British colonialism – warts, accomplishments, and all.” …pull the other one. I had no idea irony ran this subtle on SM
I think that speaks to my point, more or less. You emphasize the “personal” aspect more than the “decision” aspect, perhaps? I’m not saying we need some kind of laws preventing people from being in hypocritical relationships, I think that’s fucking horrible. But I do think there is absolutely nothing wrong with questioning and speculating and theorizing about why attraction happens, why people make the decisions they do.
Most people don’t like their behavior contradicting their attitudes, so they’ll usually change their attitudes to match their behavior. harder to do the other way around. but sometimes i think it’s a good thing to do.
oh god, it’s a Saturday night and the party’s at SM. someone give me a call, we should all go have this argument over drinks.
Jai Singh,
I read Pickled Politics with interest, thanks, and what I’m still saying is all this talk of favorable temperament is more or less bogus, though talk of shape is in my opinion not entirely without merit. Like I said earlier, it’s unquestionable, although not mentioned as probable cause in the excerpt that Vinod cited, that advanced ideas about shampoo, such as those Dean Mohamet brought to England, according to Pickled Politics, must have played a strong, if understandably unacknowledged, part in the way Englishmen who were exposed to 18th C Indian women, who doubtless practiced superior methods of bathing, developed a preference for them.
Haha. It is a Saturday night, but, what the hell…..
Thats why I think this topic is potentially one of the more useful to discuss. I honestly can’t add much more at this point, but I am curious as to other people’s opinions. My contribution is I guess that we don’t take off the table the idea that attraction and sexuality are compartmentalized into appropriate and inappropriate arenas. I don’t think you are saying that either. But there’s also the risk of lapsing into platitudes about solidarity and doing the right thing, which never will get to what really vexes people about these issues. Anyway. Been watching a pretty good movie called Edge of America while writing. Its quite good, about Indians (but the kind who live on the Rez), so its not a total loss of a Saturday.
Much respect for the respectful tone
Amitabh said:
Right, I’m saying, no, once the shampooing technique was out, thanks to Dean M. and others of his ilk, shiploads of now marriageable Victorian womenfolk were shipped to Desh to capture the India-based income of their male compatriots and institute apartheidt. Yes, Amitabh, all full-time consumers of any color are snobs; it’s a matter of this being the best method of jockeying for position without working, or at any rate without being economically active.
totally agree w/ comment 66
Either you’ve never lived in the US or never seen the ‘greatest nation on earth’ slogans all around.
wow. can’t believe more wasn’t said about this. In addition, speaking post-colonially, I find it mind-blowing that no one picked up on the comment made by a brit staying in india who found fear in facing the growing feminism in euro women at the time. lastly, i totally and utterly agree with th eindividuals who find the h.s. type disturbing comments about what exactly makes us desi women hot and how we as a race must be genetically more attractive or something. the whole thing smacks of patriarchy
Either you’ve never lived in the US or never seen the ‘greatest nation on earth’ slogans all around.
dude, you’re insulted, offended even. educate yourself! (WINK)
Amitabh,
To the best of my knowledge that was indeed one of the major reasons, although not the only one, as discussed in that link I mentioned earlier. Legislation implemented by the East India Company to prevent “Indianisation” and intermarriage, growing Christian evangelism, the general rise of British imperial power globally, and the development of racist Victorian-era ideas all contributed to the shift in attitudes.
In that book Niall Ferguson defends the British Empire as a force for much that is good. However he conveniently ignores the fact that the supposed beneficiaries of all this goodness constitute the overwhelming proportion of the most impoverished people on the planet. Just look at the sorry per capita incomes and HDI of the non-white members of the British Commonwealth. India, Pakistan , Bangladesh, Nigeria together account for ~1.5 billion people or almost a quarter of humanity. The per capita incomes of all these hopelessly backward states falls below the poverty line as defined by the U.N.
The worst off people on the planet, with very few exceptions such as Singapore, Hongkong etc, are those non-whites who were once colonized by the British.
Doordarshan = Macacaroach?
Bedi’s love interest, who is slated to be a Chinese-American woman, has not yet been cast.
Purva Bedi Is Cast as Lead in When Kiran Met Karen
yeti,
one has to separate ideology from personal behaviour. i mean, socrates was knocking off little boys while trying to define the ideal state and “Justice”!!! does that mean I reject all Socrates has to offer because of his personal preference which I dont agree with? I think it is unfair to hurl the epithet hypocrisy at someone just because of inconsistencies in personal ways of life. So, basically, because I am virulently anti-NRA, means I cannot love a person for who they are because their whole upbringing and memories were steeped in shooting ducks (oooooh!!! i so love that dick cheney guy NOT) and I reject them wholly because of that one piece? now, it would be hypocritical, if the person forgot to lynch her husband’s black relatives, while merrily lynching all other blacks in town. from there it is but a small step to see that we have one less Klansman in town which makes me very happy indeed.
is it really possible to “choose” whom you pursue, almost like a scientific endeavour?
I am beginning to very strongly agree with your original thesis:
Was that a NOT joke in there? I guess Turnip went to the same joke coach that Borat went to…NOT!! Just kidding, I had to throw that one out there.
Who are these chinee women people keep talking about? Do they resemble Chinese women?
Ah yes Yeti, my dear old fruity,
You know, your hypothesis reminded me of a conversation I was having the other day with Umrao Bibi at the local courtesans’ abode.
“Umrao Bibi,” I said, flashing her my most dashing Cary Grantesque smile, “Is it true what they say about the Hindoostanee laydee, that most exotic and alluring of the female species ?”
I noticed her bridle momentarily at my use of the word “exotic”, but she appeared to swallow her indignation and moved on.
“And what exactly do ‘they’ say about us in the hallowed coffee shoppes of Old London Towne ?” she asked, waving an exotically hennaed hand in the air like the Kojakish actor Feroz Khan during one of his frequent philosophical musings.
I spat the remnants of my paan into my bearer’s waiting open palm, and began to twirl one side of my moustache as I spoke. “They say that the exotic Hindoostanee begum provides the best of all worlds: shy and demure in public, like a zebra about to be shot by a good colonial fellow on safari, but wild and unrestrained in the boudoir, like a tigress hungrily devouring its prey in the jungle after a long period of hunting, sniffing and snogging.”
“I will overlook that blatant piece of Orientalist exotificationalizationistic generalisation”, she purred, her eyes flashing with anger like Kali about to sacrifice one of her minions, “because every woman is like a jewel, regardless of where she originates – unique, with her own individual allure and her own distinct qualities and virtues. But in any case, you should know the answer better than anyone, due to your infamous gentlemanly carousings from Bombay to Madras to Calcutta to Lahore.”
I was absolutely mortified.
“Me ? The 25th Earl of Leicestershire ? With my reputation ?”
smirks and raises one eyebrow
Tally-ho…..
Bidi,
I think the main onus for responding to this is on desi females, since if desi males are the ones carrying that torch, that smacks of patronizing behavior. I mean that sincerely. Although a certain belief can be registered by a desi male on this topic, if desi women find this line of thinking disturbing, should not they challenge it. Otherwise, its just dudes fighting other dudes, same old thing.