We reported earlier on Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty’s venture into the Celebrity Big Brother house in the UK. We thought things were going smoothly for her when reader Jai informed us that Shilpa was part of a reshuffle in the house where
“8 housemates voluntarily transferred into an adjoining, and significantly dodgier, “servants’ quarters”, with the intention that the 3 remaining celebrities would be treated like royalty by them. It appears that they all selected the lucky 3 on the basis of them having the highest status in the real world — Shilpa was one of them, along with Jermaine Jackson and a famous director called Ken Russell. So that’s an interesting indication of how they view her.”
Jai signed on again, despite starting a new job (congrats jai!), to let us know how things were progressing for Shilpa and the gang. It seemed she had bonded with the other major stars on the show, especially Jermaine Jackson and Dirk Benedict (Face from the A-team) who was crushing hard core on the Bollywood star. At the same time it seems, Shilpa was also the victim of a lot of bullying and even some acts of racism from some of the housemates (especially the ladies). Over the past few days, fellow participants have called Shilpa “dog, “”The Indian,” and have even mocked her accent. One of the Bullyers according to the Daily Mirror is previous Big Brother winner Jade Goody. Goody, who supports Act Against Bullying, an anti-bullying charity, was swiftly given the boot by the the charity because of her actions. Act Againts Bullyying called Goody’s behaviour “unforgivable”.
Jade’s mother Jackey too got in on the anti-Shilpa act. According to Caroline Malone, who was recently evicted, “Jade’s mum Jackiey hated Shilpa and constantly referred to her as “The Indian” which I found horribly insulting. Jackiey made life purposely difficult for Shilpa – shouting at her for no reason, criticising her cooking, attacking her for being bossy.” (link)
Hey, you don’t like someone? Call them names, use their race, ethnic origin, or anything that makes them different and mock that as well. Have your mom call them names, and have your boyfriend call them names too. That solves everything. It turns out Jade’s boyfriend Jack Tweed— who is also currently in the house, and was alleged to have called Shetty a “paki” when Jade’s mother was evicted last week; Channel 4, the channel on which Big Brother airs, has confirmed that Tweed didn’t call Shetty a Paki, but instead the clearly more civilized, “cunt.” Last night Shetty was in tears and is quoted as saying: “I’m the only one they are mean to, I don’t know why. Nobody is mean to anyone else except me.” (link)
The Hindustan Times reports that many viewers think Shilpa is being targeted out of jealousy. I was quite surprised to hear that Shilpa was being paid more than everyone else $680,000, against the standard fee of $610,000. She has also been more popular in the media than other participants, mostly B- and C-list celebs (link). Even though I am a fan of the reality tv genre, I am constantly amazed at how foolish and idiotic adults can act on these shows. Things have gotten so bad in the house for Shilpa that the BBC has reported that British Media watchdog Ofcom and Channel 4 have received almost 10,000 complaints about the racist behavior and bullying thus far. Showing solidairty with his Asian sister and his many British Asian constituents, Leicester East MP Keith Vaz even tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons against the alleged racist behaviour on Big Brother. The motion reads: “…This House views with concern comments made about… Shilpa Shetty by other housemates; believes that Big Brother has a role… in preventing racist behaviour…; regrets that these comments have been made, and calls on the programme to take… action to remind housemates that racist behaviour is unacceptable.” While Ofcom has indicated that it is looking into each complaint of racist behavior on the show, no matter how much investigation they do, it won’t change the resentment/negative feelings that seems to exist in some segments of British society. You can’t investigate that away.
This is my point…it’s common…but to me at least, it’s wrong. We HAVE our mothertongues…why should we replace that with English? I see no reason why English can’t be the second language…but why should (in this example) Maharashtrian people, living in Maharashtra, presumably fluent in Marathi, be nonetheless conversing at home with family members in English? There is something really wrong with us. And believe me, it WILL affect the quality of the (Marathi in this example) spoken by the next generation.
JOAT, this is actually the normal situation in most parts of the world.
What language do you think those 3 year old will speak with THEIR kids 25 years from now? I’ll give you a hint…most probably English.
That’s not going to work on me. Try again.
This opens up another can of worms…first of all it is absolutely possible not to really learn an Indian language well. When your parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, friends, and neighbours all speak English with you all the time, and you go to an English-medium school, where Indian languages are just one subject in an otherwise overwhelmingly English atmosphere, then of course it’s possible. But here I’ll admit that much of the fault lies with the fact that extremely Sanskritised (or in the case of Tamil, very archaic forms) of Indian languages are promoted, very different from what people actually speak. So it becomes like learning a dead language like Latin or something…not something you actually speak. This is compounded by the fact that in India so much of ‘education’ is rote memorization for the purpose of exams…it’s not real knowledge or understanding. Indian languages tend to be poorly taught in English-medium schools anyway. Bottom line, I have met people from Mumbai who can not speak more than just the absolute minimum basics of Hindi.
In the present time, this situation (marrying outside one’s group) applies to only a small fraction of even the urban middle class, so I hardly condider it a reason to jettison one’s mothertongue. What about the very large numbers of people who marry WITHIN their linguistic group, yet still make English their mothertongue and home language? As for English being your mothertongue, good for you, but I will never consider it my mothertongue (even though I speak it better than anything else). It’s a matter of basic pride which comes naturally to most people, but seems to escape a lot of Indians. Since you grew up with everyone including your grandparents speaking English to you, you don’t know what if feels like to see the degradation of your mothertongue within your own lifetime (and I’m only 35 so we’re not talking eons here). The two languages I know (Hindi and Punjabi) have both seen significant degradations in quality and vocabulary over the past generation.
On a side note…if I was a little more fluent in Hindi, I’d make it a point to speak it in 5 star hotels and the like, and other places and situations where it’s deemed ‘inappropriate’, just to piss people off…the problem is that I make grammatical mistakes and have to pause to think sentences out in my head sometimes, so it takes a lot of the edge off the intended provocation. When I was in Punjab, I tried talking Punjabi and people told me to speak in English so they didn’t have to hear me butcher the language.
Amitabh, I could not agree more with what you said in #125. (BTW, I went to a Jesuit English medium school in India and am more fluent not only in English but also in German than I am in my mother tongue, Marathi, which I can speak, read and write).
Anyone with the inclination and the time, PLEASE read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_death
Amitabh I don’t disagree with you was just offering my miniscule viewpoint on what has been going on around me. After seeing so many people who have lost their languages because of English in the homes in my lifetime I’m determined to not lose Marathi. I have only learnt to appreciate it’s depth and emotion with age. I used to think it was rather silly when I was younger. I used to be able to read and write it fairly fast and am struggling with it now though I can still speak it purely.
I’m seeing a resurgence with some of my friends and their approach to their languages. Many speak exclusively in their tongue with their kid at home before the kid ever hits school/preschool etc so the kid pretty much doesn’t learn any English which s/he isn’t required to technically because it’s so easy to pick up for a kid when s/he hits school and that is exactly what has happened. The 5/6 year olds I know speak very clear Gujrati/Punjabi/Marathi as a result of the parents never teaching them English.
Quick updates, 1)Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, Tony Blair have had to express their opinions 2)OFCOm complaints reached 30,000 3) Shilpa finally asked is this because I’m Indian. Channel 4 had been claiming she has not complained about the abuse. 4) Protests in Patna where some effigies of Channel 4 producers were burnt (huh! what!) 5)The major sponosr Carphone backed out today afternoon 6) Shilpa and one of her main tormentors are up for the boot on Friday
Amitabh, I’m not sure i follow you here. So you’re only for learning languages like Hindi in school, but not Tamil? Tamil is widely spoken, not just in Tamil Nadu, but in a few south indian cities too. I’m not Tamilian and i don’t speak Tamil,but Tamil being likened to a dead language that is not spoken is totally false. I’m not sure if you just happened to give a bad example here or really believe that languages like Tamil(or maybe other South Indian languages) are dead languages. Out of curiosity, have you been to South India or do you have many south Indian friends? No offence, but from what i read, your model of the “problem” is a little skewed.
How you managed to surmise the above from my comment is beyond me. I was simply stating that the versions of Indian languages taught in schools are often very divergent from the way people actually speak them, and in an English-medium environment especially, tend to encourage people to just memorise what they need to pass exams and be done with it. Tamil is by no means a dead language. I was just mentioning that the literary form is very different than the (various) spoken forms. And I don’t say that Hindi should be taught and not south Indian languages. I would like ALL Indian languages to be preserved and maintained as healthy, living, mothertongues by their respective populations. I even stated that Hindi should not be imposed on anyone, and I have no problem with English being the link language of the country.
I love Patna.
More on languages. Written in angezee.
Also, I’m certainly not trying to tell Tamils what to do with the Tamil language.
I dont see the media showing any outrage over this overblown situation.
as risible and Red point out the Government of India is involved in this. Dont they have more pressing needs?? How about the problem of not allowing Dalits into a temple, which happens even today.
Never under-estimate the stupidity of people.
um no. i think you’re reaching here. Do you have any experience of the indian school system or any school system where they formally taught hindi? the language isnt nearly as esoteric as you’re making it out to be.
my experience. i have spent a few years in that system learning hindi – and my perspective is that it isnt the archaic hindi but the utter boringness of the literature used to teach the language that turns people off. i barely managed to squeeze through – getting the bare minimum above the passing threshold to keep afloat – (my buddies always suspected somebody pulled strings to keep me afloat because i was acing everything else. funnily, it was the same with swahili 🙂
the difference between my absorption of the three languages i’ve been exposed to english, hindi, and swahili was the quality of reading i got. like heck i’m interested in harivanshrai bachan or maithilisharan gupt. i wanted boy’s adventures – and my parents had the foresight to get me loads of classics – kidnapped, swiss family robinson, talisman, white fang, call of the wild, treasure island, robinson crusoe, … – abridged and translated in hindi – and i read all this before the age of ten – and that’s what has stuck- that was the difference… of course i ran out of adventure stories in hindi and english literature was just so much more prolific.
on a related note – somebody commented in the reading yesterday – that with the new technologies like podcasting, audiobooks etc – this is a potent way to keep languages alive, plus communicate the pronunciation of words that can not be correctly presened via transliteration.
ok got a call to make. ta ta. hang loose.
and to stay on topic. that shilpa has a nice …. ahh never mind. 😉
Hey, Seeing as this is a Shilpa Shetty thread…
At last count she speaks Eight languages. That’ll solve all our problems won’t it. What a model Indian she is. We should all speak 8 languages. Starting with the North Indians 😉
Amitabh,
you are my man. It is not one universality pitted against many local customs, but many universalities co-existing peacefully. I couldn’t agree with you more, and here’s a bhojpuri song as a tribute. You know, when we were kids we used to play this game: we would speak for half an hour amongst ourselves, without using any english word. for every english word used, we had to pay a 50 paisa fine. Our bengali would improve and we would be surprisingly aware of Lamarck’s law of use and disuse! Let us be friends!
ok. i am embarassed about #162. total windiness. not my style. i was distracted. blame it on shilpa’s round gaaaand.
From comment #1 it seems like Amitabh has a problem with the lack of authenticity more than anything else. Bollywood actors and actresses don’t seem to live the lives they project in the movies… but so what? Why should we expect their lives to reflect the majority reality? Considering celebrity/hollywood culture, we expect them to be different.
My turn to get shrill. Wasn’t funny to begin with. But second time? C’mon now.
I am a Telugu too who waqs brought up outside Andhra Pradesh, but learnt to read Telugu on my own volition, but am not very fluent in it. It is English that I think, dream and communicate in. I just wish I could be more fluent in one or more Indian langiage so that I could read all the great literature in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi. What is this education system that alienates me from my ‘own’ language?
Amitabh:
.
I do this all the time when I go to India. If I’m the one initiating a conversation, then I use Hindi (when talking to someone in North India). I do make it a point to ask “kya aapko hindi nahin aati ?” ..if the other person replies in English.
Amitabh, clearer now. I see i misunderstood what you were actually trying to say.
Another update on the Shilpa incident:
UK Perfumery chain The Perfume Shop have dropped the Shh… by Jade Goody perfume from its stores after accusations of racism by Goody in the Channel Four television programme, Celebrity Big Brother.
Here’s another:
Danielle Lloyd has been dumped from a lucrative modelling contract as a result of the CBB row. The former Miss England signed a 12-month deal at the end of last year to be the face of motorcycle insurance firm Bennetts.
Totally, totally, totally hate it when people do this to me. Although obviously doing it in India would make more sense…
It’s the lead story on yahoo….
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070118/wl_afp/afpentertainmentbritain_07011810415
The preferable way to phrase that question would be “Aapka hindi aati hai?”, implying that if that were the case you would be better able to answer or converse. Otherwise, well, in this case English will have to do. The question, posed the way you have implies, “what, you are in my territory and you don’t speak Hindi?”. Very French! As always, if the intent is on communication for the exhange of views or information, two people will quickly zone in on the comfortable medium. However, if the intent is to be standoffish, then the only acceptable medium is silence. And generally, I would have no trouble replying in Tamil if I feel the converser was trying to be snotty and letting him know that there are other languages out there. O yeah, this Hindi stuff is a pet peeve. Couldn’t stand it when Indra Gandhi thought it best to rewrite all signs in Tamil Nadu in Hindi. Disliked the woman and she gave me more than one reason for it. Oh! was this thread about Shilpa Shetty? so sorry. Whats up with reality shows and the English? boy, do they have a gossipy streak within that cold, stiff exterior:-)
175 The Turnip,
Standard anti-Hindi tangential post. Nowhere ever anyone said that use Hindi in Tamilnadu in this thread. brown_fob talked about talking in Hindi in North India. But it never fails … whenever someone makes a comment about local language, there is someone without fail, who would take ridiculous extreme position.
Shilpa is really irritating, laughing hysterically for no reasons and talking about chicken…chicken…chicken all the time. Pathetic.
RC@176: oh no! not anti-hindi. anti “my way or the highway” certainly. but you point is taken, everyone has their personal likes and dislikes that may not stand upto rationale.
Just to make things clear, I do it in India (and not here in the US), more specifically in North India (where Hindi is the predominant language). I don’t do this with people whose mother-tounge in not Hindi…that’d be just plain rude on my part.
Turnip:
No! Please re-read my post.
Turnip:
You seem to have misinterpreted my post. Talking to someone in North India in Hindi (who’s mother-tounge is Hindi) is not “my way or highway”. It’s just natural. If this weren’t the case, then the highways would have been awfully crowded in North India. 🙂
:-). Well, they are awfully crowded all over India and the USA:-) we are splitting hairs now, since you did not originally mention that the person’s mother tongue was Hindi. All you said was you were in North India. But I agree, there is no harm in assuming a knowledge of Hindi when in North India – in fact I do my best to converse in my broken Hindi there and get gushes of “haan, haan – udhar jaao” etc… I mean, when you go to a place, you do try to converse in the native language. Otherwise, heck, imagine the number of languages we need to know to live in a cosmopolitan city in the US.
I’m actually responding to my own quote above. After seeing some Big Brother clips, I think maybe I was being a bit too harsh. The clips are painful to watch. The way those people treated Shilpa is very poor. Well, they made themselves look like idiots in international tv. I just hope Germaine Greer is right and Shilpa is actually controlling and manipulating the situation to some extent. She’s certainly handled herself with dignity, confidence, and pride.
The one chick, (Danielle?) is good-looking, but sounds like a complete moron everytime she opens her mouth. The other one (Jade?) is just a very mean, low-class specimen who should be humbled that Shilpa even deigns to talk to her.
The Greer article was nonsensical and scattered. Even as she got her subject’s sub-ethinicity wrong (non-trivial as she uses it to buttress her larger point) I’m dying to know how the famed shock jockette is so sure of harassment against the Tamil community in suburban Bombay. She also needs to understand that “Paki” isn’t merely a benign abbreviation of a nationality.
The article grows even more curious as I pick up this tidbit about Greer from Wikipedia:
Link
Greer’s always like that. What the hells a female eunuch anyway? Her salty brand of feminism is an acquired taste. Her nuanced approach to racism, where one takes the time out to blame the victim, may be wrong on the details but is right on target…especially when Shilpa parades around with skin whitener on.
Yeah, she missed the “Paki” thing but that’s because she doesn’t like to take the easy shot. She even flips the skin whitener incident around. To her it shows how ignorant the housemates are, how they lack consciousness of their own white privilege; like they haven’t taken enough white studies classes or something. Not an easy shot, but she made it. Gotta admire that.
Re: language discussion
I’ll just state that while on holiday in India, as a European-bred Desi I feel completely Lost In Translation. Reason? Well, exactly because of those aspects that folks like Amitabh seem so keen to preserve. Namely it is simply impossible to get involved in daily life in India without knowing some sort of Indian language. As someone who over the years has almost completely lost her command of her mother tongue(Tamil) and never learned Hindi, it’s just impossible to fit in in India. I was travelling alone in India this past year and even at a helpdesk at Delhi airport it is simply impossible to procure an answer in English. Forget about even watching the telly, every single show or advertisement on the mainstream channels is in Hindi. While, in my opinion, English is as much of an Indian language as Tamil or Marathi. It just makes sense to have English as a unifying factor in a country where there are hundreds of languages and dialects present. I realise these may just be the gripes of an ignorant foreign desi but oh well. Languages evolve and some die as well, that’s just a fact which has been proven through time…there is nothing anyone can do about it.
especially when Shilpa parades around with skin whitener on.
manju dude,
it was primarily a hair remover. a lot of things shilpa is doing that might be OK or not a big deal or is the way in India. walking yourself around in a state of make-up/ shave, etc. is not uncommon in India at all. Sure, there is a cultural clash, and plainly being from different parts of the world. No doubt, Shilpa being an actress knows to manipulate the system and has survived Bollywood……all this said, those women ganged up on her pretty fast, and are showing very little decency.
In past (or when she was somewhat iconic), i have have read Greer off and on. However, now she has completely lost it. Her days are long over. On the article we are discussing, she missing the main point…..low level racism creeping pretty quick.
O crap! I haven’t watched the show and assumed Greer’s facts were accurate, which is never a good idea with her kind. I blame Kobayashi.
Just a word on language:
In the IB program in my city, my 10th graders must complete a personal project that’s a year long endeavor into a subject of their choice. I think many folks here will be heartened to know what two desi 3rd gen. kids picked as their personal projects. Jeff chose learning classical Indian dance and did a performance for the school. Sita learned Kannada in under a year from her grandparents.
And the money trail agrees…
God Bless the Capitalists!…speaking Truth to Power!
I blame Kobayashi.
I would too. Kobayashi likes to wave arms, and be on the right (or left as the wind blows) side.
If you walked @ 6:00 AM in a crowded locality in India, you would see women in their haldi face or some face freshner, and a long nightie getting dodh (milk) from dodhwallah (milk man), chatting with other women. It is a cultural thing. You would not see it in US.
Men in India take 1/2 hour to shave, they read newspaper and drink chai while they have shaving cream on their face.
OK boys you are both wrong.
It is facial hair bleach not just common in India but quite common in the western world and one of Sally Hansen’s top seller. Nothing wrong with bleaching facial hair you don’t want to be visible so they blend with your skin. And the parading around…come on it’s all women. That is what women do with each other. There is nothing cultural about it. It’s just how women behave when they live with other women.
finally! someone said it. man – those fights that took place at the water area. puts big(ot) brother to shame.
It is facial hair bleach not just common in India but quite common in the western world and one of Sally Hansen’s top seller.
You might be right. Here is the bleaching incident.
It starts with “are you hairy“, and then moves to “she wants to be white“. Can’t anyone smell the rat?
The whole thing is Ms. Greer wanted to grandstand, and some of us wanted to “hooray her“
I saw the whole episode. Personally I think those women were being total bitches because one of them has dark hair and one of them was a former beauty queen, they knew what bleach was! If a woman in the west who has to worry about what she looks like and puts makeup on doesn’t know what facial bleach is she’s lying especially after Shilpa explained what it was. A moron would know what facial hair bleach is so when they said ‘you want to be white’ it was quite obvious it was a racist approach to trying to rile her up. To me as a woman it’s quite clear.
Men in India take 1/2 hour to shave, they read newspaper and drink chai while they have shaving cream on their face.
In my brahmanic household, my mom would throw me out of the house if I did anything else, or even moved to any other part of the home, while shaving. 🙂
That begs the question: how are the guys behaving with Shilpa? Any perceived racism from their side? (sorry if I am the only one with this question: i haven’t had a chance to watch the clips yet).
I saw the show, and its awful. The house members Danielle,Jo,Jade and her disgusting boyfriend are being very racist toward her. The mother got kicked off, but she showed absolutely no remorse for how she treated Shilpa…but instead made excuses about how she had trouble pronouncing her name. It had nothing to do with her pronouncing her name…Her and the others are jealous because Shilpa is Indian, she has money and servants and they feel no Indian people deserve any of it. Its disgusting. Did anyone see when some housemates asked Shilpa how many servants she had? They had smug looks on their faces when she told them how many.
And then all the remarks about her…like when the woman’s boyfriend called her a “cunt”…
Its disgusting how people can be.
Its a sad fact that racism is everywhere
I saw a clip of the show. How is it possible to volunteerily watch that show?? I think it should be used as a method of torture at Gitmo 🙂 It sounds so fake and wierd. Is it just me who cant imagine watching a show like Big Brother??
None of the men, except for one’s dimwitted teenage boyfriend, had any problems with Shilpa. The house is down to three men (and the teenager) now. And none of them really want to get in the middle of it–though it’s quite clear that they are on Shilpa’s side and console her after each incident.