Earlier this week I went on a very long rant about this Dana Parsons article in the LA Times on the sex trafficking of Nepali girls. Today Dana Parsons’ column takes sensationalist trash to a whole other level. Normally I wouldn’t subject anyone to yet another lecture on primitivism, but I think this particular piece is too precious to keep to myself.
Parsons’ article concerns his attempt at something called “perspective.” He received an email recently from his cousin who is on business in Mumbai, filled with details on the horrible living conditions there. Because of this said email, Parsons now feels a sense of enlightenment and gratitude at the fact that he doesn’t have to live in the squalor that his cousin describes.
You can already guess where this is going. The column outlines the horrors of Mumbai, as narrated by Parsons’ cousin:
There are animals everywhere. Common to see dogs lying in areas by the road. I don’t know how they survive, but I’m told animals are sacred and you watch out for them. There are cows wandering through the streets.
We saw several naked people. Not always children. Several relieving themselves.
Our driver pulled over near some marshy area that I took to be rice fields. I got the camera out and was ready to shoot when we saw that the driver was relieving himself at the side of the car.
Ok, we get it — animals, nudity, and public urination, oh my! How is this substantive news by any standard, and more importantly, how can anyone find these details enlightening, as Mr. Parsons claims?
Truth be told, I’m really not surprised that there are people who view the world the way that Dana Parsons does. What I do find upsetting is that the LA Times is carrying this trash and passing it off as journalism. Then again, what else should I expect — time and time again I have been appalled at their international coverage. I will concede, however, that the LA Times is good for covering a few things, namely: state and local politics, the Hollywood industry, and most importantly, a certain college basketball team that’s going to rout Florida on Saturday. But even if the LAT has no intention of upgrading their international coverage, it’s time for them to cut Dana Parsons off from covering anything related to South Asia. He really needs to be stopped.
I didn’t read the article. I get what it might say.
But why fault someone for their honest observations? Isn’t it true that Mumbai is polluted, dirty, crowded and with people relieving themselves? The person is missing the positives of Mumbai completely, of course. But the excerpts you’ve posted are nothing but the bare unvarnished truth. We should learn to face up to it, and fix it, not pillory someone who’s using it to feel better about himself.
Have you read “Shantaram”? I’ve heard it’s a very entertaining book, with some honest observations about India and Indians. This post reminded me I must borrow it from my cousin soon.. She loved the book.
As far as poor people are concerned, China has a fair amount of poverty too; but the international opinion on China is far different than that on India. It all depends on the way you market yourself. From the very beginning, our leaders from the Nehruvian era portrayed India’s “holy poverty” while China promptly tried to put up a more polished look. Its the same with countries like Malaysia and Singapore which opted for westernization (and subsequently cities with pretty looking skylines) as opposed to India’s idea of self-sufficiency (and hence slow progress and poverty).
But then again, India is not evil like China which promptly disposes off all its poor into the countryside to woo Westerners into making an impression on the country by just looking at Beijing and Shanghai. We don’t hide our poverty or fail to acknowledge that there is a fait amount of it in our country.
I wonder of this writer was black or hispanic if you would have had the same outrage.
Nania after reading your post on this website, plus what you have on your personal blog, I have noticed that there seems to be double standard when it comes to whites and people of color. It just seems like you hold white people to much higher standard then when you do to some one of color.
If I have misread what you are trying to say in this and other posts, then I apologize in advance.
Arjun, I don’t think Naina is positing this as a true/false problem (and correct me if I’m wrong, Naina, I don’t want to speak on your behalf). Yes, poverty, traffic, people relieving themselves, etc. all exist in Bombay and other parts of India. Yes, it’s icky, to put it broadly. But what makes Parson’s column dubious is his seemingly simplistic and judgmental world view. He could have written his column in a much more intelligble manner, but hey – the man LOVES binary oppositions. India: traffic, shit and train deaths. America: it takes a little longer to get the laundry done. India: bad. America: grrreat! That’s wonderful that he loves America, and especially his little corner of the OC, but his world view just seems…limited! I mean, come on, how the hell are you going to compare LA TRAFFIC against anything else?! I’ve driven in LA plenty of times, and yes, it’s taken me two hours to go 15 miles.
And the thing is, it’d be one thing if those reading his lovely OC column were all englightened, worldly people. I’m assuming they are not. It’s from reading columns like his that people start saying, “Well, you know, in India everyone shits on the street and goes to work on the roof of a train.” Somehow the “unvarnished truth” becomes…broad generalizations.
And don’t get me wrong, it’s not like these papers aren’t publishing articles that do highlight the more “positive” aspects of life in India, whether it be about IT, BPO, education, or just everyday life. But those authors tend to be much more invested in their work and more knowledgeable about South Asia; this guy is relying on e-mails from a cousin on a business trip.
I don’t know, it’d be interesting to see something similar in reverse. “You know, I was just about ready to leave Mumbai for good, but then I got an e-mail from a cousin living in LA. He said that it took him three hours to go 30 miles today, and on his way to work, cars violently zoomed in front of him, several men and women gave him the middle finger – the American symbol for the big F – and a couple of people even called him a ‘camel jockey’ because he was apparently driving too slow. On top of that, the city is too poor and careless to build a public train system that works. All hail, Indian Railways, jai jai Laloo Prasad Yadav! I love India!”
As for Clueless’ anti-white insinuations…I’m not even going to go there…lest some older ladies want to throw the big R at me again 🙂
Dana’s article is about perspectives. I guess that’s valid, except that it’s a pretty lame perspective about Bombay. Maybe his cousin lived in Singapore or Luxembourg; that might explain why they got so freaked out about stuff in Bombay.
The article itself is hardly original. We’ve heard it before.
But here’s a REAL perspective on Bombay from a true Mumbaikar. It’s sort of nostalgic and fantastic at the same time. The best part is where he says it will always be a poor man’s city. That’s the real message: Bombay is what a Mumbaikar makes of it. Check it out!
Busybee on Bombay .
Parsons:
I think that says it all. The point of the article isn’t to say that America is better than India; didn’t you notice that tiny little nod to American poverty with the reference to child bathing in cooking water? The point is that Parsons is a liberal who realizes he consumes at a certain level, and this makes him feel bad. Boohoo. Except instead of delving further into his initial reflection on American poverty and his consumption in relation to it (because this might be something he can actually DO something about), he falls back on his cousin’s e-mails about the difficulties of life in India, and his guilt takes on a new, easier-to-deal-with, global form. He compares each of his cousin’s e-mails with some aspect of his life, and can easily bask in the guilt because there really isn’t anything he can do about it.
But finally he does come around to America with this winner:
He ends up reflecting on his own guilt and the way it manifests, and he feels even more guilty about this… SO WHERE’S THE ACTION?
So no, it’s not about how America is better than India, although the liberal mush-mush sure makes it come off that way in parts – mainly due to the omission of the fact the same patterns of consumption exist in India as well.
And yes, one does need to own up to everything that’s messed up about Bombay, India, South Asia, whatever.
But this article isn’t about any of that. It’s all about Parsons’ guilt about his consumption, but how he’s content to feel guilty about it, feel guilty about the fact that he feels guilty and does nothing, but still do nothing.
Vivek..well said!
And you? Would your honest (private) response be the same if you knew that the writer was black? Having learned the race of the author would you immediately think of someone from a public housing project in the US? How would you “feel” If said individual suggested the relative affluence of living in a US [ghetto] entitled them to turn their nose up at living conditions in Mumbai? Wouldn’t the [black] author have to qualify his/her impressions by alluding to his/her affluent background in a way that a ‘white’ person would never have to, in order to gain credibility for being appalled at someone else’s poverty?
I haven’t read naian’s blog- but I have noted that you (& others) have made this claim before about the different standard that “monolithic hegemonic” group ‘the white people’ are held to on this blog. Fair enough- I am anti hypocrisy. However it’s naive- fallacious even, to pretend that we don’t carry conceptions about ‘who’ can say ‘what’ based on skin color.
I think you hit the mark, Vivek.
It’s not news, it’s a think piece. Why does Dana Parsons need to be stopped? Unless you’re arguing for a different perception of India (which you can find in almost any magazine these days too), nothing his cousin described is untrue. I think a more interesting question is why these facts of life in India exist at all and what iif anything is India going to do about it?
had to comment on this.. GO UCLA (yes, anything PAC-10).. naina, i’ll be at all the final four .. don’t you worry… brother bean and i have our gear, spirits, and cheering voices ready!!!
and about the article.. animals, human excrement, and nakedness is true india? right? (sarcastic tone of voice)…
i think parson’s is either just extremely bitter that his dhobiwala washed his clothes wrong, or he just doesn’t get india (traveling in general) and the overall ‘true beauty’ of the country and other 3rd world countries who have similar situations in some of their cities/towns…
mr. parsons is likley used to staying at the ritz, having a chauffer, and having a bell at his bedside to notify his butler…
I find nothing wrong with the article.
But I have a simple question for the blogger. What do you think about Deepa Metha or Satyajit Ray’s movies (and people of their ilk). Even they make movies that helps the westerners feel better. 🙂 Afterall they are just writing or showing the true colors of India (or rather part of the truth)
sorry chick pea, UCLA is going to lose on saturday, should be a great game however, i’m a UConn fan, so i really can’t say much seeing that they don’t deserve their under-the-table range rovers; couldn’t even make the tourney this year.
pertaining to the article, Vivek’s assessment i feel is accurate.
haha, very true, altho after looking at his blog, i feel you might be a bit harsh, its blogging! YSS seems pretty cool, i may just have to check it out, thanks vivek
Because it’s propaganda, because it’s published and circulated, because he’s paid to write this kind of stuff — spin included– and because he’s not giving us the whole picture about his cousin’s stay in India. Why doesn’t his cousin just walk the short distances to his meetings? What deals is this cousin making, and will those business relationships he is building benefit or damage the people whose adverse living conditions he so nimbly descries?
a certain college basketball team that’s going to rout Florida on Saturday
Thats not going to happen. In fact it better not happen as I just took the lead in my work bracket 🙂
I am looking forward to the duel between the 7 footers.
My prediction: Florida versus Ohio State in the finals.
Winners: Florida.
The fact is that most, if not all, westerners who travel to India are going to be struck with the poverty thing being in your face. That’s understandable — even I on my first visits to India was upset by it.
But I managed to see beyond it too.
Recently a journalist for The Times, a very right wing, conservative British newspaper, visited India for a business conference and wrote about his week long visit. He didnt write about the emerging economy in his piece — he wrote about the pity and horror he felt at the poverty he saw, with an undertone of chastisement for Indians for being oblivious to this.
I had a few emotional responses to his piece — but just to summarise a couple of them. First of all, to live amidst all that kind of thing you have to steel yourself against it to a certain extent, otherwise how could you function if you broke down at every girl in a ragged dress who tugged your trouser for a few annas?
Secondly, I thought, welcome to the real world baby! You sit in London and pontificate on the rest of the world, living in a city that functions smoothly, one of the richest and most priveliged and prosperous classes of people in existence, in a nation that has statues and memorials to colonialists and built its wealth on the exploitation and theft of resources from India and Africa, you don’t have to deal with and relieve every day layers of backwardness and cruelty and poverty, you live a cocooned life where poverty (true poverty) is an abstract, and when you finally see all that, your response is to displace your pity onto the easily essentialised ‘indifferent’ Indian masses, whom you can chastise for their obliviousness to what surrounds them, whilst you get to fly back to Heathrow first class and take a taxi back to Kensington, safe in the knowledge of your ability to judge those who live with it every day, who have to think of strategies to alleviate it every day, who have to deal with hundreds of years of entrenched social mentalities — all the while as making money and bread to feed their own children and prevent them falling downwards in a society without a fat welfare system whilst you have the luxury of smugness and disassociation and even your pity and sympathy (but certainly not any displaced guilt, right?) is of a higher type. And ultimately, his article was about him, the higher minded Englishman, and his shock and distress.
But it put a thought in my mind. Some right wingers in Britain and I suppose America too, are suffering from a collapse of self esteem, and are a little insecure in their skins, what with multiculturalism and immigration destroying western society and all that. Let’s start a poverty safari for them to India where they can have a look around, become revified in their racial and cultural superiority at the sight of even educated Indians ‘indifference’ of the poverty they are uniquely sensitive and acute to, before sending them back emboldenced in the knowledge of the wily orientals innate fatalism and indifference to the poor and their innate superiority, where they can then shut their eyes and because it’s not in their face feel safe and secure again.
Red Snapper,
Tell all of your disaffected friends to read all about it here and here.
Wow vivek! Who needs satire when the truth is already beyond satire.
Could be lucrative to target the right wingers whose self esteem is very low and are feeling insecure though — special tours especially for them — a trip to Lagos or somehwere in the ‘dark’ continent would do crisk trade.
The name of the company? ‘Hearts of Darkness’
We’ll make a million, I’m telling you.
So the article is propaganda? Which cause would Parsons be promoting? And who decides when to stop publishing and circulating whatever we don’t like?
Good luck getting the “whole picture” about India in any one article (or novel, or essay, or film, or play, or painting, or song). Thousands have tried for years and never done it — that’s part of the beauty of the place.
Self-criticism is the anti-dote to judgmentalism. It is embarrassing that these countries can’t take better care of their poor. Yes, I understand that the west has reaped massive monetary rewards from the east. It’s certainly not black and white, but it is reminder that while these orientalist fantasies of western writers are sometimes painful, they are not necessarily inaccurate and ultimately some of the old traditions (a la Water) need to be left in the past, and the current governments of the east must continue to build their economies, not at the expense of, but for the benefit of the poor as well.
It’s funny how some Westerners complain about immigrants not adapting/attempting to integrate to Western society, but when they go visit “third world countries” they find it acceptable to judge the countries from a Western perspective, instead of trying to understand that it’s just cultural. It should work both ways: every country has its own identity in terms of values and such. Don’t judge, but try and understand/accept to a certain degree.
2, Sourav said:
The who with the what now? China in the 1960s was not exactly trying to present a “polished” image to the West, what with the Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward, and the rest. India, meanwhile, was trying to build a socialist economy and doing pretty badly at it. India’s current progress came when it renounced its Nehruvian economc policies, not because of them.
Speedy
DAMMIT.. is it just me, or do others want to also cut the ponytail off of noah’s head? (maybe it can be like the sampson effect) 😉
it better be ucla.. i’m winning my office pool at the moment…and want to take home the $$$$
the beauty of the final four.. is the unpredictability.. i have hope…
in then end: 3 great games… fun atmosphere..and good times.
Hey man, Mumbai’s cleaned up. Some. Enough that condescending articles like this should be outdated. Has anyone walked around the non-political side of the DC area recently? Ask me who HASN’T pissed on the side of a car. Or tried to sell me a VCR. Eff this, I should write a startling political commentary on the “horrible living conditions” in this savage American wasteland.
“There are animals everywhere. Common to see congressmen lying in areas by the road. I don’t know how they survive, but I’m told politicians are sacred and you watch out for them. There are lobbyists wandering through the streets. We saw several naked people. Not always children. Several relieving themselves. Our driver pulled over near 7-11 area that I took to be a crack den. I got the camera out and was ready to shoot when we saw that the driver was holding it up….”
Mwahahahaha. Watch yourself, Parsons, I installed MS Office on this muthafucka and I’m not afraid to use it!
Naina is right. This personal makes-me-feel-so-better drivel doesn’t belong in a reputable newspaper. Gross overgeneralization. There’s a blog called http://www.subcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com written by an American woman diplomat living who similarly with a magnifying glass looks for anything bad to say about Mumbai. Borderline racist too – ” Indians eat where they shit “, ” My pregnant 14 year old Indian secretary “, ” India hasn’t seen feminism “. Such people are nothing but making themselves feel better. Sometimes I wonder if they are living in and reporting from the same city as Manish. Another thing I have observed is that these people are usually so called progressives or liberal Whites. What an irony? Someone pointed out rightly in India we don’t hide our poverty like in America’s inner cities, where I bet Dana Parsons and the woman diplomat blogger has never set foot in and which they have to shamefully confront only when something like Katrina flushes it out. Still do read the blog I mention – pure hatred and racism disguised as personal experience.
Red Snapper, thank you. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Vivek, I agree and disagree with your assessment. You’re right — there’s nothing constructive, no call to action here. But I still think that the article is really about asserting Parsons’ racial, cultural, and economic superiority, as red snapper suggested. I think Nagasai also observed it nicely:
This article reeks of primitivism.
And chickpea, I’m jealous! I was actually routing for you and the Trojans last weekend against North Carolina — they almost had it, but then they had to choke at the end and Tim Floyd drew that technical foul — grrr.
To the naysayers: Mark my words, Joakim Noah will be crying on Saturday.
i was so sad… but we gave unc a run for their NC arse.. at least the hoyas showed them.. and i was happy to take texas out…
down with the gators.. go BRUINS..
There’s something very revealing in this thread: Vivek’s point of departure is the wealthy liberal and Red Snapper’s point of departure is a right winger and yet, both Vivek and Red Snapper arrive at the same place. The poles, as reflected by the dominant parties in the UK and US, are much closer than the noise suggests. Ascetic hippies and right wingers as bedfellows, what a strange world.
That’s considered a newspaper column? It reads like someone’s stream of consciousness blog post or whinging email to a friend, without the benefit of either thoughtfulness or substance. I can’t believe the LAT printed such execrable writing, period. The parts about Bombay are incidental.
27 was me, my bad.
Naina, Why don’t you write a letter to the editor of LAT(if you haven’t already). Not that it would result in anything.
She forgot to mention in India we also hang Hindus from hooks for Holi.
i beg to differ on the ‘not that it would result in anything’
write.. see what happens.. you may be in for a surprise… naina: you should write… you never know.. (my theory on life in general).
Seriously. I don’t read the LA Times but I’ve heard about the Tribune Co. and Dean Baquet fallout. Is this what readers can expect under the Tribune?
Huh!. What a trash.
Not the whole picture about India, you silly fsowallah, I’m talking about the whole picture about Parsons’eff-ing smug cousin’s own condition, treatment and purpose in India. The article Naina linked to is definitely propaganda because it is one-sided, intended to harm, designed to damage and otherwise interfere with the growing public perception in America of India’s new position as an emerging economy engaged in a powerful post-colonial recovery. We can certainly voice objections by traditional means, i.e., with letters to the Editor. If this fails, and this sort of thing continues, we should bring this journalistic mischief to the attention of Desi groups that are already suitably positioned to sue, as additional provocations worth suing about for sizeable damages.
That overstates the case. It doesn’t have to be “designed to harm.” Many people confuse the facts with the truth. And there’s a human habit of selecting the facts to suit our prejudices.
The truth might contain those same facts, but you know the difference when you see it. It’s not really about showing both sides of the argument or anything so direct (the argument might have a dozen sides). The facts, after all, can also be balanced, but that doesn’t make them the truth. And its not about showing the totality, which is impossible.
But you know the difference when you see it. But its useless trying to argue someone into seeing that difference.
Damn straight, chowkutta, she’s not living in the same Mumbai (formerly Prince of Wales Museum Bombay)as Manish, who. e.g., knows people. Ms. Esquivalence obviously doesn’t. AKAIK, desi people generally invite fancy foreigners to parties etc., excluding many diplomats, so probably leave Ms. Equivalence off their lists as well. I’ve a feeling she positions herself far above people who don’t throw parties.
Naina, you said this is not a call to action, but why not? Numbers count. Those of us who object could post our objections to the LAT– just give us the word.
as others have pointed out, there’s a way to write about a country’s faults/flaws and there’s a way not to. two articles can contain the same facts but be received differently – tone, choice of words etc. i’m not surprised this is the la times. their previous india correspondent paul somebody used to write articles that sometimes somehow felt a bit dubious and slanted in their tone. it was hard to pin down at times, but there were definite trends in types of sources he used (who he quoted) within india etc.
and i agree that you run into this attitude of “boy, i’m so grateful i was born where i was” more often from liberals than not. it’s a sort of lazy “get out of jail free” explanation for their more privileged lives. “yes. it is terrible that people live like that, but what can I do, i just happened to be born here not there. i care about them, of course, but there’s not much i can do about it.” this pretence at caring is worse than just not caring at all.
when are these closed-minded people going to realize that it’s not a life of lower standards people are living in in different country. it’s a totally diffrent culture.
ugh. what a punk.
amrita, you and anyone else are free to write to the LAT. 🙂 I’m thinking about writing a letter to Dana Parsons myself.
“a country’s faults/flaws”
just to clarify, i don’t think everything qualifies as negative. i have no problem with people mentioning snake charmers or colour or spices or animals in the road – all true of india – if they are handled adroitly and well written about.
Yeah, it’s a silly article.
I don’t care for primitivism, whether it’s white on brown or brown on white*.
*Oh, look Americans put their parents in nursing homes when they are old. We don’t do that. We are a more spiritual and enlightened culture, we watch Cricket, we don’t eat McDonalds…. (oh, wait, Siddhartha already went over this in his little Tharoor New York Times critique.
**Right-wingers are averse to some types of immigration because they are culturally insecure? Good grief. Some are, some aren’t. Quite a nice broad brush there. Musn’t do nuance.
***Can’t say SM’s not equal opportunity anti-silliness 🙂
****Newspapers, in general, are very poor these days. Why such poor writing, and complete dullness? Thoughts from Siddhartha and Saheli if they happen to be reading? Like, that Walter Reed story is years old. I mean, every doc has a VA/gov hospital story. It’s as old as the hills. Is it all just social advocacy and re-typing press releases and ‘here are my poor delicate feelings poured out in a column, read my beautiful prose you stupid proles’ these days in journalism?
Yeah.. I took the time to read this article and it really doesn’t say much about India.. It is more about the writers guilt for his lifestyle, so it is more about environmentalism than it is about India.. Within the whole article there is only two or three sentences describing India, and it doesn’t seem “sensationalist” it seems pretty accurate of what India can be like..
I see absolutely nothing wrong with this article at all. I think the article really sheds light on perspective that we often lose in this country. How many times have we complained about a 30 minute commute…think of those in Bombay who have an hour and a half commute.
Every time I go to India I’m left with a newfound appreciation of the way of life here in America. I’m not saying that life in India is horrible–but the comforts we take for granted are brought to light when compared with life there..
How about this – http://www.slate.com/id/2107063/entry/2107071/ ? stole this from Sepia.
Yes some of them are suffering from insecurity and project ‘multiculturalism’ and immigration as a cause of the coming downfall of western civilisation — SOME of them being the operative word. That’s the nuance if you can’t see it.
73-57. Sound familiar? That is a rout. Whatever the outcome of Saturday’s game, I assure you it will not involve UCLA “routing” Florida. I might also venture to point out that while you lost one of your key players last year (who, by the way was rendered completely ineffective versus Florida), we are returning our entire starting line up. The same starting line up that spanked ucla in the final. So GO GATORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In way of other comments, while I disliked the “nose stuck up” tone of the article, I can’t help but say that some of those observations are the same ones playing over and over in my mind every time I visit India. Only rather than a non-desi disdain for it, I feel overwhelming sadness. On my last visit in November, on the 15 minute car ride from my Uncle’s home to the New Delhi airport, I witnessed 4 different people relieving themselves in public. I want to be clear that I am not picking on homeless people that may not have any other options. The thing that really bothered me was that these individuals were well dressed young college students and/or business people. They were clearly not “slum dwellers” or “street people”. The saddest sight of all was the last person I saw: an elementary school aged boy all dressed in his private school uniform. I thought to myself that if all this kid sees everyday is reinforcement that such behavior is acceptable, then the cycle continues. I get tired of seeing people with not enough pride in their country or environment or themselves, to take such business to an appropriate venue. On another trip, I was at a university campus in Jodhpur and witnessed this behavior from a college kid with books in one hand, backpack slung over his shoulders — in the middle of a freaking tennis court. Please don’t tell me that the nearest restroom was too far….ugh.
on the whole though, even if the article is a little clunky and awkward and forcefitting in structure, i think the author is well-meaning in that he’s saying there’s a lot more to really complain about in this world and many people have it much rougher. ( i don’t always buy into this argument because human nature is human nature). but i sometimes wish they would write articles from the other way around – people who have it much tougher in countries like india sometimes react much better (some because they just have to and some because they just do) to situations than people who are have it easier (as in Katrina). that could have been another lesson learned from his cousin’s observations.
Naina (or others upset with Parsons):
Just out of curiosity, what is your take on the India Shining articles, like say this Time piece?
dipti wrote:
So it’s a ‘cultural’ thing to have animals walking the street, naked poor people, and civilians urinating on the side of the road? I don’t understand your argument at all. They weren’t judging it from a western perspective…if anything, it was from a valid public health perspective.