{"id":5114,"date":"2008-03-28T06:10:54","date_gmt":"2008-03-28T11:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=5114"},"modified":"2008-03-28T12:52:20","modified_gmt":"2008-03-28T17:52:20","slug":"poetry_friday_r","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/28\/poetry_friday_r\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: Rupa Marya’s “Une Am\u00c3\u00a9ricaine \u00c3\u00a0 Paris”"},"content":{"rendered":"

To mark Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History Month, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been featuring works by desi women poets in a “Poetry Friday” series all month long. Here’s the last of four installments (1<\/a>, 2<\/a>, and 3<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Songs are poetry, and singer-songwriter Rupa Marya has been on my radar for the past couple of weeks, ever since I found out about her world music band Rupa and the April Fishes<\/a> \n(think the Indigo Girls meets traces of $\"rupa.jpg\"$ Natalie Merchant meets “classic French chanson, Argentinean tango, Gypsy swing, American folk, Latin cumbias, and even hints of Indian ragas”). <\/span><\/font>[It turns out that Abhi wrote about them last year. link<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n

The group’s debut album “Extraordinary Rendition”<\/a> has been picked up by Cumbancha, a record label founded by the head of music research and product development at Putomayo World Music, Jacob Edgar. It releases on May 1, and Rupa and her gang are in the middle of a North American tour<\/a> that includes NYC and the Montreal Jazz Festival.<\/p>\n\n

A musician, songwriter, and (yes!) physician, the American-born daughter of Indian immigrants spent part of her childhood in France. Many of the songs on the band’s new album are in French. From an article in the SF Chronicle<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n

The years between the World Trade Center attacks in 2001 and the 2004 presidential election changed her outlook on life and prompted [Marya] to alter her sound completely, by writing in French.\n
\n“What happens if you communicate … in a way that people who don’t speak that language can understand what you’re saying?” Marya says. “Especially when the world was becoming much more afraid of differences. That’s when everything sort of took off into another place.<\/blockquote>\n\n
Her song Une Am\u00c3\u00a9ricaine \u00c3\u00a0 Paris<\/em>, I think, conveys some of her post 9\/11 reflections. The lyrics (reprinted with permission of Rupa and the April Fishes) follow, both in the original French and in Rupa’s English translation.<\/p>\n\n
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\n une am\u00c3\u00a9ricaine \u00c3\u00a0 paris by rupa marya<\/strong>
\n\nil y avait quelque jours en silence
\nj\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ai pas dit un mot
\net puis je t\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ai rencontr\u00c3\u00a9 ici \u00c3\u00a0 paris
\n
\nassis pr\u00c3\u00a8s de moi dans un bistro
\ntu viens d\u00e2\u20ac\u2122algiers
\net moi je viens de san Francisco
\n
\nun monde entre nous
\n
\ntu m\u00e2\u20ac\u2122as demand\u00c3\u00a9
\nt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122as pas peur \u00c3\u00aatre am\u00c3\u00a9ricaine
\nici \u00c3\u00a0 paris
\navec tous ces arabs f\u00c3\u00a2ch\u00c3\u00a9s
\n
\nj\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ai dit non, je ne suis pas am\u00c3\u00a9ricaine
\ntu n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122es past arab et nous ne sommes pas \u00c3\u00a0 paris
\n
\nun monde fou entre nous
\n
\nqu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122est que tu pense de tout cela?
\nde tous ces histories?
\nles histories nous rendent foux
\n
\nt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122as voulu prendre ton photo avec moi
\nj\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ai dit non merci, pas de photo
\nje pr\u00c3\u00a9f\u00c3\u00a8re la vie
\n
\nje ne suis pas am\u00c3\u00a9ricaine
\ntu n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122es past arab et nous ne sommes pas \u00c3\u00a0 paris
\nnous sommes dans la vie
\n
\nun monde fou entre nous
\n\n<\/td>\n\n
\n an american in paris by rupa marya<\/strong>
\n\nthere were a few silent days
\ni didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say a word
\nand then i met you here in paris
\n
\nsitting next to me in a bistro
\nyou come from Algiers
\ni come from san francisco
\n
\na world between us
\n
\nyou asked me
\naren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you afraid to be an american in paris
\nwith all these angry arabs?
\n
\ni said no. i’m not an american
\nyou are not an arab and we are not in paris
\n
\na crazy world between us
\n
\nwhat do you think of all of this?
\nwhat do you think of these stories?
\nthese stories make us crazy
\n
\nyou asked me if you could a photo with me
\ni said no thank you, no photo, i prefer life
\n
\ni’m not an american, you are not an arab
\nwe are not in paris, we are in life
\n
\na crazy world between us
\n\n<\/td>\n\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n
<\/body>\n<\/html><\/p>\n\n
Surely this song is also influenced by her experience growing up as a brown girl in the South of France. From the Cumbancha website:<\/p>\n\n
When Rupa was ten, her parents fell in love with and moved to the South of France. One of the few people of Indian descent in an area with a large Arab immigrant population, Rupa was immediately aware that the color of her skin lead people to make judgments about her before she even opened her mouth.\n “I remember being going into town with one of the ladies from my school” recalls Rupa, “and she said, ‘don’t worry, I’m going to introduce you as Indian otherwise they’re going to think you’re an Arab,’ as if that was a horrible thing. I remember being ten years old and always very aware of race and how people perceived me, and how I perceived myself. Living in the south of France , people always assumed that I was either Roma (Gypsy), or Arab. And so I was always very aware of how people treated my shade of brown \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.<\/blockquote>\n\n
Here’s the music video for Une Am\u00c3\u00a9ricaine \u00c3\u00a0 Paris<\/em>. I love the accordions and the aunties sitting at a corner table.<\/p>\n\n