The way they saw us—I

Yes, Readers, I am back—hopefully with a bang. In the coming weeks, I wish to outline, for you, what I believe to be the authentic study of an ethnic group, a community that has a long, service-oriented, magnificent history spanning five centuries, but is now on the verge of collapse because our own people have willed it so. I must make a comparison (of sorts) to the plight of the Indian tribes of North America, but even lip-sympathy is found wanting over here. However, the will to survive, which is a fundamental human trait, keeps us going. As I have said before, we will not “go gently into that good night”.

I transformed my PhD dissertation into a book, which was published in 2012. I am grateful to Dr Beatrix D’Souza for her insightful “Introduction” and to my young colleague, Dr VP Anvar Sadath, who contributed the astute, perceptive, “Foreword”. Of course, my Guide, Dr KS Purushothaman, was with me all the way, but the scholar I am most indebted to is Dr Meenakshi Mukherjee, who was my supervisor for the MPhil Degree, way back in 1980-81. When I decided on the British writer, Paul Scott, for my research, she was most accommodating. After the completion of the MPhil Degree, she exhorted me to continue my work, concentrating on the Anglo-Indian community and perhaps writing about it as well.

When I joined the Central University of Hyderabad, it was just 5 years old. I am sure that I was the first Anglo-Indian student to enter those hallowed halls, for the Department of English was a vast storehouse of resplendent, wide-ranging talent. I learnt there, to my great good-fortune, that one can never know enough, for humility is the hallmark of every great teacher.

So, yes, on to Paul Scott, famous for his deconstruction of the great colonial paradigm, all of it documented elaborately in his “The Raj Quartet.” These 4 epic novels and their sequel, “Staying On” could have done without the abysmal prelude, which is titled “The Alien Sky”. In this obnoxious book Paul Scott reveals his true colours, for he simply charts the all-too-familiar theme of flogging a dead horse. Why did he do it? Just to follow suit, eh? Just to run with the hounds and keep on baying for blood?

I don’t know the answers to the questions I have just posed. Reading and researching the “Quartet”, one can only marvel at its breath-taking range, its well-rounded characters, its omniscient, non-parochial commentary and its seemingly “I-know-better-than-that”, “I-am-better-than-that” narrative.

Everything falls flat in “The Alien Sky”, for the writer—Paul Scott—and for his cocky, mouth-piece-of-a-narrator, Joe MacKendrick. They, both of them, actual “aliens” who have infiltrated an “alien” world, need to cast the first stone, just to prove that they are “pucca”, to be in sync with the “gang”, as well as to show that they—yes, they—have undertaken this unravelling, so that you and I—mon frere, mon ami—don’t have to begrime ourselves in the turgid, muddy waters of Anglo-India.

I have always maintained that words are important. I would also advise that they be used judiciously, for one may never know when they will rebound, suddenly or after a time, leaving one chagrined and even zealous for all the wrong reasons.

Let’s get to the point, now. I’ll fill you in with the details in my next blog. The Alien Sky is all about an Anglo-Indian woman who, in the mid-1940s, tries to conceal her identity, but fails. Is it a case of poetic justice? I am sure it isn’t because the narrator (and the intrusive author—Paul Scott, albeit vicariously) must taste the forbidden fruit—pucca, kutcha, or in-between.

Like the seasoned serial-script-writer, I have withheld some information: vital, for sure, but for another time. Therefore, dear Reader, don’t forget to remember the next episode which will appear next week. Bye for now.