London goes to India to woo India back to London...

Of course here I am talking about Boris Johnson's 6 day visit to India this week to charm Indian business and students over to London instead of heading off to the US, Canada or Australia.

Boris - not Boris Becker, not the King of England or even the President of London - but Boris Johnson, Mayor of London.  I remain agnostic as to whether he is actually a brilliant mind and politician beneath the buffoonish exterior, where the so-called 'gaffs' are actually carefully scripted political interventions.   On the other hand,  he might just be a charismatic, upper class buffoon coming out with gaffs.

The UK these days has to eat a certain amount of humble pie.  No longer can we rely on the reserves of labour and support from our ex-colonies but have to work hard to attract business back to the UK.  We can't even rely on the universal love experience created by the Olympic Games this year.   Whether it is BAE's Eurofighter Typhoon losing out to France's Dassault Rafale or students choosing the US, Canada and Australia over the UK amid increased visa restrictions or terrible one-off tragedies such as the murder of Indian student Anuj Bidve in Salford. We have to do some serious sucking up.

So, Boris is encouraging more welcoming visa regulations to entice students back, putting him slightly at odds with Theresa May, the current Home Secretary.  He's also offering tax credits to Indian film companies wanting to shoot films in London.  Let's just hope they offer a slightly more realistic view of how most people live in London compared to your average Bollywood millionaire success-story representation of life in London (eg. Rahul in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham).

I just like the squaring of the circle (or whatever the expression is) - of the once arrogant and mighty UK, master of its colonies where public school boys not long out of short trousers ran the show - now has to advertise its wares in the new global marketplace.  Desperate to attract the rupee into London, London now woos India.

 

Could I be the next Sonia Gandhi?

No, I don't actually have pretensions to the next President of the Indian National Congress, or any British political party for that matter.  It is, however, worth looking at how someone looks can mean acceptance or rejection by an electorate - and on what basis.

Sonia Gandhi was born Antonia Maino to an Italian Catholic family in a small village in Italy.  She met Rajiv Gandhi (eldest son of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi) in Cambridge while he was at the university and she was studying English and working as a waitress to make ends meet.  It was love at first sight apparently and they married in 1968 and went to live in Delhi.  Her family nickname for her was Sonia, hence her transformation into Sonia Gandhi.

Those familiar with modern Indian history will know that neither she nor her husband Rajiv had any intention originally of entering politics (Rajiv was an airline pilot).  It was after the death, however, in a plane crash of Rajiv's younger brother Sanjay that Rajiv entered politics.   Rajiv was then elected as Prime Minister in 1984 after the assassination of his mother, Indira Gandhi.  Tragically,  Rajiv himself was assassinated in 1991 and, despite, initial reluctance, Sonia Gandhi became the leader of the Congress Party in 1998.  She is currently the President of the Congress Party.

So, Sonia, originally from a Catholic family in a small village in Italy, has now become an immensely powerful figure in Indian politics.  She has been named among the Time 100 most influential people in the world for 2007 and 2008 and also ranked as the ninth most powerful person on the planet by Forbes Magazine in 2010.

Her Italian origins have certainly not gone unremarked, and she received (and continues to receive) hostile remarks from the opposition once she entered politics.  Bal Thackeray, the late leader of Shiv Sena once asked, 'How is it that when we ask one white skin to quit India, you are welcoming another white skin?.....Our ancestors, who fought for freedom, overthrew the British' (quoted by Patrick French in 'India' p.71).

But Patrick French goes on to comment on her popularity among voters in India - and their lack of concern about her foreign origins.  He says her appeal rests partly on iconography - someone who shared the suffering of the masses, her original reluctance to enter politics and 'renunciation' of the leadership in 1991.  She wears saris, avoids Western clothes and speaks Hindi.  Her name - Sonia - is a name that had become popular in India as well, so didn't seem out of place.  But crucially, her Mediterranean light brown skin colour and black hair meant she looks as though she might have come from a high-caste north Indian background.  French comments that had she been of blonde northern European or black African origin, she would never have been credible as an Indian leader.

This raises some interesting questions.  If I had been like Sonia Gandhi, met and married an Indian man in politics, would I have been accepted with my fair skin, blue eyes and blonde hair?  If not, is that inherently racist - judging someone by their colouring rather than who they are?  Could I ever fit into India and become an Indian citizen in a way that now in the UK, we have come to accept that someone can be of any colour or ethnic origin and still be British.  Patrick French, apparently is a 'Person of Indian Origin' - or at least has a PIO visa by virtue of being married to Meru Gokhale (presumably of Indian origin).  It has occurred to me that if Susen and I got married, then I too could have a 'Person of Indian Origin' spouse visa despite my blonde hair and blue eyes.

India is actually highly ethnically, religiously and linguistically diverse.  But could this one day stretch to a blonde hair, blue eyed female leader? (that is, elected, not a foreign imposed colonial figure Queen Victoria style).  That would be interesting.

 

 

Suresh and Padma Wadkar at Cadogan Hall

OK, so I must confess that I had never actually heard of Suresh Wadkar before going to his Bollywood concert at the Cadogan Hall on 17 November 2012.  This probably put me in a minority of one, judging by the audience's obvious knowledge and enjoyment of his songs.  I also seemed to be a minority of one in (I'm pretty sure) being the only white English person in the audience, the rest being Indian (either Indian born and brought up - ie. Indian Indian or of Indian origin, born and brought up in the UK, ie. English Indian.  There is a difference).   Susen also had never heard of Suresh Wadkar, so I felt a bit better at my lack of knowledge.

The evening started with various introductions, thank yous and, slightly bizarrely to my mind, a short promo film from one of the sponsors for their luxury flats for sale in India (sorry, not sure exactly where).  I couldn't help smiling as one of the musicians was introduced as having a degree in IT - of course! - the modern Indian professional. Then a very nervous-looking Padma came on - Suresh's wife.   I was distracted by her dress, which I couldn't quite make out - it looked like a kurta top over a very full long skirt.  I am sure it has a name but it was a new style to me.  But when she started singing, her voice totally captivated me, almost entirely unexpected from someone so unassuming and obviously quite nervous.  She has a high soprano voice, typical of many of the female Bollywood voices and which I now associate more with the older films of the 1980s and 90s.  Still - the clarity of her voice, her mastery of the subtle intonations and scales of the ragas was amazing.  If I had heard that music on a film,  I don't think I would have heard the subtleties so clearly - the live performance really brought it to life, into 3D.

Then the man himself - 'her better half' as Padma so graciously introduced him.  And he didn't disappoint - again, his mastery of his voice, of the subtle scales was a joy to hear.  The duets with both Suresh and Padma were a delight, to see such accomplished singers in tune with each other. I just loved watching the accompanying musicians as well - so obviously enjoying their communication with each other and the audience through the beat of the music.  One tabla player just seemed to smile the whole way through which was quite infectious.

My main criticism of the evening was that Suresh introduced the songs and communicated in Hindi (unlike his wife who had spoken in English). This was probably fine for the vast majority of the audience - but I certainly could not follow it, nor Susen - whose other language is Bengali.  I did think it was a shame in that here he was in London, at a mainstream venue and yet his assumption was that no-one English would have been interested in his performance or in the audience.  I am sure his English would have been near perfect so I don't think it was a question of not knowing the language but simply an assumption that he was communicating with a solely Indian audience (almost correct, but not quite!)

That aside, a very good evening.  Neither me nor Susen recognised any of the songs - although many in the audience seemed to know them all.  I think, as with his wife, his music dates back to slightly older Bollywood (pre-Shah Rukh Khan?) than I am familiar with and I must confess that towards the end, the songs and structure of the songs, seemed somewhat formulaic and to merge together.  That may be a reflection of my ignorance of the songs rather than anything else.  More please.