Durga puja - Western style

For us it was always Christmas that was the major festival during the year and not an Indian or Hindu one.  School life built up to Christmas with special meals and carols, there was a large decorated Christmas tree at home with masses of presents, and Christmas lunch was probably the only time in the year when we sat down to eat together. As the numbers of Bengalis in the UK increased there were more Durga Pujas festivals held.

Religion didn’t play that great a part in our parents’ lives. My father had a mini-shrine in his bedroom with icons of various Gods bought from India, and a bottle of Ganges water – very holy in the Hindu religion. Prayers were said very much in the Western manner with the palms together. Apart from some visits to Durga Pujas, that was really our only exposure to Hinduism. My first trip to a Hindu temple wasn’t until I was in my early 20s on an extended holiday in India. We went to a temple in Tarakeswar, about 40 miles from Calcutta, where my father had partially been brought up. The head priest was an old school friend of my father’s and said prayers with us. I just remember being appalled at the lack of hygiene in the temple but that was redeemed later by probably the best shingaras - Bengali samosas – I have ever had in the priest’s quarters. By contrast the Hindu temple we visited in Delhi a couple of years ago was very clean and well-kept.

A couple of weeks ago I was researching into London Durga Pujas which is the main Bengali festival. Amongst Bengalis Diwali – the Festival of Light – does not feature prominently. A Bengali festival, Kali Puja, generally coincides with Diwali. I don’t think I was I was aware of Diwali until I was a grown-up. Perhaps this is another example of the “Bengalis are different” sentiment. My understanding is that most other Hindu groups from India celebrate their own festivals at about the same time as Diwali. Having been in Calcutta at Diwali I found Bengalis were aware of it but there seemed to be no active mass celebrations. The main hotels did, however, make great efforts with beautiful flower displays and floating candles in swimming pools.

Talking to my cousin in Seattle recently he recounted that when he was resident in London in the late 1960s there were numerous separate pujas and remembered a particular one in Hampstead that he attended. I found there were at least ten separate Durga Pujas in and around London which I think shows both how important the festival is and the numbers of Bengalis in the UK today.

In Birmingham where I grew up there were at least three separate Durga Puja events and the staging, organisation, and personalities were often very political. For my parents in particular it was a great time, and in the main a social event. My mother would attend one puja on her own during the day, and then another in the evening with my father. She would cook large pans of vegetarian food, chickpea curry comes to mind, to serve to worshippers and revellers. As I recall food was a very important part of the festivities. Rather sadly it seems there are fewer Durga Pujas held in the Midlands than in the past. Perhaps gradually most of my parents’ generation have retired and most of the new first generation arrivals have settled in the South of England.

Durga Puja generally takes place over about a week, and most organisations in the UK would rent a church hall or similar facilities. There would be a huge display on a dais or stage of a papier mache Durga – generally imported from Calcutta - dominating the hall like an altar and a place for offerings. An uncle on a Puja committee would store the Durga in his garage the rest of the year. Each day and evening there would be various pujas or religious services followed by lunch and dinner, and sometimes entertainment such as Tagore plays and music. We as children often attended but we had very little cultural context or education, and the thought of just sitting there while the adults were engaged was not really appealing. I think most nisei Bengalis disappeared from Durga Pujas during their teenage years perhaps to make a reappearance in their 20s wanting to reconnect with both their culture and local aunts and uncles.

It was only recently that I went again to Durga Puja. We went to events in Kings Cross and Ealing Town Hall. Both were very crowded, and it was very difficult to understand what was going on; perhaps my lack of religious education made it harder. In addition, we felt most of the attendees were first generation recent arrivals from Bengal. I suppose I was quite surprised at the lack of second generation or nisei like me. Trying to find food, not knowing anyone there and the crowd density made the event difficult to enjoy and I sadly felt rather at sea.

Certainly the Durga Pujas held in the UK have had fresh impetus from new arrivals of Bengali origin, but it is striking that few second generation appear to have an interest in maintaining their parents’ tradition although that might be just be a mix of intermarriage, greater integration rather than an outright rejection of their parents’ culture.

Happy Birthday Sunita

I've been doing a lot of motorway driving recently - which I find incredibly tedious.  The only upside (if a good DAB radio is available) is the opportunity to listen to radio programmes I might not otherwise have the time for, or - sorry if this makes you cringe - singing along to old Genesis CDs.  If I'm in the right space this might extend to Yes or Bollywood classics such as 'Dil Se'.  There is also a kind of rootless anonymity I quite like in the motorway service stations - as with airports -  even if the price of coffee is over-inflated. And so, somewhere on the M40 I managed to catch a delightful interview with Shabana Azmi on last Friday's 'Woman's Hour'.

The daughter of Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi and actress Shaukat Azmi,  Shabana Azmi was perhaps destined for a life in film and theatre.  Her parents were also members of the Indian Communist Party and Shabana has combined her career as an actress - having appeared in over 120 Hindi and Bengali films - with social activism.  She has campaigned on a number of issues including HIV / AIDS and also women's rights.  Since 1997 she has also been a nominated member (ie. not directly elected member) of the Rajya Sabha - the upper house of the Indian Parliament.  You can see why I was drawn to her.

Recently, she has been touring the UK with Rifco Arts - an award-winning British Asian Theatre Company.  In the play 'Happy Birthday Sunita', Azmi plays the mother Tejpal Johal.   In the Woman's Hour interview, Jenni Murray started by asking Shabana what drew her to the script.  Her response:

'....because I thought it had a very simply message that would reach out to older women and I have been working with women for a long time now.  So, that was something that attracted me – it’s an uplifting play.  Plus the fact that Rifco Arts itself is a charity – it is funded by the British Arts Council and what I really appreciate about it is that it has successfully weaned away what was largely a Bollywood-watching audience into regular theatre–goers.  They have done that by telling stories about the British Asian community located in situations that they understand by keeping the tickets rates really low.  And since I come from a theatre background, to me that is an extremely important contribution that Rifco Arts is doing'.

Jenni Murray then went on to ask Shabana what was it about the character that fascinated her, that was so special about her?  Shabana's reply really struck me:

' Because I know many women such as Tejpal Johal who have really struggled very hard and made enormous personal sacrifices to keep the family going.  Her husband has been away, she has brought up in a strange country 2 children on her own.  She works in a surgery and she has really never been anything other than ‘Mum’ for the family – they have just seen her in the stereotype of what a mother is – which is basically just serving them food and looking after their needs.  And she then says that I have played by the rules of the game.  I have done all I have to do. You are all grown up now.  I am now going to follow my dreams because all along I have been told that women who speak their minds are dangerous and so I have kept quiet.  But keeping quiet hasn’t made my life any better.  And so she springs a surprise on the family and suddenly comes alive as just a person rather than just ‘Mum’ as you have seen her.  And I have seen that in so many women and I have seen they become invisible in a way.  They fit into a slot, they make your life convenient and they’ve never looked beyond that.  And suddenly there is a spark and you realise, my God, they are special women'.

I found this reply so moving - because, exactly as she says, the reality for many women in traditional families is that they are the ones who are in the background, who keep the family together, the 'show on the road'.  They cook, clean, do the washing - all to smooth the paths and facilitate the lives of their children, husbands and relatives.  But where are their dreams?  Where are their hopes and aspirations?  And once they are not there, the family realises just how special their invisible Mums actually are.

'Happy Birthday Sunita' - is currently about to head overseas to Dubai, Delhi or Mumbai though is set to return to the UK next year.

http://rifcoarts.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04l3nnp

National Curry Week....What is curry's place in UK culture?

[caption id="attachment_1517" align="alignleft" width="225"] Curry Week Offers at Marks & Spencers[/caption]

I’m sure we all have anecdotes and apocryphal stories about the place of curry in our lives and in the British consciousness.  I, for one, could do without any more politicians, when speaking at India-related events, claiming chicken tikka masala is the UK’s national dish.  On one occasion a British colleague working in New York bemoaned the lack of decent curry in the US and said after a meeting back in London his first outing would be to a local “indigenous” curry house.  By contrast I might miss a roast beef Sunday lunch.  I am told that in the past the most junior hospital doctor would be sent out to get curries for other members of their team over the weekend, and use the code 666 over pagers to communicate the arrival of the food. Finally an Indian ex of mine loved Marks and Spencers’ chicken tikka masala so much my suitcase contained 4 or 5 packs on my trips to see her in Heidelberg.

My own personal memories of what is commonly known as curry is fairly limited.  We didn’t eat out much as children and didn’t eat our mother’s Bengali food.  The common perception certainly until probably the early 1990s was of fairly bland curries, varying only by levels of spiciness, often red-tinged with food colouring, served on a night out with copious quantities of lager and with plenty of poppadoms.  This was in an era when pub opening hours were limited and one of the few ways of getting alcohol was in a restaurant. This was infamously parodied in a reverse context by the 'Goodness Gracious Me' team on the BBC in “Going for an English”[i].  Rowan Atkinson parodied the English in an Indian restaurant[ii]. Indian restaurants developed their own style often covered with flock wallpaper.

Thankfully things now have changed dramatically and the old-fashioned curry house is now probably a dying institution being gradually replaced by more upmarket restaurants and cafes.  We have reviewed many of these on our blog. What is remarkable is the numbers of Indians, whether tourists or those living here, who frequent places like Masala Zone, Roti Chai and Dishoom.  Indian street food has become vogue also, with markets at South Bank and other locations.  Food like this is available in India and indeed the UK has taken their inspiration from India but adapted, productised and marketed effectively.  Some might argue that overall the “Indian” food available in the UK is better than that found in Delhi.  The cultural supremacy almost of Indian food in the UK might be regarded as akin to a form of reverse colonialism - a colonialism that began with the East India Company exporting spices from the Coromandel Coast to the UK.

What “curry”, in its broadest context, has done is to change British eating culture.  Most homes have probably tried to make curry –  thankfully that is a sea-change from the curry powder and sultanas days of the past – and one’s local supermarket will have stocks of almost every Indian spice.  Special trips to Southall, Brick Lane and Handsworth to buy rare ingredients are no longer essential even for Indian families.  However, just occasionally we might like to go to Southall or Quality Foods in Hounslow partially for the cultural experience.

British eating culture has changed to such an extent that most are willing to experiment with other cuisines such as Thai, Indonesian and Vietnamese.  There is no question that Indian food with curry as its chief exemplar is now embedded in the British consciousness and it will continue to adapt and evolve but as important is its role in changing food culture in the UK more broadly.

[i] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdo79znnHl8

[ii] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4LHLM4WIw0

What's in a name?

Jemima Khan (née Goldsmith), it is reported, is considering reverting back to her ‘maiden’ name.  Once divorced, she said she was keeping her married name as she wanted the same surname as her children.  Now her children are older, and Imran Khan (her ex-husband) is re-marrying, the time has come, it seems, to consider changing her name back.

Surnames for women have, to my mind, always been problematic. As a child, it was already in my consciousness that one day my surname might be different.  This caused some uncertainty.  For example, once I had a savings account I decided I needed a signature of my own.  So I invented one and practised it – but with always the proviso at the back of my mind that I might have to change it one day if, or when, I got married[1].  Surnames for women are only borrowed, never owned.  First, you have the surname of your father and then, on marriage you assume the surname of your husband.  So, where are you in all this?  A conduit for the continuity of the male lineage, never a person in your own right with a title to confer to future generations.

So, I decided that on no account was I going to change my surname.  It was my name (albeit that of my father’s) and, while not the most exotic sounding name (‘Jackson’), it was mine.  It was a matter of principle.

Then, in my 20s, friends starting getting married – and all changed their names immediately to their husbands!  Why?  Did they not feel a sense of betrayal to the principle, the cause?  Apparently not (unless in a situation like my Pakistani friend, where cousin marriages are common, who already shared the same surname as her future husband – problem solved!)

For my son (whose father I was never married to), I opted for a double barrelled surname with both father’s and mother’s.  This worked well in his case as they went well together.  Actually, it never occurred to me that this might not be my choice – the UK, in its typical liberal muddling-through kind of way, has no prescriptions about changes of names or what you should call yourself.  It’s up to you, albeit heavily influenced by tradition and convention.  For my son’s first name, I chose ‘Ewan’ – to bring back my mother’s maiden name of ‘Ewen’, now lost as there was only her and one sister.  I realise the spelling of ‘Ewan’ is not quite the same – but therein lies a tale that perhaps is best not told in this space.

My son’s middle name (and his father’s first name) comes from the Northumberland tradition of turning the grandmother’s maiden name into the first name of the grandson – which seems an interesting adaptation to keeping the matriarchal lineage alive [albeit in my son’s father’s case he was further named after an uncle who died during WW2).

Using a double barrelled surname for my son seems to work quite well - for example, in travelling abroad.  Coming back to the UK this summer after a trip to abroad, I checked through immigration with my son.  I was asked what my relationship was with my son: of course I said he was my son.  This was unproblematic as he had my surname as half of his surname – a more problematic question if my surname was completely different to his.

This reflection on surnames was actually prompted a while back, on reading a ruling from the Mumbai High Court in 2012.  The Times of India reported that women can now retain their maiden name after marriage[2]. Prior to the amendment, it seems, the court would not accept divorce, or related applications, from women unless they bore their husband’s surname.  After the ruling, however, a woman can file for divorce in her maiden surname, married surname or any other name she may have adopted.

This follows a French ruling in 2003 that allowed parents to give their children the father’s surname, the mother’s surname or the surnames of both parents in whatever order they chose.  This was, unfortunately too late for the De-Ram-Berou children as the ECHR decided it could not be applied retrospectively and was not upheld in that court[3].

Another 2013 ECHR judgement ruled that the impossibility of married women to use their maiden name in Turkey did amount to a violation of Article 8 (right to privacy and family life) in conjunction with Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination).  They ruled that the difference in treatment between men and women (men could keep their surnames) amounted to discrimination and had no objective and reasonable justification [3]

This is a welcome advancement from the normal cultural practice of adopting the husband’s surname – or indeed, on marriage, often in India, of adopting a completely new name, both first name and surname, presumably to signify the re-born status of the newly married woman, fully integrated into her new family.

But in another – closely associated part of Europe – the opposite exists.  My Serbian friend, on marrying her Peruvian husband, followed the Spanish tradition.  This is where the woman keeps her own surname, because she is not of his own genetic family.  So, for example –hypothetically – if I were to marry Susen, I would be known as Sue Jackson de Sarkar, not as Sue Sarkar as I would be in the UK.  To my mind, that’s slightly more female friendly – although there is still a sense of ownership involved – that you are ‘of’ someone.  I believe the tendency now is more towards both men and women in Spanish speaking countries having 2 surnames – one from their father and one from their mother, and neither party changing their names on marriage.

Perhaps, though, we should not be so rigid about holding on to our given names.  In my involvement with the Triratna Buddhists (formerly the FWBO) in my 20s – on ordination, people were given a Buddhist name (ie. Pali name – from the language spoken by the Buddha at that time, closely associated with Sanskrit).  From that moment on, they had to be addressed by their Buddhist name, not their former first name.  I really did my best to go along with this but, I must confess, at times, it just felt weird.  It was perhaps exacerbated by (mainly) white British people suddenly adopting a Pali / Indian name – Dayasri, Punyavati, Srimati, Gunabhadri, Suryagupta, Dhammachandra, Prajnagupta and so on.   My mother refused point blank to refer to an old school friend of mine – Garry – as ‘Dhammavijaya’ once he was ordained.  I briefly tried to reason with her, before giving up.  So now, I refer to him as ‘Garry’ with her and ‘Dhammavijaya’ with everyone else.  Just makes life easier.

Still, the confusion this name changing causes continues even now, on contacting old friends and acquaintances from my Triratna / FWBO days.  Not only have they adopted Pali names on ordination, but then quite a few have married as well and changed their surnames to their husband’s.  So, with both first name and surname changed, it becomes virtually impossible to identify the person you once knew.

Should names evolve, as we evolve and mature throughout life?  Why do we necessarily cling to a given name at birth by own parents, when it might not reflect who we truly are, the core of our being?

I remember going to the funeral in Birmingham of the brother of a (Buddhist) friend of mine.  She had changed her name on ordination, and always referred to her brother as ‘Anthony’.  Sadly, her brother died at a relatively young age and I attended the funeral in Birmingham.  Imagine my bewilderment then when I attended his funeral and they kept referring to him as ‘Sidney’.  I thought I was at the wrong funeral.  But, on questioning my friend afterwards, she said yes, Sidney was his name but she always preferred to call him by his middle name Anthony.  For her, names were fluid, contingent on the times and on the occasion.  In fact, when she came over to the UK from the Caribbean as a child, she had mulled over what surname to use.  Her father had died, so she decided to use her grandmother’s surname on her passport.

So, maybe names are more fluid than I have been led to believe?  Yes, I was called Susan Jackson at birth – but that was before either of my parents had any idea who I might turn out to be, or what my personality was.  Should we all have contingent surnames?  And first names?  How many times should we be able to change our names?  And decided by who?  An opportunity or a curse?

[1] I am still using the same signature today

[2] Times of India 26/02/2012

[3] Leventoğlu Abdulkadiroğlu v.Turkey - ECHR 160 (2013)

[3] European Court of Human Rights – ECHR 267 (2013).  19.09.2013.