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When In Rome: But Rome Doesn't Rule Anymore! - Sunny Singh Sunny Singh was born in Varanasi. She received her education in various parts of India and the world. She has worked as a journalist, teacher, and as a management executive for multinationals in Mexico, Chile and South Africa. For the last four years, she has been writing full-time. She is also a playwright. Her first play, Birthing Athena, focussed on evolving relationships and the price of ambition in post-liberalisation India. The Times of India described the play as "an intensely cathartic experience." Her first novel, Nani's Book of Suicides, had been published by Harper Collins Publishers India. Described by the Hindustan Times as a "first novel of rare scope and power," the novel explores the cultural identity of an Indian woman through a fund of myths, family lore and contemporary reality. Her second book, Single in the City: The independent woman's handbook was released on Dec 22, 2000 by Penguin India. Visit Sunny Singh's website at: http://www.sunnysingh.net/

This is the third article in the series of 'Shorter Route to India' by Sunny Singh. To read the earlier articles by sunny Singh please visit her mezine Sunny Side"

Situated on the southern Spanish coast, along the Mediterranean, Cartagena is an ancient settlement by all standards. The ruins of a Roman amphitheatre occupy the grounds in the heart of this tiny port town. In fact the town was established by the Carthagians, during the Punic wars, hence its name which initially meant “the new Carthago.” A thirteenth century castle looms high above the street. And two old forts flank the hills on both sides of the Cartagena port.

The centre of the town, however, is predominantly modernist, with fabulous facades, and whimsical balconies. Unfortunately, unfettered urban construction, predominantly to attract tourism to a town that has long served as a military port, has led to the destruction of much of the old architecture. In its place are rather randomly selected styles of contemporary architecture, many of them quite shocking.

The average person in Cartagena is fascinated by the sight of an Indian. At restaurants, in shops, on the streets, we were consistently greeted with shy curiosity. The shyness disappeared quickly when the locals realised that we spoke Spanish, and curiosity took over. We were bombarded with questions, often with a charming small town naivete. And then overwhelmed by friendly hospitality.

At a friend´s recommendation, we looked up the local diving school, the Club Hesperides. The manager, Juan Carlos, a gorgeous man of half-Spanish, half-Syrian parentage is an enthusiastic promoter of his native region. He immediately drew up a list of local restaurants for us and planned out an itinerary for a visit to La Manga (a thin stretch of land that divides a warm water lagoon from the Mediterranean) located twenty minutes away from Cartagena.

His partner then took us out on his rubber boat. We raced along the rugged coast-line, dotted with ancient battlements and forts, marked with modern artillery positions and further away, by private sandy coves, accessible only by water. We tried various beaches until we found one we liked. An Argentine member of the Hesperides club jumped into the water and towed our dinghy to practically the end of the waterline to let us off. We spent a long afternoon on that stunning, deserted beach until they came back to retrieve us. And returned to our hotel that night, completely relaxed, and loaded with posters, caps and maps that Juan Carlos had presented to us as souven irs.

Juan Carlos told us that for much of the year, Cartagena remains a small, sleepy town. Even the residents escape to the nearby coastal resorts of La Manga to find entertainment. We learned that the only regular visitors are the US Navy and Marine personnel who dock occasionally at the port. Their arrival isn´t always looked upon favourably because the town then also attract large numbers of prostitutes, drug-dealers and criminals, often from far inland.

To counter this, there are efforts on at the moment to try to convert it into a tourist centre. As part of these attempts to attract tourists, once a year Cartagena plays host to the Mar de Musicas international festival of music.

The Mar de Musicas festival brings musicians from all over the world to the port town, providing a chance for the citizens to experience something from beyond the boundaries of Spain, something different from the plaintive sounds of the flamenco and the cliched beats of Euro-pop. For 2003, the country being showcased at the festival has been India.

The festival has put together an impressive list of musicians, ranging from Hari Prasad Chaurasia to Zakir Hussain, from Trilok Gurtu and Nitin Sawhney to Apache Indian. Alongside, they ran a series of “Bollywood” films, focussing on Raj Kapoor (ending with Bobby), and a series of NRI films from Canada, UK and the USA. Galleries around Cartagena put together exhibitions on India, of photographs and painting. A third stream put together a series of readings, seminars and conferences on Indian literature.

In theory, this should have been a perfect opportunity to learn about contemporary India. To showcase a dynamic, growing, real India that has grown from one of the poorest countries in 1947 to the world´s fourth largest economy (U.N. statistics that factor in purchasing power parity) in 2003.

Instead, what Cartagena presented was the much of the same old wine, albeit this time in a more politically correctly labelled bottle. Lagaan was the only film from Bollywood, made after 1973 to be included in the film cycle. I wondered what would be the reaction if we organised a “Hollywood” festival in Mumbai, and stopped with the films of Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn.

The most important exhibition of art in the festival was a collection of paintings by a local artist. Apparently he had been granted a two-week all expense paid trip to India to create the paintings for the exhibition. We were told that the show had sold out even before opening and was “unusual.” A quick look at the paintings showed images that have been recycled since the early days of French Orientalist school of painting of the late 19th century. The “unusual” had been included by the use of abstract elements in some of the canvasses.

In one week of stay in Cartagena, I heard India described as “exotic”, “mysterious” and “eternal” so often that I finally lost count. And for most part such descriptions came not from the local populace, but from the “educated and better informed” people: the journalists, intellectuals, artists and academics.

Now, the accepted wisdom out there believes that there is nothing wrong with the words “exotic” or “mysterious.” Yet a closer look at the Orientalist politics of the epistemology of colonization reveals that such words are loaded, to say the least. India as “exotic” can then be labelled as “different”, and kept at an arm´s length. To label another culture as “mysterious” establishes the “occidental” set of cultural practices and values as the norm. An exotic and mysterious culture can be “studied”, and by the process of “study” can then be easily and always objectified. To label India as “eternal” implies a culture tha t doesn´t change, or grow, and in essence, is petrified. By extension, such a culture cannot “progress” and therefore the processes of development and progress are also appropriated discursively by the “West.” Yet the “intellectual” organisers preferred to ignore the politics of such stereotyping. They preferred their own vision of India, Indians, and Indian culture.

Not surprisingly, the stage was set for conflicts between the Indians and the Spaniards. Vasundhara Das performed an amazing concert that drew from influences of classical and semi-classical Indian musical traditions, both the north and south of the country. Fusing traditional Indian music with jazz, blues and rock, the band produced some of the most interesting contemporary Indian sound. Yet the comment from the organizers was that it wasn´t “Indian enough.” A comment that the band – with musicians from all over India, and varied musical training – simply laughed off.

Trilok Gurtu´s concert publicly brought to head the clash of civilizations. Dieguito El Cigala – one of Spain´s beloved flamenco singers - had been invited to perform as a guest at the concert. He appeared late and sulking on stage, insisting that Gurtu play “his music” and refusing to cooperate with what should have been an attempt at fusion. The Spaniard was further infuriated when Roop Kumar Rathod effortlessly outsang him. The concert was saved only by the Indian musicians, who switched to amazing variations of the flamenco rhythms, with Gurtu´s inspired solo on the tabla responding to El Cigala´s boorishness with a musical equivalent of the fist in a velvet glove.

Apache Indian´s predominantly reggae rhythms was the final nail in the “Indian enough” coffin. The band arrived exhausted and hungry from Amsterdam and U.K. in the afternoon, were kept waiting till they were allowed to go on stage (forty minutes after than their gig was supposed to start) because another concert nearby had been allowed to go way over time. Playing some of his biggest hits, Apache had the audience dancing wildly, singing along to “chak de”, and begging for more. Yet they were abruptly cut short mid-way through the concert because the organizers decided that the band to make way for a neighbourhood DJ.

More than once, members of the Indian contingent remarked on the rudeness and arrogance of the Spaniards. Trilok Gurtu´s concert was not only marked by boorishness on stage by El Cigala, but also by a tantrum by the flamenco star in the hotel lobby. El Cigala foamed at the mouth for a good quarter of an hour while Gurtu stood imperturbed. Unfortunately, the tantrum ensured that the organizers – in their rush to calm El Cigala – forgot about Gurtu and his band. As a result, Gurtu, Rathod, and some of the biggest names in Indian music ended up wandering the streets of Cartagena at two in the morning to find dinner. And t his without even the assistance of a translator.

In fact the food issue was one of the biggest complaints for the Indian contingent. One of the first questions the Spaniards ask an Indian is “why are cows sacred and why don´t you eat beef?” Even the press reports on musicians and critiques of concerts made constant references to “musicians from the land of the sacred cows.” And yet, none of the organisers had bothered to ensure food for the vegetarians, or even realised that most Indians tend to be very selective about the non-vegetarian dishes they do consume. Every meal was full of seafood, ham and beef dishes, with a few leaves of lettuce and thin slices of tomato to balance off the surfeit of meats.

With few translators available to be able to communicate Indian dietary issues to the organisers, and even fewer attempts to note if the artists were comfortable, many of us ended up surviving for days on frugal meals of salad and bread. The musicians from Apache Indian´s band were enterprising enough to shop at the supermarket and keep their mini-fridges stocked with “real” food (just as we did).

Of course, a bit of disorganization can be overlooked, even accepted. But how do you overlook arrogance and condenscension? The worst came when yours truly decided to voice the dietary needs of the Indians, about how many of us had food restrictions. Pat came the response from one of the organisers: “well, when in Rome, do as Romans do.”

My response of course was: “Sure, when Rome ruled, people did that; it doesn´t rule anymore.” And an Indian friend´s (who is Muslim and therefore doesn´t eat pork) response was harsher: “We don´t eat any old junk just to fill our stomachs. Eating is a cultural ritual, and there is no reason for anyone of us to abandon our faiths just to please you.” The net result of course was a bit of an altercation. And yet another bit of the stereotype of the “nice Indian” crumbled into dust.

Later, discussing the issue with some of the other artists, we were surprised by how similar our views of the Spaniards were. The Spanish believed that they were doing the Indians a great favour by inviting us over, and therefore we should accept whatever they doled out to us. Their image was – to quote Roop Kumar Rathod – was that “Indians were out at their festival with our begging bowl and would take anything they wished to throw our way.” As long as the Indians went along with this treatment and kept quiet, they were “nice” (and “spiritual” and “pacific,” “lovely” and “fill-in-your-stereotype”). The moment we protested (and boy, some of us did it loudly), we were “radicals” or “not Indian enough.”

The Spaniards then reacted with shock, horror and unprofessionalism: the organizer who retorted with the bit on Rome, never came back and spoke to me again. Since she was in charge of my travel arrangements and refused to deal with a “non-nice” Indian, this also meant that I had to find myself a taxi to get out of Cartagena. And I left wondering what if I didn´t speak Spanish enough to make my own travel arrangements?

For a Spain-lover like me, the experience of Cartagena last week was a saddening one. I know the country well enough and speak the language well enough to fend for myself. I wonder just how many of the other artists from India walked away with a complete sense of disgust, anger or frustration?

I know that not all of Spain is as racist, or prejudiced. I also know that the average Spaniard is arrogant; that their arrogance is based on their conviction of being “first world” simply by dint of being part of the European Union and being “white.” This also means that the Spanish sense of self is so fragile that it does not cope well when confronted by one of the “inferiors” (as they perceive Indians) on their own turf.

Perhaps from an Indian perspective, Spain too is a “mysterious and exotic” country. This is a country where – for example – the lack of information technology can be astounding, especially to an Indian accustomed to cyber-dhabas on every corner, and in every obscure village. It is also – in many ways – a third world country, where temperatures reach 38 degrees in the summer and yet few homes have ceiling fans. It is also completely “quixotic” where train-tracks are so limited that the trains reverse good twenty kilometers after each station to revert back to the main track. But nevertheless, it is an interesting country. And beyond the facade of arrogance, there is a charm and beauty in Spain unmatched by a ny other nation in Europe.

Which is why it is such a shame that Cartagena´s Mar de Musicas festival of 2003 had to be a missed opportunity for all of us.

Till we connect again...

Photo Credits

Cartagena Photo provided by Hyatt Regency La Manga

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