The Great Indian Paradox Part 1

(Despite the "No Urine Sign", a passer-by still urinates on the wall. Rules in India exist, but no-one wants to adhere to them)

Bangalore – Sunday 30^th August, 2009

Mandvi, Kutch - a desert land full of marshes, is apparently my ancestoral home. The Rann of Kutch as it's more famously known became a port for Arab traders to trade and introduce Indian spices to the Arab world. I never knew how important this place was until Michael Palin decided to cover it in ne of his "Around the World in 80 day's" episodes.

Some more research is done and I find that I originate from Jaisalmar, Rajasthan. That's according to Wikepedia.

Confusing? Bare with me.

Some further research down the months and a few conversations later, I find that I’m Kshtriya (second to Brahmins on the Hindu caste list – boy to I detest this system), the clan of warriors and direct descendants from Lord Krishna.

It's just too much information for me. It’s hard enough trying to work out directions through some of Bangalore’s crazy roads (everything is a cross or a main here and it gets bloody confusing) let alone swallowing all this information.

I have in fact sat for a long time now wondering where my roots are from and have so longed and desired to learn about this. I wouldn’t say it’s become an obsession but with every passing day I have spent in India, it has grown. The greatest historian on this part no longer tells me the history. This great historian is my granddad, Vanraj Hansraj Sampat, a man who knew more about where we (my family or my caste or whatever you want to call it) came from then most economists can predict where we’re going in the current financial crisis. So vast was his knowledge, that you could pick any word, place or situation, and my grandfather would have a small yet important story attached to it.

But that history is too long and it’s too deep to go into, something which I know will take years of understanding. All I can say now is that it’s amazing to know that my surname (going back maybe 7 generations) was in fact “Rannwalla” – literarily denoting someone from the Rann of Kutch. But enough of the boring info about my past, I’ll save that all for the book!

Regardless of trying to understand my history, understanding the country behind the birth of such history is far more imperative, especially when you feel as though you have no attachment or understanding of it. In 2006, before I embarked on my Masters, I started to get this slight inking in my feeble mind to know more about this land called India, or as my grandfather would sometimes say, the “unknown home from home”. Well of course I disagreed with my grandfather on this opinion about the unknown home from home, because I'm British and proud of it, and growing up in a British-Indian household, one may eat Indian dishes, but you’re bought up with fundamental British values and ways, albeit Indian style. My father never forgot to tell me that we were British, always a timely reminder for any racist bigots that thought otherwise. But in understanding that Britishness that most South Asians associate with, we somehow forgot about our roots too. Of course not immedietly, but what I’m trying to say is that we focus so much on whats around us now, that we forget the situations that got us there in the first place. All I knew was that my parents were born in Africa, and my grandparents were born in India. Understanding why my parents grew up in Africa, why my grandparents grew up in India, and why I was born in Britain was something hard to chew. Effectively, my dad could come across with three identities. One day he was British, walking around with his Times newspaper and briefcase. The next day he was African, speaking to his school friends in Swahili and recollecting old tales from Kampala. And then on weekends he might be Indian – speaking in numerous languages (I’ve lost count of how many Indo languages he can actually speak) – most notably on subjects to do with business, cricket and anything associated with India. This, I must admit, I didn’t much appreciate at the time. I just wished he spoke in English and at times, I wish I had never known we could speak so many languages because English was the most important for me. Even though I knew my Indo languages were important, I never much appreciated them. Just imagine a 10 year old me playing football at school and I shout out for the ball from my teammate in Gujarati (ara ball pass karvanu che). Doesn’t really work right?

Me and my sisters have been lucky because we grew up modestly and my parents worked their socks off to turn away the bad associations associated with their torrid time with Idi Amin in the early 70’s. With £50 in his pocket, a political refugee from Uganda with nothing with him but his new gorgeous bride (that’s my mother I might add), my dad made it all the way and without him, I wouldn’t be here today, sitting in a cute studio flat in Bangalore, writing this post. Because life changed in that respect, we were lucky as children to be exposed to so many more things and geographically, this meant a lot. By the age of 6, I had visited Portugal, Spain, America and Canada (oh and I can’t forget Butlin’s and Pontin’s too!) The majority of kids of 6 years that I see in Bangalore probably haven’t even left the state of Karnataka, let alone Bangalore. Our holidays would normally be to the “nicer” places of the world, whatever one’s perception of “nicer” is, and rather strangely, India wasn't on that list.

The perception of India as a child was three things for me - "shit", "poverty" and "overcrowding". I might sound like the typical NRI now, but please don’t compare me to Russell Peters. It’s the truth. When I see myself admitting this to you, I feel ashamed that my opinions were so narrow minded. But I wasn't the only one who had this opinion. Many NRI buddies of mine would think the same thing. When a friend from my Year 8 class once announced that he was going India for the summer, the first thing I thought was "unlucky bastard", not because of all the negative connotations associated with India, but only because of the fact that I knew my summer was being spent in Torremolinos, a far attractive destination no less. Even now, opinions don’t seem to have changed all that much. I can still pick out an email that was sent to me one month before I embarked for India (around May 2008) from the same friend which read “Have fun, take lots of toilet roll and remember, the toilet will be your best friend”. He wasn't wrong. I have had fun, and at times, I have even gone as far as saying I love my toilet, dearly.

India for me and my sisters meant uniquely different things then what it meant for my parents. Women in sari's, kids our age without shoes and the smell of "shit" was the unfortunate label associated with the land of the “fresh” as me and college buddies once called it. I remember somebody getting married to a lady from India who had this funny accent and spoke no English and unfortunately had bad underarm odour. That one experience automatically made me think that everything and everyone from India smelt of bad odours, had a moustache and was retarded when it came to speaking English. How awful are stereotypes? Half the world’s major problems are down to stereotypes you know.

As we grew up, the connection with India was only through random relatives who visited us (half of whom I had no idea as to who they were and was told to either call them “Uncle” or “Auntie”). These relatives would go on for hours about how they remember me when I was a newborn baby, and how I look so much like my father (much to my disgust at the time), and then proceeded to blank me for the next 7 days they were staying in London because apparently someone told them that London had so many touristy things to do like see Buckingham Palace and visit Bond Street and Madam Tassauds, then listen to a spotty little teenager like me. It was as if me and my sisters didn’t exist after that. The talk of India was mentioned many times by these relatives, and when it came to “when are you next visiting”, the frowns all around the children’s faces obviously showed two things. Firstly, our perceptions of India must have been pretty bad and secondly, our parents had done no justice in trying to educate us on what India was about. The closest thing to anything Indian about us was our food (and I’m so glad it was!), my sisters clothes on the one off Hindu festival they would attend yearly, and finally, our names. I can’t blame my parents though. They wanted us to experience things when we were ready and not feed it down our throats, a route other parents think is the correct way to educate a child. I have no reservations. My first visit to India has come at the age of 24, and to all those doubters out in the big bad world, I’ve lived here for over a year now, an achievement beyond their wildest dreams. Before I set sail on my travels, I had at least 4 people telling me "You'll be back within 6 months", whilst some were more optimistic and suggested I'd return within a month.

I guess as we become more mature and we grow up to become aware of the cultures and societies around us, we learn to appreciate and look more closely at what the world has to offer. India for me is a new experience. I’m not blessed like others who have experienced it over and over again. Neither am I the hippy that goes to see some spiritual wack like Sadhguru and says “I found peace”. My experience is different. My experience is about a perception of a country that had so many negative connotations in my head that one day I decided that I had to get up and do something about it. People said things had changed, people said people had changed, India HAD changed. But how can I see if India has changed based on someone else’s words? I can read books, remember all those beautiful conversations with my grandfather in the wee hours of the morning, or just sit and live this experience like I’m doing now. There is no questions, and there is no answers to this timely question. All I can do is continue living it.

Join Ravin in Part 2 of "The Great Indian Paradox" as he writes about India since it's Independence and the challenges it still faces, available Friday September 4th at 12pm (GMT).

Follow me on twitter.com/ravinsampat