Farzana and Me

On chowk at least, in a uniquely sub-continental way, the real issue has been formulated. In a vague, intellectual way. The issue is at its heart very simple, if you have the naivete of the innocently wise. Or, as Farzana would say, have the heart to be the wise innocent.

There is enough material in a Farzana piece that incites venom in the most saatvic of Hindu Indians. I am not in a position to guarantee similarly high octane response from the Nepali or Balinese Hindus. That means her pieces that beget venomous responses are closer home, and it is very stupid to assume the proximity here is only geographic.

So what is it that excites Hindu, Indian, and occasionally that most youthful, irreligious of the cosmopolitan Indians, all excited about Farzana Versey?

I think she pushes the envelope. She tears, often T-years, an A4 Executive Bond neatly into two. She disallows sitting on the fence, and inevitably gets the two halves fencing. It is easy to think of such consistent performance from her as obvious fallout of an ailment; after all consistency is the characteristic of the ass, or the CIA agent.

In her responses, she charges more ferociously, because she does not seem to ever suggest she is interested in revising her stand. Or even offering the token sidestepping considered so blithe, and even lithe, given that too many here have an educated guess of her age.

I often have felt a sense of being adroit when I do this, that is side stepping a direct question, or refusing to be buttonholed, if I am allowed to be a wee bit heroic about an act of defensiveness neatly dodged. This is because I write out thought-wisps and throw it at chowk. The reason is that I perceive of this place as an arena of intelligent, aware, sensible, and even sensitive bulls charging at the author of any piece. While the battle hardened get a better fight, if anybody thought chowk was insensitive, please go through the reply charts of the first-time writers here.

So what inflames some people about Farzana?

I do not want to be patronizing; such a huge crime among authors here. Though Alexander Pope -like most understand that flattery is the food of fools, and an old maxim in the schools, every now and then chowk’s men ( and women) of wit, condescend to take a bit. And often a huge bit.

But patronizing is not what I am being when I feel the ridges of Farzana’s prose cutting into my somnabulent Hindu flesh. I see in her piece an acute pain of identification with the victim. Her worldview, thoroughly imperfect and magnificiently flawed as it is, is essentially humane. Tilted, perhaps even jilted, but nevertheless true. True, not factually. But true emotionally. Emotional truth of Farzana’s pieces cut into our “Hindu Indian” collective consciousness. The point is most of our responses tend to be supremely assured.

The assured Indian Teenager: She is sexually frustrated.
The assured Indian: She is alive despite what she said because she is in India.
The assured Indian Hindu : She is a little too rhetorical, but her heart is in the right place.
The nationalist: She is exhibiting an exaggerated picture of injustice before an enemy, even hired western, audience.

Farzana’s stand is often calculated for response. She has the emotional punch that excites those who would like to imagine an India that is a darker, starker, more blackened photocopy of India from her sketches. They may be looking for that India to adorn the posters of their own propaganda seeking to establish India as a fake claimant to democratic rhetoric of its founding father’s ideals, and discredit its democratic experience of over 50 years. What validates Farzana for them is the emotional aspect of her work on chowk.

It is that same emotional pungency that evokes the stronger defensive response among many Indians. They disagree with the emotional warhead of her otherwise heart-in-the-right-place pieces. That her pieces have logical leaps, a pronounced preponderance for rhetoric, and a tendency to plough away weaknesses with flourishes, give enough legitimate reasons for a roasting by the politically pure.

But to me, Farzana is a voice of great value, even if occasionally her pieces are of little price. I want to tell her, “Yours is the impotency of the minority, mine, the infertility of the majority." Here, of course, I mean by “mine” the half Hindus trying to be full Indians. Hinduism is not as vital as Islam as a religion in the beginning of the 21st Century. There are many unwilling to disown their legacies, but not willing to be baptized as Hindus. But somehow they tend to become proactive and even fanatic in their opposition of a marauding idea. Currently, that marauding idea might be the half-fake one of a threatening, radical, and resurgent Islam sold to half-Hindus in India. The fear is that even if only one fourth of the Hindus bought that idea, it will mean disaster on the human scale for the idea of India.

It is therefore all the more that Farzana reads, writes, and thinks aloud. As only chowk allows.