Indians At Sea Or At Home In Cultural Splash in South Africa?

Marlan Padayachee
Left of What’s Right

RECENTLY I attended three Indian functions in a row over three days in Durban.
The sights and sounds, saris and sweetmeats and the cuisines, chilli bites and the cultural cacophony of this Diaspora community convinced me once more that Durban is truly an “Indian country”, where many of the descendants of the 1860 indentured labourers are still struggling with the franca-lingua of the dominant Zulu-speaking compatriots and some of the dramatic transformational social, economic and political changes in South Africa.
Though Indians are a homogeneous bloc, they are not alone in a Catch-22 situation in a changing environment where the proverbial playing fields are becoming leveled as we head for the third democratic elections in 2009. The other sister groups, so-called Whites, Coloureds, Chinese, Portuguese, Greeks, Lebanese, or foreigners like Africans, Asians, Sri Lankans, are also feeling as if they are out of the loop, insecure, alienated or regarded as soft targets by the criminal elements. Then there’s also an old adage – a classic case of “too many Chiefs not enough Indians”.
Almost 148 years since that historic landing at the Durban Bay on 16 November when more than 300 men, women and children disembarked from the SS Truro after a horrendous journey across the Indian Ocean Rim, in which some scurvy-ravaged indentured labourers perished in the deep blue ocean, South Africa’s 1, 3 million Indians appear to be still at sea about life in the new South Africa.
Cultural Passion
But one thing Indians, individually and collectively, are certain about is their whole Indian socio-cultural package and baggage. They are passionate about their ancient religious rituals, Hinduism, Christianity or Islam. They appear preoccupied with all and sundry from red-hot spicy meals, the city’s indigenous favourite eat out - bunny-chow - saris and sweetmeats, mansions versus matchbox houses, Amabenzi as the first choice of prestige carriage as compared to the trustworthy Toyota, status symbols, social climbing, Lotusfm, Eastern Mosaic, SA India magazine, and of course, Bollywood, India’s template of Hollywood.
But all said and done, South Africa is arguably one of the best places on the Planet, depending on which side of the fence you are sitting on, or how green your grass is getting. Though sizzling- hot Dubai is touted as our tenth province for economic migration, the weather speaks for itself in this ancient civilization.
Three days in Little India began as a guest of the Indian Consulate at Lillieshell Manor, a one size fits all dinner party for the visiting Indian MBA students, who certainly enjoyed their sabbatical at the Graduate School of Business at the UNKZ’s Westville Campus under the tutelage of Professor Anesh Singh and a colleague Martin Challenor, whom the young financial gurus nicknamed Martinji after he had put them through their paces for week; and the double-header dinner included the Miss India South Africa Pageants aspirants, in which another stalwart colleague Farook Khan, was roundly honoured for promoting young Indian women by His Excellency, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, who diplomatically reminded us that we were on Indian soil. The Consul-General also politely informed our ubiquitous Deputy Mayor Logie Naidoo that nothing socially can happen in the city of his forebears without his charming presence.
The next day the cultural choreography of the annual pageantry rolled out with women being the roses among the thorns, looking radiant and ravishing in colourful saris and eastern garments. On the third day it was off to the yearly bridal fair, exhibiting all that’s Indian, from exotic eastern dishes to intricate gold jewellery, accessories and apparels to photo-opportunities for the big day. On stage, the models strutted the best and the fashionistas thrived to the beat of Bollywood.
This prestige bridal show that enjoys a corporate banking sponsorship is a positive imaging of everything that’s chic, glamorous and modern about the community, exuding a blend of the ancient and post-modernism in which the older and younger generation fuses around the sacred moments of planning marriages in a kaleidoscope of colour and tradition.
Nearby the Bollywood Bible, a high quality SA India magazine was dished out to patrons to gloss over the celluloid icons and catch up with off-screen gossips. Aside from Women’s Month, August was also Indian Month with the Shared Experiences, Goa Food Fair and Bollywood, The Musical.
Romanticism with Bollywood and the Ancient Land of India
Significantly in 2010, South Africa’s Golden Year since the Long Walk to Freedom, South Africans of Indian origin, will be celebrating 150 years of living and working in the reinvented republic. Unlike many Indian expatriates around the world, estimated at 20-million, Indians in this strategic corner of the eastern Africa seaboard of the Indian Ocean Rim are unique. As a cultural bloc, they are still part and parcel of the new RSA, having put up with the indignity and discrimination of the apartheid country.
Therefore, throughout the toughest sanctions on trade and cultural links, Indians at home did not sever their umbilical cord with the land of their forebears and while resisting social and economic injustices at home, hence the intense level of passion and love for Incredible India. In the same vein, Indians have stood four squares behind Mandela’s campaign to free all South Africans and provide a new, non-racial democracy for “all those who live in it”.
Both histories are intertwined and tied to each other’s destinies, and they are almost inseparably linked to the strong platform between Tshwane-Pretoria-Durban and New Delhi-Mumbai-Chennai.
Culturally, Indians are an integral mix of SA’s unique cultural diversity and cosmopolitan image within the banner of One Country, Many Cultures.
For several years, the multi-media has brought the heart and soul of Bollywood into the lives, living rooms and lifestyles of Indians and the animation of the glamour and glitz of one of the world’s colourful film industries is comes alive on the big screens, DVDs and hand-held communications gadgets. Various mediums serve to enrich the knowledge economy of the community and the synergy is boundless. Even pay-TV station DStv is in on the act, bringing out the best of Bollywood to local audiences.
Ahead of the first FIFA World Cup, Indian South Africans are a resourceful and colourful crowd who can act as the catalyst within the Indian Diaspora and this community has a lot to share with the rest of nation’s diverse communities.
There’s romanticism between Bollywood and the ancient land of India – it’s a question of bridging the chasm and celebrating the successes. This human potential has to be unlocked beyond perceived pride and prejudice as we strive to show our young people the beauty of being Indian within a dynamic cultural diversity.
May industrious Indians here and abroad tell the world a story of the ancient land of religious rituals, cultural civilization, pageantry, beauty, tradition, custom , cuisines and the cacophony of people while promoting a one-nation, many cultures mantra.
Until next week and as a tribute to the Muslim community in holy month of Ramadan Mubarak, I am sharing Prophet Kahlil Gibran’s words of wisdom: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, and yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward, not tarries with yesterday.”
Marlan Padayachee is an international freelance journalist and a media communications strategist and recipient of the British Council Fellow and the US International Visitor awards, and he is publishing a gilt-edged coffee-table yearbook, 150 Years of Indians in 2010 South Africa.