The title is for effect, to get your attention.
You see this is about as close I can get to Aldous Huxley as is humanly possible, given the wide gulf between our talents. Having said that, I maintain that my title makes far more sense than his "Eyeless in Gaza". Mine is clear while his is opaque: what exactly does Eyeless mean? Blind? Why blind? And why oh why Gaza of all places? Was his a reference to Gandhi's famous position that "an eye for an eye makes two people blind"? Did he, Huxley, say that in the context of the Palestine conflict? Wikipedia will tell you that Huxley's title was derived from Milton's Samson Agonistes. Wikipedia must be right.
But I read it long before there was Wikipedia.
I read the book long before I even heard of Timothy Leary, or Carlos Castaneda. In the pre-Leary, pre-Castaneda days only Huxley the dropper of acid, smoker of "mushrooms" and user of peyote and of mescaline could provide me with some justification for trying out some interesting stuff. You see, my dad was a great fan of Thomas Huxley the biologist and thus (hopefully) unlikely to be harsh on the follower of another Huxley. My mum, she was made of sterner stuff. For her anything that did not directly contribute marks on your marksheet was a waste we could ill afford, mind expanding or not. From Huxley's essays to his novels and thence to his "Doors of Perception", to the music of Jim Morrison of the eponymous band, "The Doors", was but a short distance, a transition quickly and easily made, the exact same thing my mum was concerned about. But transitions were made, stuff smoked, ingested and drunk and mind generally expanded. Expanded until learning much later in life that Castaneda confessed to being a fraud. But I took heart that I wasn't alone in being fooled - he did fool the Stanford University from whence he got his PhD with his fraudulent stories on psychotropics in the Yaqui Indian culture.
But I digress. I meant to dwell upon the role of "colour" in Chennai culture.
You see this is about as close I can get to Aldous Huxley as is humanly possible, given the wide gulf between our talents. Having said that, I maintain that my title makes far more sense than his "Eyeless in Gaza". Mine is clear while his is opaque: what exactly does Eyeless mean? Blind? Why blind? And why oh why Gaza of all places? Was his a reference to Gandhi's famous position that "an eye for an eye makes two people blind"? Did he, Huxley, say that in the context of the Palestine conflict? Wikipedia will tell you that Huxley's title was derived from Milton's Samson Agonistes. Wikipedia must be right.
But I read it long before there was Wikipedia.
I read the book long before I even heard of Timothy Leary, or Carlos Castaneda. In the pre-Leary, pre-Castaneda days only Huxley the dropper of acid, smoker of "mushrooms" and user of peyote and of mescaline could provide me with some justification for trying out some interesting stuff. You see, my dad was a great fan of Thomas Huxley the biologist and thus (hopefully) unlikely to be harsh on the follower of another Huxley. My mum, she was made of sterner stuff. For her anything that did not directly contribute marks on your marksheet was a waste we could ill afford, mind expanding or not. From Huxley's essays to his novels and thence to his "Doors of Perception", to the music of Jim Morrison of the eponymous band, "The Doors", was but a short distance, a transition quickly and easily made, the exact same thing my mum was concerned about. But transitions were made, stuff smoked, ingested and drunk and mind generally expanded. Expanded until learning much later in life that Castaneda confessed to being a fraud. But I took heart that I wasn't alone in being fooled - he did fool the Stanford University from whence he got his PhD with his fraudulent stories on psychotropics in the Yaqui Indian culture.
But I digress. I meant to dwell upon the role of "colour" in Chennai culture.
Let me categorically assert here that we in Chennai are Colour blind, are not racist, and respect Inuits, Aborigines, Maoris, Yanomamis, Tuaregs, Berbers, Xhosas, Jarawas and many other tribes irrespective of their colour or creed or tribal affiliations or even origins.We do have a problem with Northerners claiming to be Aryans or vice versa. We positively love the Northern tribes who classify themselves as Dravidians. It is the Aryans that create trouble with their preference for fairer skin. Like that headline in a newspaper which declared a northern actress to be the most desirable woman of 2011.
Recently the Aryan invasion theory has been questioned on historical basis as well as on the basis of DNA sequencing - the latter held that all Indians share the same DNA and there is very little variation....We suspect it is a mischievous attempt to negate and deny our distinct evolutionary and cultural identity.
We do like colour. Our women wear very colourful silk sarees. Some may opine that the colours are gaudy, but gaudiness is in the eye of the beholder. Men however prefer to be clad in white veshtis and white shirts. Stupid northerners call the veshti "lunghi" not realizing that the lunghi is a distinctly different colourful garment stitched in a closed loop whereas the veshti is white and is a long piece of cloth. We like our lunghis too. Men of a certain persuasion tend to wear it more than others and in any case it is an informal household wear. But they are undoubtedly colourful. Our movies are made in rich saturated colours with the protagonists and women wearing most number of colours possible in any given sequence. You could say that our movies are a riot of colour.
We prefer girls of colour ("ponnu nalla colour" - the girl is of good colour). The birth of a newborn occasions much discussion on its colour - especially a girl child. A baby who has "nalla colour" (good colour) gets a good start in life, is much loved and appreciated. Perhaps because colour can be used to offset the value of dowry somewhat. Our billboards are always colourful as are our political graffiti. The latter though tend to be duochromatic, if you know what I mean.
Colourblind? Far from it. We embrace colour in all its resplendence.
However "women of colour" from South Africa need not apply....
Recently the Aryan invasion theory has been questioned on historical basis as well as on the basis of DNA sequencing - the latter held that all Indians share the same DNA and there is very little variation....We suspect it is a mischievous attempt to negate and deny our distinct evolutionary and cultural identity.
We do like colour. Our women wear very colourful silk sarees. Some may opine that the colours are gaudy, but gaudiness is in the eye of the beholder. Men however prefer to be clad in white veshtis and white shirts. Stupid northerners call the veshti "lunghi" not realizing that the lunghi is a distinctly different colourful garment stitched in a closed loop whereas the veshti is white and is a long piece of cloth. We like our lunghis too. Men of a certain persuasion tend to wear it more than others and in any case it is an informal household wear. But they are undoubtedly colourful. Our movies are made in rich saturated colours with the protagonists and women wearing most number of colours possible in any given sequence. You could say that our movies are a riot of colour.
We prefer girls of colour ("ponnu nalla colour" - the girl is of good colour). The birth of a newborn occasions much discussion on its colour - especially a girl child. A baby who has "nalla colour" (good colour) gets a good start in life, is much loved and appreciated. Perhaps because colour can be used to offset the value of dowry somewhat. Our billboards are always colourful as are our political graffiti. The latter though tend to be duochromatic, if you know what I mean.
Colourblind? Far from it. We embrace colour in all its resplendence.
However "women of colour" from South Africa need not apply....
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