In the Company of Women

hamidm #62 Actually. Shakespeare did not really write from first hand experience - he wrote about Danish royalty, Venetian lovers, Moorish guys, ancient Roman politicians - not to mention corals found six fathoms deep under the sea and spirits of all kinds. While all along living the life of a middle income fellow in a small town in england. And in fact, most of the time he simply ``borrowed`` the plot for his plays from some existing source. Hardly the basis for ``first hand experience``!!

If he had not added anything to these plots, he would have stayed at level 1, and been long forgotten as a small-time businessmen who made his money from plots stolen from other long forgotten writers.

What makes Shakespeare great is that he adds a layer to the plot that touches upon more fundamental human experience. He is not just writing about Danish royalty, but about human treachery and ambition. Not just about Venetian lovers, but about two young people whose love for one another is stronger than the communal hatreds of their respective communities. He is writing not just about Moorish guys, but about a man who who allows suspicion and jealousy to eat him away. He is writing not just about corals found under the sea but about how even in death we are not lost, but merely undergo ``a sea-change...into something rich and strange.

These are all issues at level 2. The level where allah ditta and warren buffet find common ground with shakespeare.

Re: # 60

tahmed,

...... sorry, i still don`t get it ...... this discussion about warren buffet is totally tangential and is not relevant to the subject on hand ...... all i am saying is that most writers, specially novelists, are most convincing when they write based on their first hand experience(identity) ............ i have never understood shakespeare and i don`t think i have missed much ..... but if you say he operates at level 2 and 3, i will take your word for it even though i have no idea what it all means .......... personally, i am still having a hard time understanding people at level 1 !

#49 jumpa lahiri made life difficult for many boston-suburban desi husbands who claimed to go jogging or golf on saturday mornings.

hamidm2 #58 Why would Warren Buffet leave behind $37 b. for Allah Ditta and his kids if he did not feel he shared something common with them? He could just as well have tossed it in the garbage dump in that case.

But, not only did he leave this money - he made sure it was used for allah ditta and co. by tilting the world`s richest man to kiss goodbye to his baby - microsoft - and apply his organizational abilities and energies for the direct benefit of allah ditta and co. and by placing ambitious demands on him, like not sitting on the money but rather using it at the rate of $1.5 b. a year.

at level 1 it would indeed be a stretch for Buffet (or anyone else) to do anything like this. At level 2, it is no stretch at all for buffet to share something common with allah ditta - since they are indeed the same species, believe it or not. so clearly buffet was thinking level 2, meaning he demonstrated he identifies himself with the species. and this is indeed a major stream of thinking in the US, as befits a nation that has been the torch bearer for human progress (masadi`s rantings notwithstanding) for the past 200 years. and at level 2, buffet does not need to even travel from Omaha to Okara, let alone borrow allah ditta`s chappals so he could walk the Christian mile on them.

hope you see my point now.

regarding the ps: maybe there are universal thinkers who outdo even shakespeare. but i read shakespeare and loved the things he wrote. just as i loved the things Rumi writes. and maybe kalidas is also very profound in ``shakuntala`` - but i havent gotten around to reading it. and no doubt there are thousands, millions more like these whom no one knows anymore. But hell - i can only appreciate what I have read. That is all I can say in defence of my appreciation of shakespeare.

{``As if the only time I can create something of value is when I can attribute it to something or to someone else. ``}

Jawahara,

Most of my self-assessed creative work can be attributed to Mr. Walker, Mr. Regal, and sometimes that evil foreigner, Ms. Corona. :)

Seriously, this is a beautiful essay that so descriptively portrays the frustrations and eventual triumph of an overachieving author who has set very high standards for herself. I applaud your honesty and admire your talent as you struggle to yet higher plateaus of excellence. If your essay is any indication of your book, I am sure that you will not be disappointed. Good article.

Salim

tahmed,

......... in any case, the point i was trying to make is that there is no way in hell that the school teacher in allah ditta`s village can write a novel about the life of a billionaire in omaha; similarly a novelist born and raised in omaha cannot write anything worthwhile about life in okara even if he spends a couple of months living in allah ditta`s mud hut with his cow and pet goat ........... unless you have actually lived the experience you are writing about it will alwas come across as fake, pretentious and totally unconvincing - in the worst case, like rudyard kipling, you can make a fool out of yourself and the people you write about !

.......... so, notwithstanding your idol shakespeare, a writer`s `identity` is very relevant to what they write ..........

p.s. i still can`t get over the fact that a clever fellow like you can`t see through the hoax that is shakespeare ! ....... do you really think that if the british empire had not foisted him on the rest of the world he would have had this so-called `universal` appeal ?........ do you think any publisher today would seriously look at any of his stuff ?.... the man would have starved to death !

Re: # 56

tahmed,

...... maybe i am too simple minded for all this level 1-3 business ........... as far as i can tell there is nothing common between warren buffet and allah ditta other than the fact that they belong to the same species (some would even doubt that) ........ angelina joile is doing a fine job - and she looks darn good doing it - but there is no way she can `identify` with the starving women in the sudan until she has walked a hundred miles without their shoes and watched her children die of hunger ......... i am not knocking the good work these people are doing - god bless them - but it is a stretch to say that somehow they share a common `identity` ........... just last weekend i risked my life by getting up on a ladder to put back a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest, but that does not mean i will be growing feathers any time soon .............

Hamidm: #55 Actually, warren buffet understands allah ditta and his issues much better than most desi babus do. That is why he gave away $37 billion to help alleviate the kinds of problems allah ditta mentions rather than to build up a dynasty for himself.

While desi babus rant at the ``level 1`` of identity I mention (i.e. their own sweet selves first, their children next, their tribe, nationality, ethnicity, religion and so forth), there is a vast number of western people who see things at level 2. when angelina jolie came to pakistan, she went straight to meet the poor people actually affected by the earthquake - and turned down politely invitations by the high and mighty of islamabad to join them in their partying. when i used to work for an international agency, i would see desi colleagues sticking to 5 star hotels and meeting high and mighty officials in ministries, while western colleagues would make a dash straight from the airport to the rural areas and spend most of their time roughing it out and chatting with the ``allah dittas`` - and they would then come to the capital much more knowledgeable of ``allah dittas`` issues than the desi babus sitting in air-conditioned offices wearing suits and angling to get their kid admission at harvard.

now on chowk, i see desi babus at it again - indian and pakistani babus seeking their identity at level 1 (i.e. the superficial level) as ``muslims`` or ``hindus`` or so forth. Mocking poverty in the other country. talking about ``islam`` (like urstruly and echoboom) when islam has nothing to do with their superficial mindset.

No sir. Warren Buffet sees Allah Ditta as a fellow human. While desi babus (including those on chowk) see him as a non-entity. And yet, we will all one day find ``two paces of vilest earth`` to be the common denominator for all of us.

Re: # 53


tahmed,

....... you are mistaken if you think that warren buffet and allah ditta could ever find common ground on anything ..... here is how the conversation would go:

warren: al, what do you think about the reinsurance business ?

allah ditta: both my cow and my wife are pregnant - i hope she gives birth to a kati this time

warren: you want a daughter ?

al: no, no ... god forbid .... i want a female calf so that i will have another milk cow.... but i want another son so that he can take care of my cows .... daughters are just a burden

warren: al, what do you think about me giving all that money to bill ?

al: i need money .... maybe 5000 rupees, so that i can buy some chara for my cows and wife and six kids

warren: bill is going to find a cure for malaria

al: i had malaria last year and almost died and now i think my youngest son has malaria - i think he is going to die

warren: what is malaria ?

al: they say mosquitoes carry this disease, but i think it is being spread by the jews and hindoos

warren: what is a hindoo ? i don`t think we have have mosquitoes in omaha, but i saw them in alaska - big as birds

al: i don`t know what a hindoo looks like either but they tell me he looks real scary and drinks the blood of little children .....


warren: really ? ..... does he spread malaria ?

.................. at last they find common ground ...........................

thanks swarrier. i`ll see, if i could find the book you mentioned.

soysauce: There are many layers to one`s identity. What you refer to is our outermost identity, which I agree is dynamic in the sense of shifting between various dimensions like cultural, professional, gender, and so on. And only sometimes does the ``religious`` or ``nationality`` dimension come to the fore: at international airports, voting booths, tax time in case of the latter. The richer the life an individual leads, the more dynamic his identity becomes.

But peel away this outer layer, and go to the second layer : here you get a more stable identity - as human being (the level at which Shakespeare`s lines on ``two paces of vilest earth is room enough`` operate). Here is where I beg to differ with you. I think this is a vastly more interesting layer than the outer layer. Because it is at this layer that females finally achieve parity with males; Warren Buffet of Omaha, USA and Allah Ditta of Okara, Pakistan become the same (as Buffet to his great credit obviously realizes...). Most interestingly, the internet gives us the ability to operate at this second level - and yet most of us are unable to let go of the single-dimension identity we cling to.

Things become even more interesting at the third layer which takes us a step below our common humanity. This is where we start to see ourselves as just one of many forms of conscious beings. This third layer has always fascinated thinking people. This is the level at which Bulleh Shah in the 17th century was operating when he wrote ``bulley shah ki jaanaaN maiN kon``. This is the level where mystics operated, as do hindus seeking union with the Supreme Consciousness. And this is where we are going to undergo changes as progress in genetics and medical science allow us to grasp what mystics over the past few thousand years could only dream of. And these advancements are now on the threshhold of altering our long held notions of mortality.

So, to restrict one`s identity to one aspect of the outermost layer only (which is basically what calls for a ``muslim identity`` or a ``pakistani identity`` or an ``indian identity`` impy and which is what we end up doing most of the time on chowk) is to be virtually oblivious to our real indentity.

Long post. But you know what happens when tahmed starts blabbing..... :-)

Warriorji
I found Lahiri uninteresting but the fact that she has struck a chord with a great number of people means (a) they don`t find her narrow and limited, or (b) the limitedness is the charm - it probably lends an exotic flavor to her writing. I find Dostoyevski`s locale and characters strange and mysterious but then on those instances where I can relate to them the experience is simply exhilarating. The feeling is similar to my wanting to do a surya namaskar when I see the sun bursing thru dark clouds.

Re: # 50
Hamdim
She`s done a lot of things, she was an architecture student , and then made ./or scripted some films. She made a hilarious film about her stay in the Delhi School of Architecture ``How Annie gives it those ones``. She took to writing much later. She may never bring out another novel. Seems to be better known as an global activist nowadays.

I have not read the Namesake. Only Lahiri`s first book and all the stories in the New Yorker and I began to feel that she was doing the same thing over and over again. But I guess one should not read too many short stories together. There is this feeling of the same thing over and over again.

Everybody has one good book in him/her . So Tahmed may surprise you.

Re: # 49

..... `god of small things` was simply wonderful, with great imagery and choice of words - as far as i am concerned arundhati can make up all the words she wants ......... but is she a one book wonder ? ....... lahiri is a great story teller and `namesake` struck a chord with me and, to tell you the truth, scared the crap out of me - i have always been petrified at the thought of dying on the road ............ these women have done a great job in drawing on their `identity` as desi women to tell tales of universal `human` experience like love, betryal, bigotry, the pain of growing up, parenthood and so on - i don`t imagine tahmed can write anything like it even though sometimes he acts like a big woman !

All this talk of identity ought to drive Nasah sa`ab up the wall. It was just on the other topic that he was complaining and moaning about Sybil Syndrome. I wonder what he`s thinking now. -)

I will be interesting to read this collection of essays, especially since it is not limited to the immigrant experience. It deals with stories around the world.

Sometimes I get the feeling that this writing about the immigrant experience can get very limiting. I find for example that Jhumpa Lahiri`s stories have the same setting and foundations with slightly different shade. I did not even think that all the stories in ``The interpreter of maladies`` were terrific.

Re: # 39
Raw_Dust.
I used to think that one of the reasons the book was lapped up by so many people was that it spoke of a different land. Those of us used to writers from Kerala did not see the landscape as novel, though the language itself was . Then again there was the marketing .
If you are interested try reading O.V.Vijayan`s ``The legends of Khasak``. The English translation is available. Keep in mind while reading it was written long before Marquez was translated into English and became fashionable.
I`ve not read Rushdie`s ``The Moors last sigh``. I`d like to see how he handled stuff there.

Arundhati Roy made a couple of good movies before the writing days.