"Now the first thing that this book is about is the way that India both exceeds
and shatters Western expectations, the way it both exceeded and shattered mine. Of course
there are the stereotypes: India is "more spiritual" than the West, its people
"impoverished," "non materialistic," "fatalistic," and
"other-worldly," its society structured according to a "rigid caste
hierarchy," its women "repressed" and "submissive," its villagers
"tradition-bound" and "past-oriented," their behavior ordered by
"rituals" and constrained by "rules" of "purity" and
"pollution."
These words are not just products of popular Western fantasy. Scholars and specialists
in South Asian culture use them often. But one thing I learned in India was that these
words are just words, our words, to refer to certain scattered events occurring in South
Asia. The propositions they imply are partial truths, half truths, and anyone going to
India who expects all of Indian life to confirm to them will find herself merely deluded
and confused....
I have tried, anyway, in my own narrative not to lean on such words too much. This has
not been difficult, because they explain very little of what I experienced in India.
The
women I knew there, for instance, were more aggressive than me, more openly sexual than
me, more free in their criticisms of their men than me. Here in America I often get in
trouble for arguing, losing my temper, speaking my mind. But in Tamil Nadu, one of my
woman friends, Anni, asked me pointedly, "is it your habit to bow and defer to
everyone?" My personality in Tamil Nadu was no more sweet and obliging than it is in
America; if anything, I was more short-tempered there.
As for Anni, she was milder than many Tamil women I knew indeed, she was known for
her patient and loving nature. But when she accused me, through her question, of excessive
deference, she was not being sarcastic. Compared to her, I was a little mouse. The notion
of the repressed and submissive Indian woman simply did not apply to the people among whom
I lived-and yet in some ways it did. Anni would not have been Anni without her fidelity to
her men and her ability to endure hardship for their sake, to do without while they did
with. She was proud of these qualities of hers and wore them fiercely. They entitled her
to speak freely and to walk with her head held high...."
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