Commentary/ Varsha Bhosle

Faux Indian

Like the green pestilence that Moses called forth to wipe out the first-born of Egypt, there billowed a hazardous cultural-cloud from the kothis of Delhi's plush colonies, which then pervaded this chosen land – lo and behold! – from the flats of Bombay, to the baadis of Calcutta, to the bungalows of Bangalore, and all urban abodes betwixt…

The symptoms of the malady may be an aching back, or afflicted knees, or a feeling of perpetual discomfort during an evening with even perfectly compatible cronies. How does one steady the constantly slipping bolster? How does one, in the most dignified manner, appropriate all the throw-cushions in the drawing room in order to prop up one's spine? At what angle should one fold the knee so as to avoid toppling the ashtray? There is no escape: the curse of Ethnic Indian Decor is upon me.

I'm reminded of a quote by Alexander Woollcott on English furniture: "The chair was upholstered in one of those flagrant chintzes, designed, apparently, by the art editor of a seed catalogue". Which has nothing to do with my knees, or with Indian interior decor, but has a lot to say about the pitfalls in feckless excesses. In which we lead the world.

In all fairness, ethnic decor was a splendid and laudable thing at its inception: Struggling artists and inspired, middle-class, urban householders who couldn't yet afford that Chippendale wall-unit and the cut-glass chandelier, made the most of wooden planks perched on bricks, and jute lanterns cloaking the naked bulbs. For most, the appeal lay in low cost coupled with laid-back chic. It was the best kind of creativity: that born of necessity – and not the mindless collection of antiques to which it soon degenerated.

With the advent of the Cottage Industries outlets, the fabulously rich entered the Ethnic Scene. The pillage of temples and old estates naturally followed. I've always suspected that the sudden consciousness of Indian arts and crafts arose from Delhi's embassy/consulate cocktail-circuit: What foreigners find quaint, we embrace with passion. This ethno-mania (and my consequent ethno-phobia) has escalated to a point where I avoid all establishments whose names contain buzz-words like 'arts', 'heritage', emporium', 'khazana', 'crafts', "bazaar', etc.

Frankly, I'm up to my ears with: * cushion covers with mirror-work that always pokes; * the giraffe-like, wooden Bankura horses which do zero for aesthetics; * lurid colours of Phulkari upholstery, which supposedly off-set awful copies of ancient pichwais depicting Radha-Krishna in frolic; * baby-pink-and-sky-blue dhurries that are quickly and invariably stained – and fade to nothingness when washed; * doors and cabinets studded with lethal brass points; * scarred, wooden figures of tabla and santoor players in homes resounding with Bach or Boys Zone; * nightmarish masks of demons and ghouls; * carved wooden chairs that fold out into such an unholy angle so as to comfortably accommodate only a three year old; * potted palms placed in strategic positions so as to facilitate fronds to enter unsuspecting ears (its resident bugs, likewise); * wall-to-wall chatais – Hoover-resistant for nits and insects; * side-tables cluttered with rusted supari-crackers, filigree boxes and artificial antiques – which are too plentiful to dust daily; * mobiles of Rajasthani puppets - hanged-dead effigies of culture; * glass table-tops precariously balanced on brass ghadas which no one burnishes; * wooden carvings, stolen from Thanjavur temples, now fixed on the cabinet containing Scotch; and last, but not the least, * the inevitable mattress on the drawing room floor, positioned in front of a National TV.

Lately, I've come to the conclusion that the only places to be comfortably seated are hotel lobbies, reception rooms of multinationals, and Sindhi homes. Notice that at parties in "ethnic" houses, guests usually and inevitably drift to the dining table – where rest the only chairs. The advanced civilisation of Bharatvarsh, which supposedly had missiles like Agniastra, must surely have had some sort of raised aasans! Why is ethnic furnishing synonymous with being seated on the floor? For god's sake, even our villagers have khatiyas!

It's all the more galling as the dining table is never, ever eschewed in favour of the paat. And, I have yet to see an honest "ethnic" toilet, i e, without Western fittings. Which brings me to my pet peeve: the English water-closet. The most awful thing in the world is to sit on an alien commode: One just can't be certain of what has passed by before. All Asian cultures, including Japan, have the perfect answer in (what is known in India as) the Orissa pan. It induces the only natural position for the primeval, universal act. Why don't our ethnic-minded start from the bottom, so to speak, and install one to proclaim their cultural chauvinism?

While on this subject, the second most awful, and need I add, completely un-Indian deed is to use only tissues. In Indian homes, I have yet to see a WC coupled with a bidet – which, incidentally, is an essential part of the Arab toilet. How one uses the lota with a WC is a problem I forever ponder. The last great product to enter the toiletry market in the UK was the pack of pre-moistened toilet-tissues: They are not meant for the face.

So, okay, the West is finally getting there. It took them a century to realise that the tongue has to be scraped daily with those steel/plastic thinggies – which have been rudimentary in India at least since my grandfather's era. The more progressive of maternity clinics in the US began to encourage delivering babies in a squatting posture – but my great-grandmother already knew that. Why have the last few generations of Indians chosen to ape a people who had no inkling of sanitation and personal hygiene till their exposure to 'heathen' Asia? Well, unlike the Western world, we are magnificent at sieving-off the juice and retaining the sludge.

The malaise is omnipresent. Take the frenzy in renaming roads and cities: another ethnic avatar. In Bombay, I've yet to meet a normal human being who calls Marine Drive as Netaji Subhashchandra Bose Road, or Breach Candy as Gopalrao Deshmukh Marg, or Flora Fountain as Hutatma Chowk. Kala Ghoda and Hughes Road will survive us all – they need no blue plaques to assure their existence. History has a way of withstanding such hiccups. (Incidentally, I've noticed that it's mostly the homo-ethnikos who asks to be taken to "Hue's" Road, and, after a totally blank look from the cabby, 'corrects' it to our Bambaiya pronunciation of "Huge's". So much for being aware of traditions.)

The schizophrenia runs within our homes. I'm ever in awe of the sly juxtaposition of, say, the Thanjavur painting with the Rajasthani stuffed-parrot mobile in the home of a Khanna. What does it possibly mean? National integration? Having strong regional loyalties with all its trappings – from literature, to cuisine, to festivals, to decor – does not make one a separatist. Nor does living with Swedish furniture make one any less ethnic or Indian. I object to the impractical, uncomfortable and ugly mishmash of a supposedly Indian milieu and lifestyle, while our old values like the joint-family system are fast slipping down the drain. When I hear underaged teenagers speaking of pub-crawls, or those who cannot/will not speak in their mother-tongue, I wonder at their 30-something parents – who are probably too busy deciding where to hang the stringless dilruba for maximum effect in their Indian-living showcase.

In a country as large as the whole of Western Europe, and with more distinctive differences to boot, we have produced a hotch-potch of the motifs of various subcultures to suggest an amalgamated Indian-ness. Thereby losing track of our true roots altogether. Indian heritage is what's learned on grandma's knee and through her traditions, and is not some Styrofoam do-it-yourself kit packed in Indian design magazines.

What we Indians now exhibit as our culture is precisely what the gora sahab saw on the surface. And the stuff we put in our drawing rooms is similar to the curious medley he gathered in the course of his imperialistic progress through the length and breadth of India – which bits and pieces he then hung as trophies over the hearth of his little cottage in the Cotswolds.

Sad but true: we have ultimately synthesised and caricatured our rich legacy into nothing but a souvenir shop for tourists.

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