Pretty Blue Salwar, Version 2.0!

No, that doesn't mean I've added any new... um... interfaces, or even got my own domain name (Gaurav, didn't you once say you'd help people do that? In return, I can definitely throw some linklove towards The Age of Conversation... though every time you mention "bum rush" I'm going to also have to throw some linklove towards FFVI...).

It does mean, incidentally, that I learned the difference between "continuous" and "continual." Apparently if life were a continual travelogue, it would actually be a travelogue of intermittent, but repetitive, frequency. Who would have thought?

In essence, the reframing I'm going to do over the next few days is my answer to the question "what next?"

I've got some great content planned for PBS 2.0, and you'll have to stay on the ride to find out what it is. ^__^

Where Is Blue From?

So... I was on the phone, talking with S., and we got to talking about my hometown. I grew up in a place so small it had no stoplights, no fast food, no chain restaurants, no cinema, no shopping besides a grocery store, a general store, and a "nearly new" shop... a place so small that one could walk from the north end of town to the south in fifteen minutes... a place where kids could walk to school unsupervised and could run around in neighbors' and friends' backyards without parents ever fearing that they would be abducted.

A place which still had an old-fashioned soda shop where one could purchase old-fashioned vanilla phosphates -- not for the tourist attraction, because no tourists ever came here, but because people still wanted them.

(And, btw, phosphates seem to be so "out of touch with reality" that there is no entry on Wikipedia to describe them. It's essentially a homemade soda mixed by hand, using water, the flavor -- vanilla, strawberry, raspberry, etc. -- and whatever pop-rocks-type chemical you put in the water to make it carbonate. Probably, given the name, some kind of phosphate.)

In short, I lived in a sort of throwback to the halcyon days of the American 1950s. Except that instead of prefab housing, the majority of homes in my town were (slightly) renovated Victorians.

This makes me, in certain conversations, "exotic." ^__^

Did you crown a River Queen every year? S. asked, visions of funnel cake festivals and teased-hair outdoor beauty pageants dancing through his head.

Yes, I said.

Did you ever get crowned River Queen?

No -- I was never that popular. But I tried out for cheerleader... and pom pom girl... and didn't make it onto either of them.

Unfortunately, probably due more to the vagaries of American fashion than anything else (damn you, Target, and whomever thought it would be a good idea to make the Midwestern national costume an oversized t-shirt with a sports logo worn over a pair of faded blue jeans!), my hometown exoticism will never be marketed to a larger audience.

But here we are, doing our traditional native dance:



(Note from the editor: The faces are blurred to protect the innocent; the website where more of these pictures can be found has been blurred as well.)

Happy Birthday to You, Dad!

Happy (unnamed) birthday to my dad, who reads this blog and is totally awesome.

(And yes, Dad, I still use too many parenthetical asides in my writing, and you've never been able to train me out of it. ^__^)

I've sent a small package to the house but it may not arrive until tomorrow.

Rock on! Hope you're having a happy day!

Pretty Striped T-Shirt

I was going to write a longer post. Full of arguments, back and forth, on whether my wearing a salwar was appropriate... or appropriative. But then I remembered something. How could I forget -- I'd been working through the recipes in this book since Christmas.

Here it is. Taken from Madhur Jaffrey's Climbing the Mango Trees:

Kamal returned with suitcases full of fashionable gifts for all of us. I received a pair of pedal pushers and a black-and-white-striped T-shirt that practically became my uniform. She also presented me with a light tartan shawl and a sterling silver charm bracelet with the Eiffel Tower dangling from it. [...] I had yet to see the rest of the world, but, already armed with a pair of pedal pushers, the charm bracelet, and the Coke, I felt that phase of my life had to be just around the corner. (Jaffrey 237, 240)

That's exactly how I feel, and much more eloquently stated. It's interesting that Jaffrey chooses, for her book jacket image, a picture of her wearing the striped T-shirt and pedal pushers. Rather like my choosing the pretty blue salwar as the image for my blog. I have yet to see the rest of the world, but that phase of my life is just around the corner.

It doesn't completely solve the problem. That is, I still open myself up to criticism. I still find myself in a world that thinks this way (believe me, I would put up the YouTube clip directly if I could -- it's undergoing scheduled maintenance right now and I'll edit the post ASAP). I also... well, I also understand that there's a long history of cultural rape, exotification, forced assimilation, etc. behind this pretty blue salwar which wasn't necessarily behind Madhur Jaffrey's pair of pedal pushers.

But -- the salwar stays, for now. Here, at least, it stays. When I wear it in public, I'll let you know.

(Edit: Click here for part three.)

Why "pretty blue salwar?"

Or, more specifically, why title my blog something that references directly concepts of ethnicity, nationality, multiculturalism, and identity, and can provoke some fairly contentious response?

Or, even more specifically, why title the blog something which begs the question "can a white (non-desi) woman wear a blue salwar?"

Well, to start off, I can -- if one interprets it literally. That is, it goes on over my head (though technically the salwar part pulls on from the feet and is tied at the waist) and my body does not burst into flames a la Glauce.

That's the easy answer.

Can a white (non-desi) woman wear a blue salwar in Hyderabad? Yes. The tourist blogs claim I'll be taken more seriously that way. In the photos I've seen of the place I'm going to work, everyone's wearing salwars and kurtas, so my guess is that I will be following suit.

But I bought my blue salwar three months ago, as a birthday present to myself. I've never worn it in public.

So the real question is "can a white (non-desi) woman wear a blue salwar in America?" And if so, where?

To a Bollywood film showing at a local theatre?
To an Indian Student Association event?
To the Namaste Grocery?
To a classroom or rehearsal hall?
To Wal-Mart?

I feel like the answer is "no" and yet I don't like it.

There's another blog post I want to reference, in which an American (desi) blogger describes her experiences wearing salwar, and the various readings of this particular piece of clothing. It's a post about tension and misinterpretation, and passing judgment without understanding. And yet, in the comments, a white woman writes "may I wear salwar too? they are so beautiful and comfortable..." (Edit: The link is here.)

It's... I don't know. When I wear it (if I wear it) I want it to read "I am educating myself about India," but it's going to look like it reads "I am exotifying India." And that seems to be the inherent problem.

I'm going to keep puzzling through this, although right now I am out of time.

Here's the other half of the answer, in case you were wondering. It's called pretty blue salwar because that was the name of the actual thing, when I bought it on ebay. "Pretty pretty blue salwar," said the link. I clicked, and the rest is history.

(Edit: Click here for Part Two.)

Introductions

Hi. I'm Blue. That's not my real name, of course, but it's what you can call me while we spend our time together.

I'm going to India in August. To Hyderabad, in Andhra Pradesh. I've never been to India before. I've been to Europe, in a whirlwind tour of twelve countries in fourteen days (a sadist's idea of a good time for high school choral students), and I've spent a summer in Toronto working for the Fringe Theatre festival. But I've never been to India.

So... this is my plan: to spend the next eight months writing, linking, connecting, and sharing everything I learn. If you jump on board now, you can follow me through the entire trip.

I should add a caveat: undoubtedly I will be seeing everything with new eyes, with tourist eyes, with little-white-girl-in-a-blue-salwar eyes. But that's not exactly what I want this blog to be about. I want to understand this trip, culturally and contextually, as well as I can. That's where I need your help. If you've traveled before, if you've been to India before (or are there right now), if you've wrestled through a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook before... let's talk.

Enough for now. Welcome!