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South Asian Film Festival in Goa from Fri (June 27) to Mon (June 30)
At Kala Academy, and ESG, Panaji, Goa
http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2008-June/076384.html
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This morning at the bus stop there were, what an NHS form would describe as,
three White British old ladies, one Indian British student boy, one Africa
British white-collar corporate lady and me. All of us were humming and hawing,
looking in different directions and generally trying to avert each other’s gaze
or even a hint of eye-contact. This Bus Stop Syndrome, as I call it, is not
limited to the UK. If I were to stand at a bus-stop in Goa, there is every
possibility that a Keralite, two or three Biharis and a Goan would be standing
stoically as strangers divided by a lack of a common language and varying
degrees of economic disparity.
Let me not sound too strident a note on “racial and ethnic disintegration”. I
have come across spectacularly good people across the globe whose generosity of
spirit have literally saved my life. My American gynecologist Dr Groostwassink
who held my hand for nine months as we progressed through a tenuous pregnancy
and the British-African lady who carried my grocery-laden bag for two blocks
without ever having set eyes on me before she decided my bag was too heavy to
carry alone, have to figure quite high on that list. There is something in the
human spirit that at its very base recognises we are all fellow-travelers on
this planet. That we are not terribly different in the way we think, act and
bleed.
However, this spirit of understanding does not translate to communities. Whole
communities remain segregated, strangers at sea, scrambling to establish
identity and reinforce whatever differences exist however superficially.
Investments made in trying to integrate communities often fail and can best to
described as facile attempts at band-aiding this lamentable human condition of
segregated co-existence.
An ABC documentary posits that Danes are one of the happiest societies in the
world, a prime reason being that nine out of ten people in Denmark are Danes.
There is something in the human psyche seeking that which mirrors us closely be
it in terms of racial or cultural features. How does one reconcile this human
need for familiarity with the fact that much societal success has been achieved
through constant widening of the human gene pool, that indeed the human
reproductive gene is designed to cast as wide a net as possible?
Perhaps the answer lies in defining what we expect to find reflected on the
mirror mounted on Humanity’s Wall.
