In his last film titled "The Stranger" by the great Indian director,
Satyajit Ray, a long-lost uncle comes to visit his neice's family for
a few days. This uncle has travelled widely through out the world being
infected by "wander lust". He has visited the European continent, then
the U.S. where he lived with Native Americans out of which experience
emerged his book, "An Indian Among Indians". Then off to South America
where he spends time with the indigenous people in the Amazaon rain
forest including an encounter with a shamam who nursed him back to health
by using medicinal herbs.
The uncle is on his way to Australia to stay with the Aborigines of Dream
Time when he stops in India to visit his relatives. Since he has been
away from home for so long, his neice's husband suspects that he is
an imposter. So various kinds of tests are devised. The husband invites
an acerbic friend to the house to see the uncle. In this scene, the neice,
her husband, his friend and the uncle are seated in the living room and
the conversation, which has turned tense, runs something like this:
Husband's Friend (HF): So you have stayed with various tribes all over the
world, including the Santhals and Bhils of India?
Uncle (U): Yes, I have.
HF: You seem to relish your experiences with them and you have high praise
about these primitive societies. However, although we are not as
widely travelled as you, nevertheless, from books and other sources
we too know somethings about these societies. So I have a few
questions.
U: Go ahead.
HF: When you fall sick, you go to a regular doctor and not a witch doctor.
U: True, although I have to tell you that in South America, far from
'civilization', a shamam saved my life by his knowledge of medicinal
herbs.
HF: What about sexual relations? Wouldn't you say that some of these
tribes have extremely licentious practices?
U: Judged from the modern (or bourgeois perspective), it is considered
immoral. After all, what is more holy than "Holy Wedlock"?
HF: What about cannibalism? Have you yourself partaken of human flesh?
Is this not a most barbaric, savage, uncivilized practice?
U: No, I have not eaten human flesh although I have heard that it has
a certain taste. Yes, cannibalism is barbaric. But do you know what
is even more babaric and uncivilized, Mr...? The sight of homeless
people and drug addicts in a city like New York. The ability of
one civilization to vanquish others by the mere push of a button.
That is a hundred times more barbaric!
.................
Sid Chatterjee (Posted on Marxism-International)
