A Letter from Bangalore

I awoke this morning to some disturbing news. The security services in Bangalore will be on full alert tomorrow for V-Day. It took me some time to figure out what V-Day was. At first I thought it was an Islamic attack. India is on tender hooks since the Mumbai bombings (or 26/11 as it is known here). Metal detectors are in place in every shop and hotel and tensions with Pakistan are mentioned in every news bulletin.

But it turns out that V-Day is the 14th of February, when Cupid comes out of his winter hibernation and refills his bow and arrow. In India, it marks the nexus between the old and the new. Between Hindu fundamentalists like the Sena party who want to go back to comely sari dressed maidens dancing at crossroads and the modern India of Bollywood and IT consultants. Sena are growing in popularity by pulling publicity stunts like calling on Australian cricketers to be banned from the IPL because of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne. This month, they have turned their attention to the unfortunate St Valentine, who did nothing worse than encourage young Indians to hold hands on their way to the latest Bollywood release.
Tensions grew when teenage liberals on a Bangalore current affairs program rubbed black paint on the face of the Sena leader. An insult apparently equivalent to throwing shoes at somebody in Iraq or bearing your ass to an Irishman.

Sena are now threatening to attack anyone holding hands on V-Day and to declare World War Three if the abomination of public kissing takes place. People are dying of hunger in this country and the border disputes with Pakistan and China rumble on like the stomach of someone who has just spent the week eating Vindaloo curry (that would be me). But it’s good to see that Sena are looking after the important stuff.

When not attacking young lovers, Sena spend most of their time attacking Muslims. They have a hard time doing this because by regional standards, India is a remarkably tolerant country. There are many Muslims here but few if any Hindu’s in Pakistan. The locals are very proud of this and their country in general and are keen to know what the rest of the world thinks of them.

I hadn’t the heart to tell them that the rest of the world doesn’t really care about the disputed Kashmir region or their tit for tat dispute with China over Tibet. In fact if you asked most Westerners “What’s a Hindu”, the most likely answer you’d get back is “Lays eggs in New Zealand”.

India is so tolerant that the biggest Bollywood star, Shah Rukh Khan, is a Muslim. He stars in this week’s biggest cinema release here “My Name is Khan”, which ironically it actually is! It’s a Forest Gump style movie that in the best tradition of Bollywood is ripped off from various Western Classics.

Khan is doing the media rounds, which like in the West, are a charade of interviews and TV appearances that mention his latest movie every 30 seconds. This was going innocently enough until as always in India, the subject of cricket came up. He was asked about the IPL, the Indian based 20-20 competition that has become an international sensation. The best players from around the world play in it, with the exception of those dastardly Pakistanis. Khan innocently suggested that as Pakistan has many exciting young players, the competition would be better for their inclusion. And with those innocuous words, he unleashed the dogs of war.

The Sena party are busy attacking cinemas all over India that are showing the movie, but their actions have only made it more popular. As that great show business maxim goes, there is no such thing as bad publicity!

I tried to go and see it at the weekend but all six showings in my local cinema were sold out. It’s in Hindi and doesn’t have any dancing so maybe it’s just as well and I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of Bollywood anyway. I asked a local what the big selling point of Bollywood movies was and he said the films normally run for three hours, whereas Hollywood movies run for ninety minutes. That strikes me as a strange argument and is like saying that if the Mona Lisa was twice the size, it would be a better picture.

Hindi or not, I was keen to go to the cinema to escape the noise and smell of Bangalore. There are many who enjoy this, as though the aroma of rotting rubbish and the eternal beeping of Indian drivers was a charming virtue. I am less charmed by third world culture, particularly when it claims first world status. India in swarming with money these days and is planning metro systems for all its major cities and a nuclear and space program. Yet they can’t seem to find the money to pick up rubbish from the streets. To paraphrase my old friend Joseph O’Connor, who wants to live in a slum with a large casino attached?

Having said all that, my impressions are better than expected. People had warned me about the begging and the obvious poverty, not realising that I grew up in Dundalk in the 1980’s. I remember when the Irish lottery was launched in 1987, a friend asked me if I won the jackpot, what would I do about the begging letters. I said I’d wait for a week or two and then start sending them again. While I met a few beggars here, I’d have to say that you’d meet more on O’Connell Bridge in Dublin.

So apart from the nauseating smell, the unceasing noise of traffic, the obsession with beeping horns every five seconds, the pot holed roads, the invisible footpaths and the undrinkable water, what is there to say in praise of India?

There is a course the food. I’ve been a curry fan since I had my first Korma on the 6th March 1988. Last Tuesday I had a chicken tikka masala for breakfast. In many ways, I was coming home.