Book Review: The Wedding Wallah

(This review contains spoilers)

My review: 9/10

The Wedding Wallah is the third installment of the Marriage Bureau for Rich People Series. This series is an excellent insight into the age old customs of India which sit alongside modern India.

The novel takes a more serious turn than the first two. It unclosets gay people in India, and explores the issue of their ‘forced’ marriage. Dilawar is a young gay man from an aristocratic background who is being persuaded to marry the widowed Pari. At the end of the novel, Diliawar finally asserts his autonomy and breaks of the engagement, thereby giving Pari and him a dignified outcome.

The Many Conditions of Love, the second novel, depicted the suicide of Mr Naidu who had became indebted to a fertiliser company. In The Wedding Wallah, the demands of the Naxalites, a communist guerrilla operating in South India, is also compelling, and continues with the social conscience of the series by highlighting the abject poverty of rural India. This is poignant at a time when we are surrounded by media regarding India’s burgeoning status as a world economy.

Though Zama highlights the violence of the Naxalites, there is a strong sense that the greedy landowner receives his come-uppance when he is forced to absolve the “debt” of his servant who was bonded into labour. Zama suggests that despite the use of violent tactics, the Naxalites’ cause is a noble one.

There are moments in the novel which play like an over-blown Bollywood romance. The scene of Pari and Rehman on the roof top was particularly quite cinematic. Likewise, the scenes of Aruna and Ramanujam escaping in the forest were quite thrilling. These scenes add texture and drama to the novel.

There is something for everyone in this novel. Zama has once again shown he can weave light-heartedness and humour alongside more serious issues such as gay rights, poverty and violence in modern India.

The Product

Lust has overcome them for

The Product

 

Eyes glazed over

Mouths moist with saliva

Towards it they move closer

Their bodies trembling

 

They cannot look you in the eye

As fingers caress cool metal

For no human can replace

The gazing into its virtual, empty world

 

 

It’s not what you know

I am at my wit’s end regarding this world of careers. We were fed lies. All that nonsense about achieving your goals, and following your dreams. Lies.

As my fingers hover over the keyboard, ruminating whether to start another application, I ask if there is any point filling the same information, only to receive nothing in response. Even a metaphorical nod of the head would do.

Prospective employer – as you look over my application, is it my ethnic name which does not speak to you? Would you prefer Chloe or Amy that speaks to your English sensibilities? Are you imagining I speak with a heavy accent or IM THICK AND YOU WOULD NEED TO SPEAK LOUD SO I CAN UNDERSTAND YOU.

Do I even exist in your eyes, or do I need a secret password to get to your hallowed land of salaried employment, of office chit chat, personal development, meetings, and the smug click-click of my heels as I enter the office building.

Or is the secret password, a degree from Oxbridge, received pronunciation, a special word planted in one’s CV, or is not what you know but who you know?

When you hear nothing from prospective employees, you start fishing for answers.

My limbs cannot break out of this inertia. I try to cajole myself into doing another application but I cannot move.

 

The peace of wild things

I want to make more time for my writing but unfortunately writing has been on the back-burner. So, here are somebody else’s musings for a change. The following poem struck a nerve in me:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

Vigilantism, social malaise and police inadequacy

These are some of my reflections from the last week. The recent London riots indicate a deep and complex problem in society which will not go away by throwing away a few “criminals” in jail.

Vigilantism

As the events unfolded, I was asking why we were not doing more than watching, as though we were spectators watching an American film or “live coverage” of sport.

However, stories came in of people who protected their properties, particularly the faith communities. But I didn’t like the way in which the BBC phrased the act of protecting properties as “vigilantism”, asking the public whether it was right to take the law into one’s own hands. These riots were unprecedented, and as the police proved themselves incompetent, communities bandying together was inevitable and a natural, raw, human response.

As long as there was intention on the part of the Turkish shop owners, Sikh and Muslim communities to use reasonable force, and not to attack the rioters, why use such a robust word as “vigilantism”? Sikhs and Muslims weren’t going to stand back and have their places of worship desecrated.

Social malaise

While these young people are brandished as criminals, let us make no mistake that they are a part of our society, and so from the whole of society a solution must come. To explain their conduct is not to justify.

The looters were both criminals and victims. Paradox this may be, but rigid dichotomies and analyses simply will not do. What they did was wrong and shameful, but these acts manifest a deep social malaise and anger of a young generation who perceive no future ahead of them. Why did they burn and loot their very own communities? Their acts are akin to self-harm, where an individual intentionally wounds him or herself in order to gain attention from others, and to feel something real and palpable.

There will countless debates and soul-searching for months and years. We must make sure that real people from the community: young people, youth workers, teachers, parents and others – even the rioters themselves, are genuinely involved in responding to this crisis and coming up with answers. Our elite, career-politicians are deeply out of touch and can only come up with empty sound bites which cater for an emotional, grossly ineffectual response.

Police inadequacy

I am amazed that the police were so ineffectual. How many times have we heard of people being kettled in at demonstrations? Yet the police waited for the politicians to make decisions who lazily meandered their way back to the UK.

Every catastrophe has a sliver of hope. For me, these riots particularly manifest the deep rage of young black men who are stopped and searched every day. I think there is a prevalent agenda which says race is not an issue, but those who spout that agenda were in a for a rude awakening.

The police thought they could ignore the family of Mark Duggan, and their foolishness bit them in the bum. Five years ago, I saw the highly compelling film Injustice, which is about the death of black people in police custody, none of which has resulted in a police conviction. Nothing’s changed. The rioting is a further example that our police system is due for a major, urgent overhaul.

**********

Lately, I’ve been feeling quite apathetic …These riots have woken me up from my ennui that we have no choice but to care about and be involved in the lives of young people.

Frumpy Muslim women

There is pressure on the modern Muslim woman to look attractive and fashionable. On one end of the spectrum, there is the glamorous hijabi. She wears snazzy colours, hairbands, dripping jewels, brooches, flowers and sparkling beads. These are a legitimate expression of her femininity. Just because she wears the veil doesn’t mean she needs to wear a bin liner over her head.

On the other end, there are some women who choose to dress plainly and this is acceptable too. Their interpretation of modesty is to wear neutral colours, and very loose material lest they draw attention to themselves. These women may well be attractive underneath this dullness, but their sense of modesty is to dress with demureness.

Unfortunately, there are some men who cannot see past this, at a time when figure-hugging dress is so easily handed on a plate, such as the ubiquitous skinny jeans, which leave little to the imagination.

These men (and women) should realise that “frumpy” Muslim women choose to dress this way, and could quite easily transform themselves into attractive, pouty divas if they wished. They hide their charms for a reason, and their sensuality and overt expression of femininity is reserved for just one special person.

 

 

Self-help ideology

I benefit from a good self-help book and can pick up interesting tips for self improvement. There is a however a fallacy that everything is fixable, or even that some things ought to be fixed. It is titles like Paul McKenna’s “I can make you thin” which make me cringe in particular and sound a little lucrative, and furthermore add to the weight-loss industry.

The main problem is the claim to a universal set of rules in these books. In “The Secret” it says that the application of the “Laws of Attraction” will allow a person to attract whatever she wants just by thinking about it, and other books ensure “getting rich, quick”. The latter type of book cannot ignore the fact that there are deep inequalities within our society which are not easily fixed through some simple rules.

One aspect of the genre talks about the power of positive thinking. As a general point, positive thinking is to be applauded. Pain however is a brute fact of life, and at times ought to be acknowledged, and could otherwise lead to repression. There are specific words in other languages conveying certain types of pain; in German the word “Weltshmertz” means the pain felt for all the suffering in the world.

Iyanla Vanzant’s talks about the low points in our life as ‘valleys’ and acknowledges it is acceptable to sometimes feel at a low. The constant theme of life is the repeated cycle of life and death, which also applies to the emotional state of our health.

Indeed the ‘zeitgeist’ of our times is that things are easily fixable with the click of a button. Take this pill and you will be slim. Go on a holiday and you will no longer be depressed. Have a makeover and you will feel better about yourself. Life is far more unpredictable and certain things are not easily fixed. Sometimes you need to live in a valley in order to see and appreciate the mountain.

The ideology of career, “status anxiety” and nurturing the self

I have recently awoken from the ideology of a “career”. For the past 5 years since graduation, my mental focus has been on my life’s vocation, and my “career”. I believed  making a difference was my raison etre, and therefore developing my career was important in fulfilling this vocation.

But due to the recession it’s been extremely difficult to get my foot into the not-for-profit sector and, as there hasn’t been a break-through, I’ve increasingly had strong feelings of malaise and self-questioning. Why are my peers, at least on the face of it, making progress and appearing to have fulfilling and rewarding careers and I’m not? Am I less talented and employable? Clearly, such thinking is unhelpful and self destructive.

Since my recent birthday, I have started putting my life into perspective again. I realised I had lost sight of the bigger picture and that life could pass by in this worthless anxiety.

There are narratives out there which are well aware of how modern society gives so much mental space to “The Career”. Alain de Botton talks about this in “Status Anxiety” and his TED talk “A kinder, gentler philosophy of success”.  He highlights that we live in a meritocracy in which we are sold the idea that we can be whatever we want. The reality however is that there are deep inequalities which make this impossible, leading to our anxiety. In other words, career progression is not due solely to individual merit but due to circumstances outside of our control.

An insightful book has also built my growing conscience. In the humorous “How to be Idle”, though nonetheless deadly serious, Tom Hodgkinson talks about how the ‘protestant work ethic’ was specifically designed during the Industrial Revolution to foster a disproportionate and unhealthy relationship to work, in order to keep the masses toiling. In other words, society’s focus wasn’t always about “The Career” and we have been brainwashed to make it the centre of our lives.

The message for me is not to make my career my world. And to remember not to measure my worth based on my career status. This is difficult though, when a small voice whispers to me that I am failing and not achieving the standards of my peers, but I guess I will need to talk back to that voice. The status of the career is so deeply embedded in our psyche.

And when I mean nurturing self, what exactly am I talking about? I’m talking about The Good Life, about reading, writing, exercise, time for thinking and meditation, spending time with family and friends.  Essentially, stuff which isn’t about creating an output or striving towards some worldly achievement, but what you do for your own pleasure or benefit. When you apportion time for yourself, life starts being a gift again and not solely a burden.

Does society’s judgement of our status ever really count?  It is of course, ultimately Allah who knows who we are, and whether we are truly trying to live our lives wisely within this ephemeral existence. Ultimately it is He who will be the ultimate judge, and justly so.

The gypsy life

Free from societal pursuits

Melted and lost in nature

Burning sun on the horizon

Flamenco silhouette against the sky

Grass and mud between my toes

Painted streaks in pink morning sky

Ready on the road for another day

Wind flowing in my wayward hair

Muslim match-making continued

The use of email and phone is ubiquitous on the Muslim dating/arranged marriage scene. There is a preference to email a potential before the meeting stage, sometimes leading to a resounding “no”, before knowing what a person looks or sounds like.

It’s about time British Muslims went back to basics; it is healthy and meaningful for two people to simply meet, rather than having their credentials scrutinised, intellectualised and picked apart prematurely.

For when two people meet, there is a meeting of two souls, for which no amount of match-making of biodata, height, weight, qualifications can predict the outcome.

A life partner should be someone with whom one feels comfortable, and at peace, without the need to say anything at all.

This is what epitomises the poetic beauty of human relationships. Sometimes it isn’t about things in common, but simply the meeting of two kindred spirits who just work, and who find out they want to be together.